‘You holding up all right?’

Sharon looked at the man and remembered that, at the first shot, he had thrown himself on top of her. That had to count for something.

She nodded. ‘Thanks, Reggie. For protecting me . . .’

He knew how hard it was for her to say the words so he smiled widely – a smile that, frankly, he didn’t think he had in him.

‘Look, Sharon, I know how you feel about me . . .’ He hesitated before saying, ‘And Lenny.’

She held up her hands as if to ward him off. ‘Don’t! I mean it, Reggie – I will not discuss him with you.’

She felt the familiar disgust rising inside her and she wished that he had died too. If he had died she would never have had to think of any of this again. Just looking at him reminded her of her husband’s treachery. She was ashamed of her thoughts but she could not deny them. It didn’t matter how many Elton Johns or Lily Savages came on the scene. She could never forgive her husband for lying to her the way he had and for letting her live a life that was a lie for all those years. When she looked at Reggie she wondered at how powerful hatred could be. Because she hated this man with a vengeance.

‘There’s nothing you can say that will make anything different.’

Reggie knew when to retreat. He refilled their glasses and watched sadly as she gulped at her drink. Her hands were shaking suddenly and he saw the shock had finally set in.

‘Come on. Drink up and I’ll run you to your mum and dad’s. You need a hot bath and a couple of sleeping pills.’

She sighed. ‘What happens now?’

He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Now, Sharon, we hunt that cunt down and sort him out. Jack can’t let this go and neither can I. He stepped over a line today and that is why we have to take him out of the game once and for all.’

She nodded almost imperceptibly. She had guessed as much. ‘Maybe I should just have given him what he wanted.’

Reggie grinned and she saw how handsome he was, how like Lenny he looked, and she felt the sickness that always assailed her when she thought of him and her husband together.

‘You don’t give spoiled brats what they want, Sharon. Plus, if you had rolled over he would have taken everything you had. That’s his personality, the kink in his nature that makes him so greedy for everything he sees. Do you know the worst thing? Every business he gets his hands on, he ruins. Runs them into the ground and fights with his workforce, his partners, whoever. He is a nutbag, plain and simple. And by tomorrow he will be a fucking dead one.’

Chapter One Hundred and One