He shrugged, moving on to the back tyres. She clomped along behind him, her heels echoing in the cold garage.
‘Well, I told her you were dating someone.’ Band-aid ripped.
Jett’s shoulders stiffened but he kept doing whatever he was pretending to do – check the tyres, cut the brakes. How was she meant to know?
‘So,’ she continued, annoyance flaring that he wasn’t taking the bait, ‘you’ll have to pretend to have a girlfriend.’
‘Why?’ He turned now, fingertips black. ‘Why does it matter if your cousin thinks I’m hot?’
Call the media, buy the biggest billboard, order one of those planes to fly across the sky with a banner, because Nella Barbarani was officially speechless.
‘You want to ... go out with Sirena?’
‘Would it matter if I did?’
‘You’re not answering my question.’
‘You’re not answering mine.’
She would not be the one to break eye contact first. This was not how it was meant to go. She’d only wanted to get him to bite so she could ask him what he’d learnt from Raphael, but now she’d led them to a place neither of them recognised.
She stumbled forward. ‘You can’t date my cousin.’
‘Well, you’re in luck, Nella.’ He wiped his hands on a rag that had been resting on Irene’s bonnet. She could smell the oil and metal and petrol that was always potent in the garage, but this close to him there was also that undercurrent of pepper and leather musk that was solely Jett. ‘You didn’t lie to her.’
‘What?’ Her heart liquefied.
‘I am dating someone. No need to atone for your sins.’
‘You ... you’re ...’ Something was ringing in her ears.
‘That hard to believe, huh?’ Something shifted in his eyes.
What was going on? Why was she reacting like this? She knew deep down Jett wasn’t celibate. Just because he didn’t parade his love-life around in front of her didn’t mean he hadn’t been dating people all these years.
But would her father have had rules about who Jett was allowed to bring on the property? Surely he wouldn’t have been okay with his employee bringing random girls into the garage. It was kind of a shit job if you were trying to build something serious, so Nella had always assumed Jett wasn’t ever in a serious relationship ... but he could have been, couldn’t he? She’d never asked. Everything had always been about her, and her life, and her drop-kick boyfriends he’d had to drive her away from or drive off the property. Why hadn’t she ever thought to push deeper? She’d made it her business to know everything about Greyson’s love-life, so why had she always turned a blind eye to Jett’s?
‘Who?’ she demanded, when she found her voice.
But Jett was shaking his head. ‘Just get in the car and tell me where we’re going.’
‘Who? I have a right to know!’
‘Do you?’ His eyes flashed, and she should have let it go and got into the car like he’d said. Instead, she stepped closer. She was technically his boss, goddamn it. Yes, she was a foot shorter than him and technically her mother was in charge of the estate workers, but she was Nella Barbarani and he had to followherorders.
‘I’m your boss,’ she said, hating and loving those words as they swelled together in her mouth.
‘Which, according to laws you should be familiar with, gives you even less of a right to enquire about my personal life.’
‘Why can’t you tell me?’ Now she’d done a 180 from controlled aggression to whiny, pre-teen desperation.
‘Because it’s none of your business. Stop trying to control me just because your own life’s a mess right now.’
Ouch.‘It’s all right for you, you can just leave all of this behind in your rearview mirror when you drive off to your perfect job with your perfect girlfriend, leaving the rest of us here in this ... this ...’
Fucking nightmare. Never-ending hell. Death row.
The fire was back, in her throat, the corners of her eyes. But she was too angry for tears. They weren’t enough.
