Page 91 of Last Breath

She was glass. Just when she’d thought her embarrassment was at peak heat, she’d somehow managed to turn up the furnace.

His glare deepened as his eyes tracked over her. ‘You’re notpretty, Nella. The girl working the ferry terminal waspretty. Daisy ispretty. You are ...’ He closed his eyes like he was bracing before a blow. ‘Beautiful.’

It was almost silent, just a breath, but she heard it. It came unwillingly, irreverently, like a coerced confession of murder.

Nella’s throat constricted. She’d been called beautiful before. But it had just been a word. Never like this. Never had that word meant all of her. And she’d known Jett for fifteen years, but never once had he insinuated ... She never thought he’d actually ... Did he really think she was? And why ... goddammit, why, with every earth-shattering discovery made today, was this taking precedence ...

‘Daisy.’ Nella’s brain fog evaporated, Jett’s earlier words coming into focus. She shifted back into the driver’s seat. Releasing herself from Jett’s warmth was like throwing herself naked into an icy lake.

‘I ended it,’ he said, his voice thick and still dazed.

‘Why?’

He shifted so his face was partially obscured by darkness. She held her breath. ‘Because I’m leaving.’

She nodded, ignoring the splintering feeling in her chest. Of course he hadn’t ended it because of a stupid kiss that was part of a ruse to stop them from being arrested. Just because he’d said she wasbeautifuldidn’t mean he thought of her in that way. The way she couldn’t stop thinking about him. The way she had to.

‘What would you do if I asked you to stay? If I told you I wanted you to stay?’

His throat bobbed. ‘Are you? Asking me?’

‘Maybe? I think so. You don’t want anywhere to start to feel like home, in case it’s ripped away from you like it was when you were a kid. But you’ve been here fifteen years, and ... and ... do you really think you can just cut your ties and leave? What about Grey? Max? Me?’

‘You?’

‘Yeah.’ She swallowed. ‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’

He looked out the windscreen, his fists clenched. ‘No.’

If her heart had cracked before, this time it shattered. The pieces tore through her organs, sharp, jagged and lethal. She was going to bleed out. ‘What do you ...’

‘I can’t be your friend, Nella. I’m sorry.’

The thing about having a shattered heart was that the pieces were sharp. And she knew just how to cut. ‘Because you think you’re so beneath me? Because you’re thechauffeurand I’m Princess Antonella in her ivory fucking tower? Because you think you’re the only one in the whole world who had a shit childhood, and now you’ve got a free pass to just leave whenever you want, no matter who you hurt in the process?’

‘I can’t be yourfriend,’ he hissed, ‘because whatever friendship we might have had is gone. It’s ruined. Because ...’

‘Because we kissed?’

‘Because I can’t get you out of my fucking head! I can’t be yourfriendwith these thoughts. These ... these things that I want to do to you, these images ... I can’t ...’ His voice broke. ‘It’s number seven.’

Challenge 7 (Don’t fuck with the ocean).

‘I can’t stop thinking about it either.’ She couldn’t look at him. After everything, she still couldn’t let him see the vulnerability of that statement, the nakedness of her truth.

Jett sighed again. They were sitting at a perfectly amicable distance. Two people, two colleagues, twofriends,sitting in the front seats of an expensive vintage Italian car like they were just waiting at a set of particularly slow traffic lights.

He looked at her, his eyes roving over the steering wheel, her legs lax now she didn’t have to press the pedals. ‘Why did you never renew your licence, Nella?’

She stared back. ‘Why didn’t you leave after your one-year-rule, Jett?’

And this time it didn’t matter who moved first, because their answers were the same.

30

Jett

The flood he’d held back for so long ripped through the attic. Floors caved in, boxes burst and every dark place illuminated with blinding, splintering light.