Translation: I never asked you to babysit me. I don’t care who you date anyway. You’re the one who got all weird about it and deliberately didn’t tell me.
But she’d carried a pip in her stomach that had gradually grown heavier as she walked away from the car, as she thought about the law ball the next day and having to see Oliver again. The pip became lighter the more alcohol she drank.
‘Steady on,’ Daisy said, flicking her pink hair over her shoulder, her septum piercing catching in the glint of the low bar lights, earning her an approving smirk from the male bartender.
The heritage-listed pub was crowded, even for a Friday night. The local band, Rascal, which Nella thought would have been too good for the local tavern by now, was testing amps in the corner. Groups who’d come early to get a good spot up front were shifting through to the ‘dance floor’ (a small, carpeted area with more beer stains than the rest of the floor). Nella felt like the rest of the room was encased in a bubble – sounds muffled, faces slightly blurred. Even though she was right in the middle, up on a pleather stool in the busiest part of the bar, she wasn’t part of it.
‘She’s fine,’ Eliza said, pushing one of the two identical fruity cocktails she’d ordered towards Nella. They were almost the same nectarine orange colour as Eliza’s hair. ‘You made much progress?’
‘Not much.’ She kept her voice low, not wanting her staff to think she was insensitive (well, no more than normal) by talking about the lawsuit just hours after saying goodbye to the man they’d found dead in their office. ‘I’m stuck until I know exactly what Clarkson was looking at, and what he found, if anything. How it connects to the wine – if it does at all.’
‘You reckon if you find his notes at the ball you’ll put to bed the claim the La Marcas are making over the recipe?’
‘Fairly confident.’ Nella would be bloody lucky if she actually got through the door to the ball. Oliver had promised he’d get her, Jett and Tom in, but that had been almost a week ago. And Nella wasn’t exactly going to go out of her way to make contact with Oliver. Though really, she should just get over it. The incident had been years ago, and she’d never said anything to him, she hadn’t doneanything.
And even if Nella’s name did get them past security into the ball, there was still the small matter of breaking into Clarkson’s officeandhis safe.
To prove her confidence, or maybe just to shut down any more questions, she drained the cocktail. As she tipped her head back, she could almost feel the blisteringly sweet alcohol draining into her brain. Somewhere, in the dredged sewers of her synapses, she remembered she had to be on her game tomorrow. She wasn’t in Perth anymore, on her self-destructive downward spiral. But hell, this felt too good. She’d forgotten feeling numb. Shemissedfeeling numb. Here, there was no little voice telling her she’d never be good enough. Here, her father was truly dead.
Eliza motioned the bartender for another round, but he didn’t see her, so Nella stumbled off her stool and gripped a row of shoulders – Pearl, Ian, Daisy, random stranger – as she shimmied in to get the bartender’s attention.
‘Hey,’ a low voice said to her right. She looked up, everything moving slightly out of time with reality as she was trapped by the crystal blue eyes of Noah Avery. Fuck, was she a suspect? Here she was, drinking like an eighteen-year-old using their ID for the first time, on the night of Clarkson’s funeral. She might as well be using his coffin as a trampoline.
‘Avery. Uh, hello.’ She curtseyed.
He raised an eyebrow. Then laughed.
The pip inside her was starting to crack. Screw Jett and whatever it was he’d said about Avery. The detective was kind of cute, six drinks deep.
‘I’m a cop, Nella, not the King. And I’m off duty anyway.’
Well, if that wasn’t an invitation ...
‘Can I help you?’ A lithe blonde woman with a long neck and a nose that looked like it had been squashed against a window grabbed Avery’s bicep and glared at Nella.
‘Depends,’ Nella drawled. ‘Do you work here? ’Cause I really need another drink.’
The blonde dug her nails into Avery’s arm, the giant rock on her left finger angled deliberately to blind anyone looking directly at it. Nella enjoyed the swooping, claw-sharpening sensation that came with being perceived as a threat. There was something primordially intoxicating about being hated by older women.
‘Won’t be long now,’ Blondie said. ‘You’re going to fall off your throne sooner or later. I’ve seen all the reports about the civil suit. The La Marcas have got you by the balls. Being a Barbarani isn’t going to be such a great thing soon, Antonella. Stay away from him.’
Okay, who the fuck ...
The bartender was now giving them his full attention. Avery was staring at his partner with an open mouth. Nella was alight on the inside, but on the outside, she was still frozen over.
‘Lots to unpack there,’ she said.
The blonde woman rolled her shoulders back but didn’t speak.
Nella pointed her cocktail umbrella at her. ‘Normally, the opinions of inbred cousin-fuckers like you don’t register on my give-a-shit scale. But let’s make one thing clear: if you actually think you need to be possessive of him’—she jabbed the umbrella at Avery—‘then I’ll happily give you a business card for the best psychiatrist in Australia. You’re certifiable if you think I’d even consider fucking your Neanderthal boyfriend.’
She added theNo offence, Averyin her head.
‘Harsh words, Barbarani,’ the cop said cheerfully, eyes narrowing at Blondie.
Everyone thought Nella was fair game. The more they saw of you, in the news, on socials, the less human you became. Hell, Sally Sue had literally packaged up Nella like a doll. They wanted her money, her body, her opinions, but they never wantedher. Then there were the people like the blonde, who thought they were so above her because they were real and tangible. It was their divine right as mortal beings to strip her of her powers, to remind her she could fall, because that’s what women like her were always destined to do when they climbed too high.
This was why Nella had her challenges.
