Page 25 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

Jett

Here’s an idea, why don’t you try and have a single fucking thought that doesn’t rewire back to her?

Soon. Soon his mind would be free. He just had to push through a bit longer, get to the end of the La Marca lawsuit. Then he’d be able to give his attention to a relationship – and discredit any fuckboi rumours. Soon.

He pulled out of the Shaggy Shack car park, recognising his date’s white Corolla. He waved but didn’t wait to see if she returned it, because his mind was already back where he’d tried, fruitlessly, to drag it from. Again.

What did Eliza mean by ‘something’s gone down’?

As he rounded the corner to Bindi Drive, the main street, his lungs flattened against his back as the flashing lights of an ambulance flooded his windscreen.

Detective Noah Avery’s face was about the same colour as his beard as he paced up and down the footpath, a paramedic in green overalls visibly trying to calm him down. Avery was in board shorts and a grey singlet, not his uniform. What did that mean?

Jett ignored the honks behind him as he pulled Bessy up onto the same footpath. Nella. Where was Nella?

Don’t be in the ambulance. Please don’t be too late. Please ...

‘The hell, Randall?’

His heart drained of anxiety at the sound of that voice.

Until he saw what she was wearing.

For fuck’s sake. He clenched his fists and bit down until his jaw clicked. He was not prepared for this: Nella Barbarani in a pink lacy bra, striding towards him with her black heels ticking like the bomb that was about to go off in his head.

He needed a minute. He needed a day.

He needed a whole fucking year to get that image out of his mind.

‘Why are you here?’ she demanded.

He craned his neck to look at the ambulance and Avery. He needed to keep his gaze at this angle. ‘You called me.’

‘No, Eliza called you to prove a point.’

‘And what point was that?’ He’d never looked up for so long. Never noticed how picturesque the heritage rooftops were in the main street ...

‘You weren’t meant to come,’ she snapped. ‘You’re meant to be on a date.’

‘What’s happened?’ He nodded at the ambulance. ‘Are you hurt?’ He couldn’t help it, he had to look down to make sure she was okay.

Nope. Shouldn’t have done that.

‘I’m fine.’ Her nostrils flared. ‘Avery’s fiancée tried to cross the road and got hit.’

‘What?!’

‘The car was going the speed limit, but apparently she rolled right over the bonnet. She came around pretty much as soon as he started CPR. Paramedics don’t reckon she’s too badly hurt, a concussion maybe – I was eavesdropping.’

‘Was she drunk?’

‘Don’t think so. Avery said they were in a crowd, all leaving at the same time. She tripped onto the road.’ Nella pointed at a silver Hilux that was sideways in the intersection. ‘Wasn’t the driver’s fault either.’

‘Why were you with Avery?’ Jett wasn’t going to interrogate whatever kept leaking acid inside him with every mention of the six-foot cop built like a Canadian bear, who clearly had a thing for Nella despite the fact he was apparently engaged.

‘I wasn’t with Avery.’ She said it like she could smell the burning acid. Like she knew. ‘We were all at the bar after the funeral – me, Eliza, Ian and the others from work. Avery and his girlfriend, or whoever she is, showed up towards the end and there was an ... uh ...’

‘Altercation,’ Eliza piped up. Shit, Jett’s tunnel vision hadn’t even registered her. ‘There was a real ... dressing down .’

Jett’s stomach twisted. ‘Does this have something to do with the fact that you’ve misplaced your shirt? And why you smell like cheap lager?’

‘Just go. I’ll get an Uber.’ She started to walk away, in the opposite direction to Avery and the ambulance.

‘You think I’m going to let you get in an Uber dressed like that?’

Silence. The deathly kind like when you look over a cliff’s edge, think about what it would be like to fall and then your foot accidentally slips ...

‘ Aaaand this is where I make my graceful exit.’ Eliza waved like a crowd member behind the barriers of a royal procession and ran, thick strawberry blond braids flailing behind her.

‘Not going to let me ?’ Nella stepped so close, he was overwhelmed by the smell of her. Even under the layer of sodden beer and salt was her vanilla, musky perfume, her lavender spray-on deodorant, her organic banana and coconut shampoo.

Focus, Randall, you pervert. Get. A. Grip.

‘You don’t let me do anything. You or my brother, or Grey, or even my dear old dad. Everything I do, Jett Randall, I do because I let myself .’

They were standing impossibly close. Thank god there was an ambulance nearby, because he would have to step backwards onto the road, without a glance, if she moved any closer.

‘You know I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said. ‘Just because someone doesn’t want you to get hurt doesn’t mean they’re trying to take away your control. Sometimes you have to let go. Sometimes you need to lose a bit of control.’

‘You have no idea,’ she whispered, ‘ exactly how well I know how to lose control.’ She said it like a threat. An oath.

His throat was like razors as he swallowed. ‘You’re right. I overstepped. You’re the boss. If you want to get murdered, that’s your decision.’

If she got an Uber, he’d follow the car the whole way back to the Barbarani Estate. Nella was not dying on his watch. And he’d do the same if it was Tom or Luca or Vittoria. He would have left his date for them too.

He would have. Definitely.

‘Just give me your orders, boss.’

She ripped her gaze from his, and when he looked back, it was like she’d drawn shades across her eyes. She could see out, but he couldn’t see in.

‘Take me home,’ she said.

As soon as the garage door shut, Nella apparently forgot she was mad at him, opening Bessy’s door before he’d completely stopped and tumbling out onto all fours, laughing giddily.

Razor bounded up to her, planting a slobbery kiss, which she returned.

Before Jett could say anything, she crawled like a demon from Paranormal Activity into his house.

‘It’s late,’ he called, once he’d procrastinated long enough checking Bessy was all right, no nails in her tyres, not running low on oil or petrol. He changed Razor’s water and refilled his biscuits. ‘I’ll walk you back.’

There was no sound from inside. Skin tingling, he peered through the doorway. ‘Nella?’

The space was dark. He flicked on the lights that illuminated the kitchen and TV area but there was no sign of her.

CLANG.

The noise came from the loft.

He barely touched the stairs on the spiral staircase as he launched himself up, only to find something that was going to haunt him for the rest of his goddamn life.

Nella, basically topless, sprawled across his bed, her dark hair and pale limbs tangled in his moss green sheets.

He folded his arms, like a disgruntled parent, but really it was just to stop his lungs ripping from his chest. Her face was buried in his pillow, her arms spread across the mattress like she was trying to hug it.

There was a dangerous, empty space beside her.

‘Are you comfortable?’ His voice was strained.

She moaned into the pillow.

This woman.

‘Come on, I’ll take you back up to the house.’

She mumbled something.

‘What?’

‘You shouldn’t have come.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it means you proved Eliza’s point. I told her it wasn’t true.’

‘What wasn’t true, Nella?’

‘That I control you. She said I’ve got you wrapped around my finger.’

He drew a shaky breath, looking up at the ceiling. ‘You do control me.’

She twisted around, her hair covering her neck, and blinked at him.

He could just leave it there. Walk back down the stairs.

Open the door. Drive Bessy out. Drive and drive and drive, until this property was a speck in the distance he could brush from the rearview.

Until Bessy’s tyres had worn down enough that the Bindi Bindi soil and gravel was no longer in the tread.

But he couldn’t.

He recalibrated. ‘You’re my boss, remember?’ he said. ‘You’re in charge of me, technically. Did I have to come? No. But I thought you were in danger. If I saw the mansion was on fire, I wouldn’t just go back to sleep because I’m not on the clock.’

She sat up, swaying slightly, lips swollen and her left eye smudged with mascara.

For crying out loud. He shifted his stance and conjured an image of a boat filled with saggy retirees doing the cancan in Speedos.

‘You thought I was in danger?’ she said, brow furrowed, full lips parted. Thank god she’d decided against getting lip fillers like a bunch of her crack-pot followers almost convinced her to. Nella’s lips had always been soft and rounded naturally ...

Enough. Attic. Put it all in the attic.

‘Yeah ...’

‘That’s why you came.’

‘Yes.’ If he said it enough, he would sound convincing.

Truthfully, he didn’t know why he’d dropped everything and run to her. He didn’t even question Eliza. When he thought back now, her voice hadn’t been urgent. He’d known deep down there was no actual danger. But Nella needed him, and that’s all that had mattered.

Maybe not even that. Nella had called. Full stop. It was one of the reasons why he had to leave Bindi Bindi.

You’re getting too close.

You can’t get comfortable. We don’t get comfortable. We don’t stay.

Then how the fuck do you explain the past 15 years?

It had been like coming out of a trance, as soon as she left for Perth.

As soon as he’d woken up, drenched in sweat, two days after she’d left, hard as a fucking rock, the feel of her imaginary lips around his cock burning as the shame of his uncontrollable dream washed over him.

The things they’d done, the things he’d whispered, the sounds she’d made.

Sick, deranged fantasies that had leaked through his air-tight attic like carbon monoxide.