Page 2 of Last Breath

‘That stuff’s like a hundred years old,’ Nella said. ‘And my brother set up a Fort Knox security system that’ll take half an hour to crack.’

‘Oh, okay. I just thought ...’

She closed her eyes. ‘Look, did you come up here for my wine or for my boobs?’

‘I—’

‘I don’t want to talk about my family.’

He shifted uncomfortably. ‘Is that because of the poll?’

‘What poll?’ She’d muted all her social accounts. She hadn’t checked the news in weeks. She used her phone for Apple Pay and Spotify. When it was charged.

‘The “Who’s Hotter?” poll between you and Ariana La Marca.’ He gulped his gin.

Ariana La Marca. Her nemesis. Well, the daughter of the Barbaranis’ greatest rival wine-making family. Nella didn’t really know her well enough to bestow her the prestigious title ofnemesis.The feud between their grandfathers had been passed down the family line like an extra chromosome and now Nella and her siblings were biologically programmed to hate the La Marcas too. It was the only thing she’d ever been able to do that made her father proud.

‘Well?’ Nella pushed a hip painfully into the benchtop. ‘Did I win this poll?’

‘It’s not, uh, finalised ...’

She frowned. ‘How much?’

‘What?’

Had she drunkenly slipped into Italian?‘How much is she beating me by?’

‘Doesn’t matter what a poll made by a thirteen-year-old gamer in Hong Kong says,you’rethe knockout.’ His eyes drifted towards the cabinet again. ‘Can you tell me what’s in it?’ he asked, moving closer.

Nella turned and shoved her empty glass under the ice dispenser. ‘Wine.’

‘The wine your grandfather made?’

‘Silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.’

‘Just one ingredient?’

‘Grapes.’

‘C’mon.’ His eyes sparkled; potentially the promise of the expired dairy products was forcing its way back through the deluge of newer memories from this evening. ‘How about we share a glass? We can make it a game. I’ll tell you what I reckon’s in it, and if I get it wrong, I have to take off an item of clothing. If I get it right ...’

‘I get to jump out the window?’ Nella did her best Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader smile.

His own smile froze.

‘Fine.’ She unhooked the keys from above the bread boards and tossed them to him, but she was drunk, so they sailed past his shoulder and hit the glass cabinet. ‘Take the wine. It’s the green key.’

‘Antonella ...’ He set his glass down on one of Tom’s coasters, which Nella had been using as an ashtray, and walked over until he was right in front of her. ‘I’m so sorry. I should never have mentioned ... You said you didn’t want to talk about them ... and after what happened ...’ He stared at her like he was a puppy she’d shouted at for jumping on the couch.

Hell, no. Make it stop ...

She crushed his mouth with hers. The force made him stumble back onto Romulus’s big toe and the pizza box crashed to the floor. An old piece of pepperoni squelched under Nella’s foot as she burrowed in his pants for the hardness she suspected had been there since she’d said the word ‘boobs’. If she was going to bed satisfied tonight, she’d need to do quick damage control to shut him up aboutwhat happened.

He tasted like beer and spiced rum with a hint of meringue from the dessert they’d shared. His idea. Nella hated sharing dessert.

She pushed him onto the couch, unzipping his jeans as he mumbled something incoherent about the bedroom, but her body siphoned that request from his lips as she leant into that satisfying pressure she’d felt behind his belt, now straining through the blue cotton of his underwear.

Had his wife bought them for him? This was too easy – he hadn’t even taken his ring off. She liked that he was upfront about being an absolute shithole of a human.