Human Conditioning by Hirst Louise

Author:Hirst, Louise [Hirst, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter twenty-nine

Aiden puffed loudly as he pushed a bar loaded with 95kg in the spare room of Reggie’s flat. When he finished his final set, he set the bar back in its rack and sauntered off into the bathroom next door, whistling cheerfully. Reggie had been cooking his favourite jerk chicken before he’d gone out and left him to his own devices. The aroma filled the bathroom and he inhaled the familiar smell and smiled. He was famished, and a generous helping of Reggie’s best was just what he needed right now.

He turned and admired himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. He had always known he was a handsome man, and every year he got better and better looking, more and more solid, defined and, more importantly, strong.

Deep in self-satisfied thought, he almost missed the sound of the creaking floorboard at the top of the stairs. Silencing his breath, he listened for a moment and heard nothing of Reggie’s usual clambering about. He hadn’t come home.

He was immediately poised for action. It was his job to expect the unexpected, and he and Reggie were always going to be in danger of potential trouble. However much they were feared, there was always going to be some arsehole who thought they could seek revenge over punishment for an unpaid debt or some drug-related issue that wasn’t really their problem.

He opened the bathroom door slowly and cautiously stepped onto the landing. When he passed the spare room, he saw Gina sitting cross-legged on the weights bench and he discreetly sighed with relief. However much he could handle himself, he never enjoyed unplanned confrontation. “Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you for a couple of weeks,” he said brusquely.

Gina ignored his natural incivility and took in his shiny, bare chest and his oblique muscles, exquisitely carved beneath the waist band of his grey baggy jogging bottoms. She smiled, and there was a twinge of smugness there when she replied, “Mr Baker has been keeping me busy, as you well know.”

She looked different. She had cut her hair. It was layered, so that its natural kinks gave even more body to it, and her face was made up with expert precision: her large, green eyes were enhanced by thick eyeliner and brown eyeshadow. She was dressed smartly too, in a sleek and expensive ivy-green chiffon dress.

Aiden noticed these subtle changes. She almost resembled the well-to-do women who frequented the cocktail bars up the West End, the middle-aged wives of the wealthy who he frequently bedded after a night out, as and when he took it upon himself to be sociable. But Gina did not affect him as much as she used to. He had so much skirt tossed at him nowadays – mature, rich and experienced skirt – that Gina did not have the same allure she once had.

“So, what you doing here, then?” he asked, making no attempt to hide his indifference.

Gina tried to disguise the pang of hurt she felt from his aloofness and plastered on a large smile, but it didn’t touch her eyes.

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