Dirty Diary: Lay Me Bare, #0

By L M Allen

Love doesn't knock on your front door every day, but boy when it does...

 

Gary Lucas, London's top lawyer and the estranged son of a mafia boss, has been in love with the same woman sine they were children. Now, Bells is divorced and heading towards his safe, isolated life like a hurricane.

 

In this steamy prequel to the 'Lay Me Bare' series, readers are invited to go way back in time and fall deeper.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L M Allen
• Release date: Jun 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798201321413

L M Allen

L M Allen lives in Northamptonshire, England with her husband, three kids and enough animals to fill a small zoo. She loves the peace and quiet of the countryside but will hop on the train and take things up a gear in London whenever she gets the chance. She is obsessed with romance, chocolate and dogs. Not necessarily in that order.

Book preview

Tuesday, 4 Feb 2014

10:05 AM

In a plane, somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean

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So, here I go. Back to the UK. Looking forward to starting my new job. I’m now a development chef for a chain of country inns, as of Monday. Feels like a step in the right direction.

My ears are still ringing from my mother’s howling when I left this morning. She just doesn’t see why I can’t stay in Spain and run her little tourist trap of a restaurant and be happy. I tried that for about a year, and now I’m done. If I have to live with her or my pain-in-the-arse brother for another minute, I won’t need a job. I’ll need a fucking good lawyer. I wonder if ‘they really deserved it, Your Honour’ is considered a defence these days? If it isn’t, the judge should be made to live with the fuckers for a week before passing sentence. Then they’d hand out medals, not life incarcerations.

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Next steps: Find a flat. Catch up with friends and arrange drinks. Avoid the ex like the bloody plague.

3:20 PM

Costa Coffee, Covent Garden 

Exhausted. Flat hunting’s much harder than anticipated. Need to buy a bloody coat! It is freezing in this country. And raining. Obviously. And my only jacket is in the suitcase I flung on the bed in my hotel room an hour or two ago.

Feel like a failure already, in my new post-divorce life. Sitting here, drinking coffee that tastes all wrong but is warming my numb fingers, as I sip while trying to get up the nerve to call my dad and beg for a place to stay. It might be a good thing. Def cheaper.

Decided I’m going to get on a train and drop in on Eva, my bestie since we were nine years old. I’ll surprise her. Drag her out for a few drinks. Maybe some dancing. Maybe find some hot guy to take my mind off everything for a while.

Plan!

10:45 PM

Gary Luca’s Flat, Covent Garden

I have never felt as guilty in my life as I do right now. I cried so much I could have drowned. How could I have been so selfish?

I bounded up to Eva’s front door and found that she doesn’t live there anymore. I called Joyce, Eva’s mum, and got an international tone. I hung up quickly. I don’t have the kind of money required for international calls right now.

Then, I called Gary. He’s Eva’s (other) bestie. More like her brother, really.  He gave me another address. His flat back in Covent Garden.

Holy. Fucking. Christ. I should have known from the look on Gary’s face when he answered his front door that something was very, very wrong.

While I was away, feeling sorry for myself over my dick of an ex, my best friend’s life was fucking annihilated. Her dad, Evan, died suddenly. Gary said they tried to reach me for the funeral, but I’d changed my number, wallowing in my self-indulgent pity. And then her actual brother, Davey, had been killed in action. He was in the army.

Oh my God! Where is she! I cried, grabbing hold of his jumper.

Then. Fucking hell, then! He took me to the hospital to see her without another word. The whole way, he didn’t say a word. Just let me jabber on like a complete fucking moron about flowers and chocolate cake and getting enough vodka down her she could forget about the whole thing for a while. I thought Eva must have been working night shift.

No. I was wrong. Not night shift.

She’s not nursing the sick. She is the sick. And apparently, that black and blue, swollen person in multiple casts, lying motionless in a hospital bed, who I was assured is Eva, (because it’s impossible to tell) is ‘looking much better’ and they’re hoping to wake her up tomorrow.

The whole way back to Gary’s, I cried so much I couldn’t even speak.

Wednesday, 5 Feb 2014

1:20 PM

Still at Gary’s for the foreseeable (hope he was in the market for a roommate)

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So. Holy fuck. So. I went back to the hospital. Eva is awake. Well, conscious. She sleeps a lot, apparently. But when she was talking, her first words were: no visitors. So...? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I wouldn’t want to see me either after... everything. But... Christ! Now what?

6:45 PM

Gary Lucas is not one for rules. I know that. But, when a woman says no visitors, I’m pretty fucking certain she means all and sundry can fuck right off. Nuh-uh. Not according to Gary. That man steamed right in there, spoke with Eva very briefly, and left again. I think she threw him out. Verbally if not physically.

I’ve not seen him since. So here I am, twiddling my thumbs in his plush London pad. I have one text message that, at least in Gary speak, I’m sure explains everything. In reality, it explains nothing at all.

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Bells, I’m going away for a bit. Some stuff needs sorting. I’ll be back when I’ve put it right. Stay at mine if you like. G

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His girlfriend, I assume, certainly got a shock when she knocked on his front door and found me on my way to the shops. (I need post-work wear. Chefs know how to party.)

She said, Err... who are you? She’s about as sharp as fucking Blu Tack.

Bells. You? I knew who she was. No one else would have turned up in a trench coat, French perfume, and nothing else. And, yes, I was fully aware she was not asking how she should address me.

I’m Carina, she said, sizing me up. "Gary’s girlfriend. What are you doing here?"

I live here now. I’ve never seen someone’s chin actually hit their knees, but hers was preeeety close.

Where’s Gary? she demanded. Shrieked. Whatever.

He’s gone away for a bit. He didn’t tell you?

He...? No. He couldn’t have.

Yeah? He must be a bloody master at hide ‘n seek then.

Stupid questions/statements/people have a habit of making any tact I might have possessed disappear like morals in a politician. Poof! Gone. She scowled. I locked the door and proceeded towards my new wardrobe. She followed at a run. My patience had apparently opted to stay at home. Or maybe it went searching for my tact?

Look, Carina. I don’t know. I answered her continuous babble through gritted teeth. "I don’t know what Gary’s doing, specifically, because I didn’t ask for a bloody itinerary. Don’t know when he’ll be home. And I don’t know where he’s gone either. Why don’t you call him?"

I did. She pouted. He rejected my call.

He must be busy then. I shrugged. Good to meet you.

8:30 PM

I dropped by the hospital again. Gary got in after all. I ran into Nikki loitering outside Eva’s room.

Hey! Bells! She beamed. She was pleased to see me at least.

Hey! How are you?

Her eyes flicked towards the firmly closed door separating Eva from the rest of the world. It’s probably fucking dead-bolted. Worried. She lowered her voice. Have you seen her?

Not awake. You?

Yeah. Briefly. She wouldn’t even look at me. The police have been by but left pretty quickly. I don’t think Eva was very responsive.

Huh, I scoffed. Davey— My hand flew to my mouth as I realised my mistake. Davey couldn’t sort anything. He’s dead. Eva doesn’t have a big brother anymore. And I know he would have been her first port of call for any trouble, after her dad. I’ve never known a bigger Daddy’s girl than me until I met Eva Adams. God. Do you know what happened?

Nikki lowered her eyes, a frown creasing her brow, before she took a breath that enlarged her by three inches. Sort of.

I gave her a tell me look. She said she’d need a drink or four, so we’re going out tonight. And I’d better leave already.

Thursday, 6 Feb 2014

3:20 AM

Gary’s Place

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I saw Nikki. She told me what happened. I’m still processing. That and the events following my newfound knowledge. Let’s start at the beginning. It’ll help me compartmentalise. I think.

Pass the cocktail menu, please. I smiled as I took a seat beside Nikki. She offered me the second one in her other hand, without eye contact and just a smirk.

Ooh. God, I’m spoilt for choice here. I salivated. I love a good cocktail. I’ve yet to find one I couldn’t drink by the bucketful. On a beach is preferable to a bar but I’m not that fussy.

Well. I say we start at the top, she said, slamming her copy down on the table and heading for the bar.

I watched her walk back towards our table, in her tight little dress—her long dark hair hanging in a thick veil down her back—and so did a lot of other people. You look amazing, I told her as she approached. Thanks. I took the drink she slid towards me with a smile.

Thanks. So do you.

So? I ventured, when Nikki shifted around on her seat uncomfortably.

So. What do you want to know? You understand I can’t give you any medical info? She gave me a look—one that almost screamed at me to read between the lines.

Sure... I said slowly. Tell me what you can.

Eva didn’t show up for work. We called her and called her, but she didn’t pick up. She’d been working so much... double shifts. Triple sometimes... we were all so worried. We thought she might have had an accident...

Because of Davey? And her dad? I guessed. Eva has always been a firm believer in not giving herself time for feelings if they might get hard.

Nikki nodded. Her husband was...

Wait. Whose husband?

Eva’s. She frowned.

Then I frowned. What the fuck? Eva’s not married, I thought. Eva doesn’t have a husband.

Oh yeah. She does. Her face darkened. Her nose wrinkled, and she picked up her glass and swallowed the remainder in two gulps. "And he is what happened if you ask me."

What! I shrieked. What the...? But when...? Who the hell did she even marry! And why was I not fucking invited? She hates me that much now? I was so busy free-falling into my self-pitying hole that I had to scramble back out to double-check the name I thought Nikki spat at me. Who?

Dan. Gary’s brother. They could be twins, but he’s a bit younger than Gary. Only by a few months—I think, she added as though that was the important bit here.

Gary has a brother?

She nodded. Another, she offered.

It’s my round. I stumbled to the bar in a daze. By the time I came back to the table, Nikki was entertaining some guy. When he turned, I recognised him but couldn’t quite place him. However, when Paul put his hand on my shoulder, I knew who the other man was, even if I didn’t remember his name.

And I knew that this is where I’d end up tonight. Please don’t judge me. I know, okay, I fucking know! But I really needed the comfort. The familiarity.

When he smiled at me in that way... his eyes roaming all the way to my shoes. Appreciative and hungry. I knew I shouldn’t do it almost as much as I was glad he was looking at me like all his Christmases had come at once. Yes, I’ve put on a few pounds and spent a year in the sun doing yoga on the beach.

Oh yeah, Paul. Your ex-wife is fucking hot. Aren’t you sorry you were such a prick now?

But when Nikki got up to dance with what’s-his-face, I allowed my ex-husband to pull me onto the dance floor and into his arms.

I allowed him to buy me far too many drinks. I allowed him to lead me into the taxi and bring me home. To the house we used to own together. That he remortgaged to buy me out. To the bed I’ve slept in a thousand times before.

And it was so good. New but familiar. His unhurried rediscovery of my body. His lips on my skin, his scent, still the same, sweet but not sickeningly. Like cinnamon. The way he plucked at my nipples with his teeth until I arched into him and moaned his name. I forgot. I forgot all the reasons I shouldn’t. And I did.

I surrendered to it. To him. To his seduction of all my senses, including common fucking sense it would seem, and he moved over my body, nudging my thighs wide with his knees as he kissed his way from between my breasts to between my legs. His tongue was torturous. Slow and soft, when I needed hard and fast. I cried out in frustration, which only made him go slower. Softer. Shushing me until I could have fucking cried.

I grabbed fistfuls of his hair and demanded more, grinding my hips, widening my legs. And he gave it to me. Everything I’ve been begging him for... for years. He got rough. He gave me hard and fast. And I’ve never come like that with him ever before.

So, when he hissed, Say it, I obliged. I said that I loved him. Still. And now I need to work out if I meant it, or if it was just... sex. The heat of passion. Because I loved that. But do I love him? The man I divorced over a year ago?

Because, right now, lying here on the sofa in Gary’s apartment, I do not fucking know what I meant. I only know that I want more. More of exactly that. Sex.

And, last time I checked, I am now free and single. I can do anything and anyone I like! Oh, yes. It’s the single life for me. (I feel a sea shanty coming on. And maybe some Shania Twain.)

Friday, 7 Feb 2014

10:35 PM

Gary’s Place

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Who knew my ex was so... needy? So we had sex? Great sex, yes. For the first time... ever. But still... that was it. I’m not about to fall in line and start cooking his fucking dinner again. He’s getting some reallllly stupid ideas about me moving back in. As though the last eighteen months haven’t happened. He’s called me twenty-three times since I left yesterday. Twenty. Fucking. Three. I don’t think he’s called me that