Zia Rob loudly asked Nonna Maria if she wanted another pillow behind her back, but Nella didn’t miss the rest of them quickly twisting away and pretending to continue in-depth conversations with the person closest to them. The only ones not pretending were her mother, feigning biting into a crostoli Nella knew would never make it past her calorie security check, and Greyson, who was standing alone against the wall, evidently still not quite sure how he fit into this dynamic.
He raised an eyebrow as she slumped next to him but didn’t say anything. Then Max and Jett walked through the doors.
‘Why are they coming in together?’ Nella asked.
Greyson shuffled, which was a very uncoordinated, un-Greyson thing to do. ‘Guess they ran into each other.’ His shrug was too big.
‘Sure. That’s Max’s guilty face. I know it in explicit detail, because she always used to look at you like that before the two of you ...’
‘Yeah, okay.’ He ducked his chin in resignation. ‘Jett didn’t want you to know.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, dragging a hand through her hair with just enough restraint to stop herself ripping out a chunk, ‘have I fallen into some sort ofOutlandertime slip? Are we in the nineteenth century? Why is every male who lives on this property suddenly making decisions about me behind my back?’
She said it loud enough for Jett to hear, and the bloody coward held her gaze for a full three seconds before grabbing Luca’s arm and pretending to ask him something. She steeled herself, ready to go over and break them apart, when the floral, pink smell of her cousin invaded her nose.
‘I was starting to get worried you’d joined some sort of make-up-free cult.’ Sirena nodded approvingly at Nella’s face and Louis Vuittons.
Greyson took the opportunity to slink away to join Max, and Nella glared at his broad, traitorous back. ‘Don’t be stupid, I’m not ...’ She swallowed. There was that lump of glass again. She’d been about to sayI’m not Frankie.
‘Is he single?’ Sirena whispered. Her breath smelled like coffee.
‘Grey? No. He’s disgustingly in love – and anyway, you guys are sort of related ...’
‘Not Channing Tatum.’ She waved a dismissive hand in Grey’s direction, then turned to point at Luca and Jett. ‘Idris Elba over there.’
‘Jett? He doesn’t look like ...’ Nella watched Sirena’s expression with a strange feeling twisting in her gut. Her cousin was deadly serious. ‘He’s not ... he’s ... Jett’s dating someone too.’
What the fuck?
Sirena gave a soap actress sigh. ‘Why must life be so cruel?’
Take it back. Say you were joking.
But it was too late. Sirena dejectedly patted Nella on the shoulder and walked over to Nonna Maria, who’d been beckoning her over to her throne stacked with red and gold pillows.
Why had she said that? And why was there this hissing, molten lava bubbling inside her at the thought of Jett and Sirena? Was it because he washers? Her toy? Her chauffeur? Was this like when she and Sirena had been two little girls in French braids squabbling over Barbie dolls? Or was it because Jett had dropped that bombshell on her yesterday, that he was leaving? Was she subconsciously trying to punish him?
Jett wouldn’t want to date Sirena, would he? Nella narrowed her gaze at her cousin, taking in her deep olive skin, dark mermaid hair and lithe frame. Surely Jett would want someone more ... someone ...
Okay, so she didn’t know what type of women Jett liked. But it wouldn’t be someone little and pixie-ish like Sirena, would it?
Her mind was doing that thing it did in the days after the gala and Sally Sue, a GPS map constantly rerouting every time her thoughts drove anywhere close to the memory of what had happened. Instead, she’d let her thoughts run off cliffs into the most bizarre places. Anything, anywhere that wasn’t her dark, blood-soaked reality. And now, the day after another death, it was doing it again. Anything to not think about her old friend – laughing in her office. And then eyes blank, never seeing again.
‘Oh, Antonella.’ Zia Rob clutched her shoulder like she was trying to rip tendons from bone. ‘We knew you’d come around.’
Nella stared at the crowd of her family – a sea of dark hair and eyes all on her. Even Concetta had paused her coffee pouring and general food-related fussing to watch. Tom was standing in the centre, glaring at her. He’d obviously just announced she’d be stepping into Clarkson’s shoes before they’d even been removed from his feet, ready for the coroner to cut him open and weigh his organs and ...
‘Nel?’ Luca raised an eyebrow. ‘You okay? You know you don’t have to do this, right?’
‘Of course she has to.’ As Zia Rob rounded on him, Luca shrugged and knocked back an espresso shot that Nella would bet her left tit had been spiked with Strega. ‘She won’t want that blonde hyena writing another article about how we’re going to lose because even our own flesh and blood doesn’t believe Emilio made that recipe. Antonella knows her duty.’
Tom’s nose twitched like it was about to jump off his face and go rogue.
‘I know that the recipe is Nonno Emilio’s,’ Nella said. Her zias and zios grunted and sipped their coffee in agreement. Only Tomaso, Luca and Vittoria watched her warily.
But it was true, she realised. It was the first time she’d said it out loud, and no matter what she felt about her family, about her father at that moment, she believed in this. The sangue recipe belonged to the Barbaranis. Nella’s parents and she and her siblings may have inherited far more money than anyone truly deserved, but she was comforted by the fact that her family had earnt it. Nonno Emilio left everything he knew to work manual jobs in the harsh Australian sun, on this barren land for a government that had begged him to come but was still sceptical of him. He had nothing until he made his wine. Emilio had wanted a legacy – a life he’d made for himself, for his children and grandchildren – and Nella had always believed the Barbarani fortune was a fortune earnt, not given. She could always justify her privilege because it had been earnt by her grandfather. So the La Marcas casting doubt over Emilio’s legacy was a personal cut to the bone.
‘A toast.’ Zio Vince slapped his hand ofbriscolacards down on the card table and held up his espresso cup. ‘To our Antonella, our saving grace.’
