Blood Rush (Lilly Valentine)
Page 29
‘In the meantime, sir, I should like my client to be allowed back to her foster placement.’
The magistrate scratched his head and looked over at Tanisha.
‘I think in the circumstances that would be the only fair course of action.’
Outside court, Jack watched Lilly say goodbye to Tanisha. He had no doubt that she was right.
Demi had known that Chika had stood by while her sister was beaten to a pulp. It went against everything a gang stood for. The ultimate betrayal.
When Tanisha left, he slid over to Lilly and put a hand on her back. She flinched.
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s not you,’ she said. ‘I’m just very, very sore.’
He looked at her. Even now, bandaged and broken, she was bloody gorgeous.
‘Fancy a drink?’
She smiled at him, put a padded hand on his arm. ‘I think I’ll pass, head home for a bath.’
He watched her limp away, knowing now what he should have known an age ago. It was over between them.
‘Did someone mention a drink?’
Carla Chapman appeared next to him.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been chasing you around all week for my phone,’ she laughed. ‘And I distinctly remember you saying you owed me a drink.’
Jack glanced back at Lilly as she disappeared through the door.
‘So I did,’ he said. ‘So I did.’
Back at the cottage, Lilly fumbled for her key before it dropped on to the step with a ping. She groaned and tried to scoop it up.
When a car pulled up and Karol hopped out, she couldn’t have been more pleased to see him. He looked absurdly handsome in a black Puffa jacket.
‘You’re a sight for sore eyes,’ she smiled.
He gave a dazzling smile.
‘I came over to bring you these.’ He placed a box of papers at her feet and picked up her key. ‘Personal things that have no business being in your office.’
‘You’re a godsend,’ she said. ‘Come in for a coffee.’
Karol glanced back at the car and Lilly noticed the driver.
‘That is Patrick,’ he whispered. ‘We are on our way to lunch.’
‘Right,’ said Lilly.
Karol leaned into her. ‘He is a doctor.’
With that he opened the door, slid the box into the hall among the recycling and skipped back to his date.
How had Lilly missed it?
She stepped inside, closed the door behind her and sank to the floor.
Then she laughed until she thought her ribs might crack.
Also by Helen Black, in the Lilly Valentine series
Damaged Goods
A Place of Safety
Dishonour
About the Author
Helen Black grew up in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. At eighteen she went to Hull University and left three years later with a tattoo on her shoulder and a law degree. She became a lawyer in Peckham and soon had a loyal following of teenagers needing legal advice and bus fares. She ended up working in Luton, working predominantly for children going through the care system. Helen is married to a long-suffering lawyer and is the mother of young twins.
Copyright
Constable & Robinson Ltd
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London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2011
Copyright © Helen Black, 2011
The right of Helen Black to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978–1–84901–779–4