Page 42 of Last Breath

‘Nella ...’

‘I’ll drive myself.’ She lunged for the keys in his pants pocket. The shock of her attack sent them both slamming into Irene’s front door. She grabbed at the pocket but staggered as he tried to fend her off. Her hand brushed the bulge she’d been reaching for ...

Okay, that wasn’t the keys. She snapped her hand back, her cheeks on fire. Definitely, definitely not keys.

‘For fuck’s sake, Nella,’ he growled.

‘I’m ...’ Her heart thumped in her throat.

Jett adjusted his belt in what she personally felt was a slight overreaction and slipped the keys out of his pocket. She kept her eyes up.

‘Don’t report me to HR,’ she said.

‘You mean your mother? Yeah, I think I’ll keep this one to myself.’

Her mind spun. She’d never really touched Jett before. Obviously notthere,but they didn’t hug or anything – Giovanni had always been clear about his workers maintaining a professional distance from his family. Sure, Jett had scooped her up off the floor in a drunken state way too many times, and let her lean on him when she broke her ankle during a netball game, and at eighteen when she’d been drugged by Sally Sue so that she could barely hold herself upright ...

But this was ...

She grabbed the garage door buzzer, the only part of his keys not enclosed in his fist. ‘So can I, uh ...?’

He raised an eyebrow, face complete stone.

Was he remembering all those times he had given her the keys? Back when he was the only one who didn’t fear for his life with her at the wheel, back when home was still the Barbarani Estate for both of them.

‘You cannot.’

He was pushing her away, and she was acting like a seventeen-year-old brat. She needed to grow up. She needed to let him go.

‘You don’t have a licence anymore, Nella.’

She nodded and let go.

12

Jett

How had that ...

He’d never ...

Did he really just ...

He hadn’t missed a gear since he’d first learnt to drive. Well,learntwas a strong word. Jett had always felt like cars were just an extension of him; they were his first gateway drug. He hated the phrase ‘adrenaline junkie’, but even he had enough self-awareness to know that’s what he was. If it went fast, was high or had a waiver the thickness of his forearm, he was in.

Jett drove fast, but he drove well. So this was ...

It happened at the lights before the turn-off to Ocean Boulevard. He would never be able to drive through that intersection again without remembering.

He didn’t make driving mistakes like that.

He was still reliving the trauma as they pulled up to the bubble-gum-pink coffee van. Had Nella noticed? How could she not? The whole car had whined and lurched in that split second when he went to third instead of fifth like a sixteen-year-old on his L-plates.

Maybe it was because his brain was currently wired like a sixteen-year-old’s after the garage. No, he was tired. That’s why he’d missed the gear. It wasn’t because of the garage. That small, insignificant moment that his school-boy brain was playing over and over.

Nella’s breath on his collarbone. Her hand brushing against him. It wasn’t even a second. What the fuck was wrong with him? Against the car, her curves, her softness, her edges, fit into him like they were both shattered pieces of the same statue.

He breathed out slowly as he swung the car into one of the last bays left in the sandy, beach-side car park.