23
Nella
‘Ms Barbarani, can you confirm your brother Luca is the father of Divya’s baby?’
‘Nella! Nella! Is it true your grandfather stole the sangue recipe from his nemesis, Antonio La Marca?’
‘What do you have to say about the claims Matteo La Marca has made about your inability to win this lawsuit?’
‘Can you tell us if the police are treating the death of your old family lawyer as suspicious?’
‘Ms Barbarani, are you aware of the evidence the La Marca lawyers have against you? Do you really think you’re a match for them?’
Tom had always wanted to build their own runway on the property, instead of renting this shared hangar. Now she wished she’d let him do it instead of calling him a pretentious diva.
The press were unavoidable as she made her way from the back of Max’s Hyundai to the inside of the hangar, because it was technically public property. If they so much as breathed over the Barbaranis’ private jet, that would be another story.
Speaking ofjets– where was he? The more they delayed the flight to Milan, the more likely it was that Ariana was going to freak out, change her mind and jump off the plane. Nella should have made Daisy tie her down.
She’d debated back and forth about bringing Daisy – the more people involved in this, the more complicated, which was a euphemism for the more potential unmarked graves for Matteo La Marca to dig. But her plan was to keep Daisy focused on going through Clarkson’s notes and voice memos, to see if there was anything they’d missed. Anything that could have them turn this plane around and go home with no need to drag their La Marca prisoner into the Northern Hemisphere.
Was Jett deliberately delaying? Or had Matteo decided Luca as collateral wasn’t enough? No, he wouldn’t take Jett. In Matteo’s eyes, he was the help, not hostage-level value.
She didn’t want to think about Clarkson’s office, or the car, the church, or everything that had happened in her head last night. Surely he knew this superseded whatever was going on between them?
A slippery feeling, like a dying fish, was flapping inside her at the thought that their kiss might be what pushed him over the edge to leave for good. Before she got the chance to convince him otherwise.
She shoved the feeling deeper; her emotions would not rule her. If she was going to be strong, if she was going to win this case, she had to bury that crap underground in an unmarked grave. It was a skill she’d had to learn early on, since she first told her dad she didn’t want his money and she was going to apply for a university loan and pay her own way through law school. It was like how athletes primed their bodies with BCAAs and cut out refined sugars and alcohol ahead of an event. Nella learnt to drain emotion so she could win.
‘I can’t believe the La Marca princess is actually here. He let her come,’ Nella said to Max as she dragged her Prada suitcase across the tarmac, ignoring the journalists’ shouted questions.
‘I still don’t like it,’ Max said, coiling a strand of dark hair around her finger. ‘You know the La Marcas better than me, but Matteo doesn’t seem like the type to hand you the key to his kingdom, and especially not when there’s a potential monster locked up inside with the power to destroy him.’
‘I don’t know what we’ll find in the Lake Orta house.’ Nella chewed her lip. Every movement around them had her whipping her head to see if it was Jett. Wherewashe?
‘Hope it’s worth it,’ Max said, and Nella felt the ice chip in her voice. Her mind tumbled back to the hunch of Luca’s shoulders as Raphael had herded him roughly into the back of one of Matteo’s luxury cars.
‘Nella, about ...’ Max trailed off as Daisy poked her pink curls out from the doorway at the top of the stairs.
‘The pilot’s saying we need to get going.’ She looked at them apprehensively. ‘Didn’t you say your chauffeur was coming? What about Tomaso?’
‘I don’t know where Jett is.’ Nella fought to keep her voice neutral; she could feel Max’s gaze on her. ‘Tom’s staying to do Luca damage control. The only good thing about Luca being Matteo’s prisoner swap for Ariana is that it’ll stop Tom from murdering him.’
‘Nella.’ Daisy bent towards her, voice lowered. ‘Is that blonde girl I’m sitting next to ArianaLa Marca?’
‘Yep,’ Nella said brightly.
‘Oh, okay ... I just.’ Daisy bit her lip. ‘I didn’t realise you were friendly. I thought the Barbaranis and the La Marcas were ...’
‘Mortal enemies?’ A voice came from behind. ‘Like the Montagues and the Capulets? The Malfoys and the Weasleys? Ernst Stavro Blofeld and James Bond? Katy Perry and Taylor Swift?’
‘Katy and Taylor are friends now,’ Nella corrected Jett before turning around, her heart buoying in a way it should not at the sound of afriend.
Thankfully she spoke before she turned, because when shedidturn, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to form a coherent sentence.
Jett was standing a metre away with a grey duffel bag slung over his shoulder, his bottom half covered in a tight, black wetsuit and his top half, well ... not.
Dark bronzed skin glistened over ridiculously firm muscles. Nella tried not to think about how that chest and those arms had felt in Clarkson’s office. But feeling them had been one thing; seeing them now felt like an absolute joke. And her drooling reaction to his half-naked body was the punch line. Nella’s only saving grace was the fact that the other women’s jaws hit the tarmac at the same time as hers and were showing no signs of coming up.
