Page 32 of Last Shot

‘Of course, madam.’

‘Oh,madam?’ She winked at Grey. He looked at her like she’d farted. ‘Definitely, then.’

‘What’s wrong?’ she hissed as soon as Forrest left with their menus; she’d ordered whatever looked the most expensive – she didn’t have her wallet. ‘I’m not a Barbarani or their loyal lapdog – I can drink La Marca wine.’

‘That’s not what I ... Why are you still wearing his coat?’ Grey scowled at her shoulders like they’d personally offended him.

Max had honestly forgotten about Raphael’s coat. As Grey’s eyes held hers in annoyance, she suddenly felt too hot. Someone must have turned the heating up – maybe that was a technique to get them to order dessert? She peeled off the coat and let it hang over the back of her chair. The scowl didn’t leave his face. What was his problem? It was as though she was sitting upright on Raphael’s erection, not simply trying to stave off hypothermia.

‘If you’d said you were cold, I would have just given you mine,’ Grey said.

‘Right, sure. And then you’d burn it.’

He was still looking at her like the coat was made out of the skin of all his closest relatives. ‘You don’t understand how it works around here.’ He sipped his water pointedly as Forrest returned with Max’s pinot noir.

Taking the glass, she accidentally brushed a ruby-studded ring on his finger. ‘Enlighten me then, Keeper of the Ganglords.’

His jaw clenched. She sipped her wine and almost orgasmed from the taste.

‘What do you think would have happened if you’d run into anyone else besides me on the estate?’

Max shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t be needing this drink so badly.’

‘You’d be locked up. Most likely in town. Still in your underwear or your crappy T-shirt.’

‘It was a singlet.’

‘Jett would have driven you straight to the police station. Your picture would be permanently in the Barbarani records for generations of people to bar from the property. No one would have listened to you. The girl who cried wolf.’

‘You know how that story ends right?’ Max took a deep sip. ‘There actually is a wolf. And everyone in the village dies.’

‘So does the girl.’ His eyes flashed.

‘What do you want?’ she asked. ‘For me to grovel on my knees and kiss you in thanks?’ She watched his expression darken – storm clouds moving across his face – as though the image of her on her knees in front of him was too horrific to digest.

‘I want you to realise the seriousness of the situation you’ve put yourself in. Putmein. Every move you make trying to uncover the truth behind this murder plot is a thread in the carefully woven relationship between the Barbaranis and the La Marcas. You pull too tightly at one, then you really will have a murder, Maxella, but it won’t be the one you’re so sure Libby Johnston was talking about.’

‘You still don’t believe Libby would tellmethe truth, do you? You think she was lying, or you thinkI’mlying.’

‘I don’t.’ He frowned.

Unexpected.

‘But I think you’re hiding something.’

There we go.‘I’ve told you everything you need to know,’ she said. ‘Everything I know that will help you – helpus– catch the killer and make sure no one gets hurt.’

He held her gaze. ‘But you haven’t told me what’s in it for you.’

‘Who says there’s anything in it for me, other than justice? Is it so hard to believe I came here to stop a murder because I don’t want someone to die? Or because – in more selfish terms that perhaps you’ll understand – I couldn’t bear to have it onmyconscience?’

‘A criminal with a conscience?’

Luckily the food came, and Max had something to stick her fork into that was not Grey’s hand. ‘You don’t trust me. That’s fair. But why are you so unwilling to believe the family that has hated the Barbaranis since World War Two and would clearly benefit from their demise is behind this hit?’ The wine was going to her head, soaking right through her impulse control barriers. ‘And I don’t know if you thought you and Raphael were talking in code back there, but I managed to decipher it. You actually came here to investigate the La Marcas for poisoning a bottle of Barbarani Wine, not the assassination plot.’

Grey’s jaw clenched. ‘The relationship between the Barbaranis and the La Marcas is a seesaw.’

‘Interesting metaphor. I wouldn’t have thought you were at all familiar with a seesaw since they’re often associated with fun.’

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