And social media had a long memory. Luca Barbarani and Divya Patel had broken up twelve weeks ago.
Tom had gotten his wish for a new scandal. But Nella was numb to it. It was like she was frozen under an avalanche of snow. Extra flakes and sheets of ice didn’t affect her now; she couldn’t feel anything at all. The cameras were just an inconvenience.
Concetta, the housekeeper, almost blew off Pearl’s head with a shotgun once Nella’s receptionist made it past the media camp and up to the never-used soggiorno that Nella had annexed as her office.
If she was honest with herself, Nella was hiding up here so she didn’t have to be near Jett, even though logically, she knew there’d be no chance of that if she stayed in the mansion and he stayed in the garage. Which he would. But she couldn’t guarantee she’d do the same. Also, she didn’t want to go to sleep and leave her dreams open to his presence.
They’d fired their shots wide. But still, they’d fired. How could he? After all these years, after everything they’d been through, how could he still believe she saw him the same way Emily and her father had?
She could still feel his breath against her neck.
I wasn’t turned on.
Her body had betrayed her ridiculous lie. Her nipples had hardened against the coarse lace of her bra and the hairs on the back of her neck had spiked. She’d felt that drop in the pit of her stomach as warmth spread through her naval. He’d turned her on just with hisvoice.
I know everything about you.
He could never, ever find out how much she’d wanted that damned kiss to continue. Because as much as she was still furious at him, deep down she knew that everything between them was her fault.
She’d broken one of her own rules. Hypocrite. Friends don’t do what she’d done to Jett. How could she expect him to take her seriously, to realise she cared about him, that other people cared about him, if she kept going around humping his mattress and sticking her tongue down his throat as a diversion?
She wouldn’t have kissed him if the idea hadn’t already been marinating in her mind. It was instinct, a knee-jerk reaction. She’d just finally decided to follow through.
And it might have broken what she was only just coming to realise was perhaps the most honest friendship, beside that she had with Eliza, she’d ever had with someone not related to her.
‘Pet?’
Nella jumped. But it was just Pearl. She wasn’t sure if Pearl’s motivations for texting Nella when she saw the Barbarani car drive past at 3 a.m. while she got ready for her ridiculous pre-dawn lake run were purely about the La Marca court case or more to do with wanting to quench her gossip thirst with Luca’s scandal.
‘Go home, Pearl, you’ve done enough.’
‘I will.’ She nodded her beehive of white curls that always reminded Nella of spun clouds. ‘I just feel like I have to tell you something. It’s probably nothing, and because it’s nothing I’m not telling Detective Noah Avery.’ Pearl glared; her history with the police force prevented her from being able to say Avery’s name without tasting poison.
‘What is it?’ Nella took a sip of her long black from McDonald’s; instead of offering to take over from Jett, Tom had conceded a coffee stop in Bunbury. It tasted exactly like coffee brewed by a nineteen-year-old at 2.30 a.m. in a drive-through should taste.
‘It’s about Ian.’
‘Mmm? Does he need my signature on his psych forms? I told him I’d cover it.’
‘Not that.’ Pearl wrung her hands, her eyes on the coffee cup Nella had developed a Stockholm syndrome–style relationship with. ‘You know how Ian told the police he came back to the office that night to get his gym bag?’
‘Right. He told me the same thing.’
‘Yes.’ Pearl twisted her ring around her thumb. ‘The thing is, Pet, when I came to get Ian and bring him back to my house, he was wearing his gym clothes.’
Nella frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s probably nothing,’ Pearl said, waving a hand dismissively, ‘but it’s odd, isn’t it? Why would he need to get his gym bag if he was already in his gym clothes?’
Nella was still turning Pearl’s words over in her mind, along with everything else, when Concetta clicked her fingers in front of her face, bringing her out of her trance.
‘Your phone is ringing.’ Concetta put a plate of rockmelon in front of Nella, peering through the curtains at the crowd that was now a speck in the distance at the bottom of the driveway.
It was Grey. Nella accepted the call and Pearl discreetly excused herself to the bathroom. Perhaps hoping it was in close proximity to Luca’s lair.
‘Nel, I don’t mean to offend you or Tom, but I really don’t care if Luca’s impregnated the entire cast ofGame of Thrones, I—’
‘So why are you calling me in the middle of the night?’ she snapped. ‘I never asked you to do anything.’
