Page 28 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

They weaved their way through the annoyed, stagnant cars, Nella not missing the fact that Jett was walking at half-stride so she and her heels could keep up.

‘These shoes are not meant for this,’ she said as they were rescued by the footpath. ‘They are meant to be enviously admired for about an hour and then seductively slid off and tossed aside.’

Jett grunted.

‘You disagree?’

‘Sorry. Nope, that’s definitely the vibe they give off.’

She watched him as their reflections darted in and out of the black glass of closed cafes and dimly lit bars.

In all honesty, she’d been sneaking covert glances at him all through the car ride.

Only because seeing him in a tux, collar crisp around his smooth shaven neck, white linen pulled taut around his pecs, brought back memories of the last time he’d been dressed like that, the night of the gala.

His last tux had been blood soaked. Black stains from her mascara and foundation crusted the snow-white shirt.

He’d thrown it out. Just as she’d destroyed the black Versace dress she’d worn that night.

The dress didn’t have blood on it, but it had the memories, and it smelled like Jett and fire and death.

The dress she was wearing tonight was probably too ‘cocktail’ for this crowd.

It was a long-sleeved dark green bodycon number that cinched her throat.

Her boobs were the stars of the show due to the way it clung to her curves, but it was the length that was the issue.

Typically, a long, sleek ball gown was the norm for these types of events.

But if their plan didn’t work, her legs needed to be free to sprint.

‘What’s up with you tonight?’ She tugged the dress down as she glared at their reflections in a boutique bookshop window. She was dressed as who she was – a viper ready to strike – and he looked like a reluctant James Bond. ‘If you’re having second thoughts, you need to tell me now.’

‘I’m not thinking about the safe.’

‘Okay.’ She wrinkled her nose against the smells wafting towards her from the rooftop of a red brick unit covered in vines.

Burnt onions, frying sausages and warm tomato sauce wafted around them.

She hoped she wasn’t going to smell like a Bunnings on a Saturday morning by the time they arrived at Lieu her eyes went to his scar.

His expression went cold. ‘That wasn’t him.’

So it was one of them. Her veins constricted.

‘Nothing bad happened in that home.’

‘But something bad happened somewhere else.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Nella, seriously. I just didn’t realise the law office was here. I haven’t been here in something like twenty years, and I wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.’

‘It does matter.’ She stopped walking, stepping in front of him so that he stumbled into her.

He stepped back immediately. ‘You know everything about me,’ she said.

‘You’ve literally cleaned my vomit out of your car.

You’ve seen me at my absolute worst, most humiliating moments, but I know almost nothing about you. ’

‘So you’re saying it’s not fair?’ His lips twitched. ‘I’m in humiliation debt?’

‘Well, yes. Sort of.’

He breathed out. ‘You know more about me than a lot of people.’

She shook her head. ‘You’re not getting out of this.’

‘Can’t I just vomit on your shoes instead? Then we’ll be even.’

‘Keep talking, Randall.’ She stalked off again, her stride confident, but inside she wasn’t at all.

He let out a long breath as they reached a pedestrian light, waiting until the people in front of them moved off in different directions before he spoke again. ‘I met a girl, at school, here.’

Nella tried to keep her expression neutral. ‘What was her name?’

‘Emily.’

‘Boring name.’

‘Am I telling the story, or are you?’

‘Sorry.’

‘It was your classic teenage love-at-first-sight.’ He said it with an unnatural sourness in his voice. ‘We were going to be together forever. No one had ever been in love like we were.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Nella nodded, feeling about eighty years old.

‘Yeah, well, that never-ending love lasted four months.’

‘Practically a lifetime when you’re sixteen.’

‘For me it was a lifetime.’ He jabbed his elbow into the button at the next set of pedestrian lights.

‘It was the longest I’d been in the same foster home and the same school.

She lived a few houses down and so we saw each other every day.

I’d sneak out the window to meet her at night like a fucking American teen movie character.

I asked her to go with me to the school ball. ’

‘She said “yes”, right?’ For some reason, Nella’s heart clenched at the thought of Jett being turned down by Emily.

He nodded. ‘My foster dad, Nigel, had helped me get a job as a dishwasher at the local Chinese restaurant, a block from here. I worked every night and every weekend to pay for a tux.’ He pulled at his top button like it had started to choke him.

‘It was a decent state school in an okay area, so the kids went all out. The boyfriends were expected to buy corsages, pay for a limo, all those sorts of things.’

‘Did you save enough?’

‘Yeah. I ordered the most expensive limo I could find, and my foster mum took me to her friend’s flower shop to get a corsage – I had no idea what a corsage was, or that I was meant to get one, but thankfully she did.’

Nella felt like she was riding a rollercoaster with no harness.

‘The evening of the ball rolls around and I’m in the limo, pulling up to her house.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Tux on, corsage sweating in a plastic box in my hands. I was shaking like crazy.’

Nella swallowed, her eyes locked on his face, watching for the warning signs, for when it was going to go bad.

‘Knocked on the door. No answer. Rang the doorbell like five million times. I didn’t have a phone – we’d mainly just talked on instant messenger on the computer.

Eventually someone opens the door and it’s this big, burly guy who I figure must be Emily’s dad.

I say, Good evening sir, my name’s Jett, I’m here to pick up Emily.

And he looks at me like this.’ Jett swivelled to Nella, his brow furrowed, hands on his hips, jaw clenched.

‘And he says, Like hell you are , and slams the door in my face.’

‘Jett.’ Nella didn’t know how her voice was working. She reached out but he kept walking, her fingers grasping at the sweaty, empty night air.