Page 165 of The Making of Jonty Bloom
“Don’t let it out of my mouth?”
Another groan. “And?”
“The importance of appropriate conversation.” Jonty held his hand out to Lex and put on his poshest voice. “It’s so lovely to meet you, Mr Kenyon. I had no idea you were a friend of Devan’s, so I do hope we see a lot more of you. Alotmore. Maybe you’d like to come for supper. We have a hot tub.”
Lex laughed and Devan groaned. When he moved on with Lex, the three of them sighed as they turned to watch the pair go.
“Think we could have an invite too?” Mike asked.
“The hot tub’s not big enough,” Jonty said. “Did you hear that Brad Greene finally changed his plea to guilty?”
“No. That’s great.” Mike squeezed his shoulder.
“The bastard’s let me spend all this time worrying about having to go to court, when he could have confessed at the start. Now he’ll just get sentenced. Not for stalking me though, but for trying to kill Tay.”
“How is Tay?” Mike asked.
“Getting there. Very slowly. He’s frustrated.” Jonty really didn’t want to talk about Tay. He’d hoped he’d come today but…
“Why didn’t they charge Greene with what he tried to do to you?” Willis asked.
“The Crown Prosecution Service pursued the bigger offence and after Brad’s fingerprints were found on the ladder, it was a sort of slam dunk for attempted murder.”
“So harassing you, sticking a snake through your letterbox, breaking into your house, dragging you off, nearly drowning you in the sea… that didn’t matter?” Mike gaped at him.
“Yeah it did, but not as much as what he did to Tay. Brad didn’t break in. A friend of his sister’s works at the rental agency and Brad had been following us and spotted us go in. It didn’t take him long to find out where we’d rented, thenborrowa key. The friend of his sister’s was sacked. The police talked about charging her, but Brad was still denying everything. There’s food in there.” Jonty nodded toward the dining room, keen to get off the subject of Brad. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
He exhaled when Mike and Willis walked off. He lifted another glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, then turned to see Devan behind him.
“Do I need to gag you?”
“Before my first glass of champagne? That would be cruel and unnatural punishment.”
“First glass? How many?”
“Two?”
“Your voice going up at the end of that sentence doesn’t fill me with confidence. You’re working. No more.” He took the champagne from Jonty’s hand and put it down.
“You said I wasn’t working.”
“You’re still the face of The Dunes.”
Jonty beamed. “Am I? Will I be on the publicity shots? Though I wished it’d been called the name I suggested.”
“Sandy McSandface was never going to cut it.”
Jonty pouted.
“I had a call from Griff wishing me luck,” Devan said.
“Good luck or bad luck?”
Devan laughed. “I assumed it was good luck.”
“He was lucky he didn’t end up married to Ravi.”
“I took a risk interfering.”
