‘I’m sorry, Zia, but neither do I.’
6
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’renotfired 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 brightElmer 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 & Greyson Hawke, Private Investigators. ‘Jett does have his uses, doesn’t he?’
Was there some hidden meaning to Max’s comment? Nella could never tell with that woman. Once a cop, always a cop. Even though she didn’t look like one now with her waist-length black hair, colourful fine-line tattoo sleeves, ripped denim shorts and a Guns N’ Roses over-sized T-shirt. Not exactly lawyerly corporate attire, but Max was Nella’s secret nuke she’d been developing in the back office. Although she didn’t know it, Max had passed most of Nella’s challenges, though she’d gone a bit easier on her because Max was technically only in her life because of Grey. That meant Nella wouldn’t really have had the power to do anything if Max had failed.
Grey would definitely have known about it though. She’d have made sure of it.
‘This the guy?’ Max raised an eyebrow at Clarkson.
‘I’m the guy.’ Clarkson smiled. ‘Where will I be least inconvenient?’
Back in Perth.
No, that wasn’t entirely fair. If Clarkson wasn’t here, it would be up to her to deal with, as Tom put it, this shitstorm of a lawsuit. She should probably buy him flowers – or cocaine? – to thank him.
‘There’s a desk in the file room.’ Nella indicated the room Daisy had bounded out of. ‘What do you need? You can connect to the wi-fi but the printer’s been possessed for three years and the priest from the town church still refuses to come down here and sort it out.’
Clarkson stuck his head into the room. ‘Nope, it’s perfect. I’ll shut the door so I don’t bother anyone. I’ll have to make some calls, there’s a few inconsistencies in the—’
‘Are you staying?’ Daisy cut him off, gripping Nella’s wrist. ‘Please tell me you’re back for good. I don’t think I can take one more day of Ian’s—’
‘I can hear you!’ Ian called.
‘—sexual magnetism,’ Daisy screamed back.
Nella caught her lips before they gave in to the instinct to smile. She’d missed this. But work wasn’t enough to bring her back, to make her face everything she’d done, or her family. She needed space. She needed time. She squeezed Daisy’s hand. ‘I’m going back to Perth in a few days.’
