Page 9 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)
Nella
‘Thanks for letting me tag along,’ Clarkson said as they pulled into Nella’s reserved car park outside Bindi Bindi Solicitors.
‘I just needed to be somewhere your brother is not, so I can get my thoughts in order – let alone actually do the job he’s paying me for.
I swear he was following me last night, but the car turned before I could get the numberplate. ’
‘Yeah, well, thanks for the ride.’ Nella shut the Audi door with more force than necessary, but Clarkson didn’t flinch the way Jett would have if she’d done it to Bessy.
She watched him in her periphery as they made their way up the stairs to the back door.
He still had that profile she’d fallen asleep tracing in her mind a few too many nights to count, though crow’s-feet now crinkled the corners of his dark eyes.
The glasses were new but suited him, his hairline was receding slightly and he had a slight paunch over the waistband of his chinos, where it had been flat and taut when she’d sucked American Honey from his navel at age nineteen.
But he was still hot. Clarkson had always operated on the assumption that no one was interested in him, ever.
He never made the first move, and Nella was convinced that was seventy per cent of his charm.
She wondered if adulthood had changed him – was he still oblivious, or was he fucking the twenty-something graduates at his office on the photocopier after everyone else had gone home?
The doorbell to her office chimed its delusionally happily tone as they stepped through the foyer.
The sound intensified the tell-tale embryonic signs of a migraine.
After the mansion, this was the second last place she wanted to be.
But coming here was the only excuse she could use to claw her way out of the winery and the quicksand of her family’s disapproval.
Telling Grey she was going to see Max ensured he’d do his best to keep Tom away from her.
But Grey was only one man against the tidal wave of the country’s most notorious Italian family.
She’d bought herself about half an hour before the Zia Stormtroopers tracked her down.
‘I feel like something went down while I was out the back with the cops,’ Clarkson said as they hiked up the Mt Everest staircase to the top floor. ‘Everyone seemed pretty fired up when I came in.’
Nella faked a laugh. ‘With Italians, you need to worry when they’re not fired up.’
Clarkson seemed to accept that she didn’t want to talk about it without attacking her entire character. A refreshing change. ‘Nice place.’
‘Thanks. I paid a disgusting amount of money for it to look like this.’
Clarkson made a sound like he wasn’t sure if he was meant to laugh or not, but then an animal cry yowled from the door to the file room and Nella was thrust against Clarkson as a tiny pink Chihuahua of a human bowled her over.
‘She returns!’ Her paralegal, Daisy, smiled up at her. ‘Everyone! Nella’s back!’
‘Daisy, no ...’
‘All hail Queen Antonella.’ Ian lifted a mug of coffee from his open office door.
The subtle hints the team had been giving him before she left about chopping off the cheerleader ponytail clearly hadn’t worked.
He looked like the love child of Ariana Grande and Abraham Lincoln.
And obviously the bright Elmer the Patchwork Elephant -inspired shirts were still a thing.
And obviously you’re a bitch even inside your head. The voice that reprimanded her was deep and, for some reason, smelled kind of like car oil and leather.
‘Good to see you, kid.’ Pearl, her receptionist, beamed at Nella. ‘I’ve got a bunch of things I need you to ...’
Nella held up a hand. ‘Guys, I’m not ...’
‘Finally.’ Max Conrad leant against the doorframe to her freshly painted office under the sign Nella had installed for her before she fled to the city: Maxella Conrad there was hardly any air in here.
‘The CCTV footage of Forrest injecting the poison into the wine is unusable.’ Max twisted her long, braided hair around her wrist. ‘We pulled it from outside Liquor Paradise but he knew what he was doing – he’s wearing a hoodie and he keeps his face down.
There’s nothing. We’ve been tailing him too, to see if he fucks up, but so far, he’s been a model psychopathic killer. ’
Nella rubbed her forehead. ‘You’ve been tailing him? Shit, Max, the Valentines own, like ... all the mines. His family’s dangerous.’
‘Most of them are dead.’
‘Still dangerous.’
Max shrugged. ‘Are they worse than yours?’
‘No one’s worse than mine.’
Max blinked. ‘Nella, I didn’t—’
‘What exactly do you need from me?’ she snapped. ‘You need to be working on my cases too. That’s what I hired you for.’
Max held out a hand. ‘Whoa. If you’d been here, you’d know I’ve turned in every report and checked everything I’ve been asked to do for all your active cases. I don’t do the Poppy Raven case on company time.’
‘It’s not about the money.’
‘I know money doesn’t matter to you. But I sort of need it, so I do the job you hired me for, Nella. This case is important to me, but I don’t expect you to be persuaded by that. But it’s important to Grey too, and I think we can agree that you owe him that much.’
Owe him. Did Max really think Nella would only help Grey because she owed him? Nella and Grey had grown up together; he’d been her brother long before they’d found out the true nature of his parentage. She’d definitely known him a lot longer than Max had.