Read Online Women of a Dangerous Age by Fanny Blake - Free Book Online

grandmother had not been part of Lou’s plans, in fact it wasn’t a concept that had even crossed her mind. But at least Nic would understand what Lou had gone through trying to balance her work with the children’s demands – and that she had done the best she could.
    â€˜Thank you, thank you,’ said Nic, getting up and flinging her arms around her. ‘I knew you would.’
    Lou hugged back and for a moment all their differences melted away. Lou breathed in the smell of her daughter’s hair, noticing how tense and bony her shoulders were. But she didn’t comment or tell her to relax. Nic would tell her if anything else was troubling her in her own good time. If Lou couldn’t have all of her daughter, she would take whatever part of her was on offer.
    â€˜Oh, and I’d keep off the cake if I were you,’ Nic suggested as she shrugged on her coat and stepped out through the front door.
    After her daughter had gone, Lou washed the coffee pot, thinking over their conversation. Communication between them had clearly broken down more than she had realised. Why did Nic want this baby so badly? Had Lou and Hooker unintentionally failed her somehow, so that she needed something more in her life to love and be loved by? But they hadn’t been such bad parents, had they? Not when she compared them to all the dysfunctional families that were paraded through the pages of the daily tabloids. She couldn’t believe that their growing distance from one another had been the cause. Now finally separated, they were about to become grandparents. Another tie that was bound to throw them together again.
    Sighing, she picked up the phone and dialled Hooker’s number.

5
    Standing in her walk-in closet, Ali looked around her. Everything was as it should be. Her boxes of shoes were stacked one on top of another, illustrated labels outwards, so she could see which pair was where at a glance. Beside them were the drawers with transparent fronts. The order with which she’d organised her wardrobe would have amused her in someone else, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself. Behind her was the hanging space, divided into sections: trousers, skirts, shirts, dresses and coats. No item remained unworn for longer than a year before it was thrown out. On the end wall was a well-lit mirror. She checked herself, stood sideways on, anxious to make the best possible impression on Ian, pulling at her black and cream striped asymmetric jersey dress so that it sat straight on the hips, then adjusting her hair. He’d once said how much he liked it short because it emphasised the length of her neck. A half-smile crossed her lips as she anticipated him running his finger along her naked right clavicle and up her throat to the point of her chin, before they kissed.
    Satisfied she could do no more, she turned to walk throughthe bedroom, glancing round to make sure everything was ready. She touched the bedside table, checking that her few sex toys were out of sight. They were for later. Nothing too way out but she knew what he liked, and what she liked too. She ran her hand over the bedspread, making sure every wrinkle was smoothed out, before pulling the heavy curtains and arranging precisely the way they pooled on the floor. She straightened the pile of books by her side of the bed and moved the three red roses on the table to be just so, then moved to the door where she stood for a moment, surveying the scene she’d set for seduction, and dimmed the lights a little more.
    As she went downstairs, Ali thought how lucky she was to have the apartment. Ten years earlier, one of her lovers, Peter Ellis, a wealthy middle-aged property developer, had been converting the Victorian school into a number of des res. A generous and kind man, he had thought nothing of offering her a place of her own in exchange for the several years of pleasure she had given him. Resistant at first, she had eventually been