Dark Nights by Kitti Bernetti Page A

alongside the little heart Summer had given her. She wasn’t about to tell Seb that she had blown all her available cash on the evening dress she’d worn at the Albert Hall. That she had no other “posh” going out clothes, that her wardrobe contained mainly office clothes. Nor that this suit and pearls that had been given to her mother by her grandfather was one of the last things her mother had preserved to sell in case they were really hard up. Breeze wouldn’t ever let her part with such treasures. They came from a happier time before her father had nearly bankrupted the family. Never again would Breeze let them suffer near ruin as they had done then.
    ‘It’s sort of appropriate to where we’re going, the Sharlton Club requires something demure yet classy, as befits a famous gentleman’s club.’
    ‘I’m impressed,’ his delectable lips settled into a smile. ‘Five minutes around the corner from Buckingham Palace, within a coin’s throw of the Ritz. I went there once. I run a charity that gives millions to teenage entrepreneurs from deprived areas and I hosted a lunch there to sweet talk rich grandees out of some of their not so hard earned cash. They looked down their noses at a self made man. Going there with you will be a way of taking them down a peg or two.’
    ‘Excellent.’ Breeze stroked the leather of the Aston’s seat. Seb was surrounded with luxury, he was discerning and she had thought long and hard over where to take him next. To hear him talk of giving away his money to a charity knocked her off her axis somewhat. He said it matter of factly as if it didn’t matter, certainly he kept quiet about it and she had to admit a grudging respect that he didn’t shout it from the hilltops like so many other wealthy people did. She thought about all her aspirations when she was a teenager, fledgling businesses that she would have started if only she’d have been given some sort of help and his jawline which had appeared so sharp and unyielding seemed to soften in her eyes.
    ‘But isn’t it members only?’ Seb said after a moment’s thought.
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘Then you’re a member?’ He looked at her doubtfully; members were all lawyers, captains of industry, MPs, the great and the good although in truth many of them were far from being that.
    ‘Not exactly, but I know how to get in. Trust me.’
    He parked the car up and they walked down St James’s Street. The area exuded history, the heart of fashionable London. They paused at William Evans, purveyors of country clothing, gun and rifle maker. ‘Who nowadays would wear Hunter riding boots, tweed trousers and use walking sticks with handles shaped like affronted looking pheasants waiting to be shot?’ joked Breeze. 
    Seb laughed and put his arm around her to shield her from the evening chill. ‘Oh I’ve met plenty like that at society parties. They bore me silly but they have money to invest.’
    At James J Fox, cigar merchant, a city gent wafted cigar smoke into the air and Seb breathed it in. ‘Mmm, that’s one of life’s pleasures I’ve had to give up since ....’
    The word hung on the air. ‘Since what?’ she asked.
    ‘Oh nothing.’ A sudden cloud came over Seb and he rubbed a place on the back of his head, at the base of the skull where she’d seen him put his hand before. When he did, he always gritted his teeth as if he was warding off inner demons, perhaps pain. But he brushed it off, forced a smile and strode on. ‘I used to smoke like a chimney; it helped me to get through the stress of buying and selling, kept me calm. But I gave it up just recently. Your pleasures can catch up with you.’
    ‘I guess they can.’ Breeze bit her lip and squeezed Seb’s hand which lay in hers. He was too private a person to reveal much about himself, but still she wondered whether he was battling something alone which would be much better shared. Then, just as he squeezed her hand in return, she let it fall. She reminded