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He cast a sidelong glance at me. “True enough,” he said in a noncommittal voice.
“So why do you want me here? I’ll make a fuss of Granda and leave tomorrow and you won’t ever have to see me again.”
“How big a fool do you think I am? Granda has never been a sentimental man and you know it. He ordered the family to assemble in order to make his final decision about his will. Mary Alice and Valerie are supposed to arrive later today, Marcus tomorrow. If you take off, it would give you the perfect reason to sue everyone for undue influence if Granda decides to cut you out.”
It was an interesting thought. Not for Bella—Ian was wrong about that, as he was wrong about so many things. Granda was besotted with Bella—she’s always known just how to handle him, flattering him with her rapt attention, and he’d never banish her for disobeying his orders.
As for me, Granda had written me off years ago. Everyone but Bella seemed to have forgotten I had ever existed. To be sure, my father had been Granda’s younger son, as much his child as Bella’s father, but the old man had never prided himself on being particularly fair. And I didn’t want a damned penny of his money.
I just wanted to say goodbye. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I promised I wasn’t interested in any inheritance.” Whether it was true or not was beyond me. Bella had been cagey about the subject of money, and I’d been so pathetically eager to talk myself into this ridiculous charade that I hadn’t pushed it. How could I have been so stupid?
“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t believe you. Besides, you could hardly leave without seeing your erstwhile fiancé, can you? For years, you and Podge couldn’t look at him without dissolving into sighs and giggles.”
Podge. That hateful nickname would follow me everywhere. I never found out who had come up with it in the first place, but Ian was the logical choice. However, they’d all used it, and I’d even signed my notes with that wretched phrase. So Ian hadn’t forgotten my long-lost existence after all.
“There’s a blast from the past,” I said lightly. “What made you think of her?”
“Beats me.” He shrugged, then shifted down, and I realized with surprise that we were already on the outskirts of Santa Maria de Fe. It had barely changed in the last twelve years. There was a shiny new hotel down by the water, but beyond that, the olive groves and vineyards rose in the hot Iberian sunshine, and I could see Mariposa towering over the fields like Granda lording it over his legacy.
We were through the town in the blink of an eye, then climbing once more, up the narrow roadway to the grand old house. Granda had always refused to widen the road or pave it—it had been good enough for his father before him, it would be good enough for him. Ian gunned the motor, churning up sunbaked dust beneath the tires, and I shut my eyes. I didn’t want my first glimpse of Mariposa to be with Ian by my side.
We came to an abrupt stop, and he was out of the truck before I’d even unfastened my seatbelt. I slid down from the high seat, my heels wobbling slightly in the cobblestone yard, brushing ineffectually at the stains on Bella’s designer suit. He was watching me, making no effort to retrieve the luggage, but I decided he was the least of my worries. In a few short minutes, I would finally be seeing my grandfather again, and I couldn’t wait.
I moved past him, ignoring him, when his hand shot out and clamped around my wrist, hard, yanking me around to face him. “Let go of me,” I snapped.
“I want to get one thing clear.” That grip hurt. He would leave bruises, damn him. “You’re not to upset Granda. He deserves to die in peace, and you have no right to come back here after all this time and disrupt everything.”
For a moment, I almost protested that I would have come back long before this if I’d only been wanted, but he wasn’t talking to Kitty. He was talking to Bella. “I have no intention of upsetting him,” I said stiffly. “Let go of me.”
Ian had always had a guarded expression in his dark eyes, the polar opposite of Marcus’s warm gaze. I had no idea what he was thinking as his eyes washed over me, but the grip on my wrist loosened slightly, and I realized with sudden shock that he was absently stroking my skin with his thumb. “You’ve had work done,” he said abruptly.
“What?” I yanked myself free. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m only twenty-eight! Of course I haven’t had plastic surgery. Assuming that’s what you meant when you suggested I had had work done,” I added doubtfully.
“You’re twenty-nine, Bella,” he corrected, and I silently cursed. “And you’re so fucking vain you probably would have had a facelift at twenty if Granda had paid for it. Don’t bother denying it. I can see the difference in your face. Subtle, I grant you, but unmistakable. Though how in the hell did you find someone who was capable of making you look as if you were possessed of a heart? You found a real artist, no lie.”
I growled. Denying it would be useless—at least it would explain any slight anomalies he might notice between Bella’s creamy perfection and my own all too human frailties. “It’s not vanity, it’s maintenance,” I said stiffly.
“And just when did you give up smoking?” he added abruptly.
At least we’d been prepared for that one. Bella still smoked, much to my horror, but there was an easy explanation. “Over a year ago. I found it was aging me.”
His laugh was contemptuous. “Trust you to have found a shallow reason. Get your luggage. I have better things to do than stand around in the hot sun catering to your vanity.”
I glared at him. “I don’t think so.”
He cursed, low and foul, and a moment later, the luggage was dumped unceremoniously on the cobblestones. He took off, spraying both me and the suitcases with dust, and I watched him go.
Okay, I survived that first, unexpected encounter, but just barely. And Ian the Wretch was one thing; Marcus was another. I really did have to get out of there before Marcus arrived.
I should have made more of an effort to get along with Ian, but he’d always had the ability to rub me the wrong way. Besides, I’d tried to be pleasant, to sweet-talk him into letting me leave, and it had gotten me exactly nowhere.
He’d reckoned without Granda, however, and the way Bella could wind him around her little finger. I wasn’t nearly so adept, but expectation would go a long way. The old man would be so happy to see his remaining granddaughter that I could probably talk him into anything.
This was tough enough—I really couldn’t stand the thought of the cousins arriving as well, with their knowing eyes. For some reason, Granda’s other two granddaughters were always known as “the cousins” even though we were all technically cousins. They were a few years older than we were, and Mary Alice had never wanted much to do with us, or at least, Bella. The two were hardened enemies, and I sighed inwardly. It was bad enough facing Ian the Wretch. Facing the Wicked Witches of the East and West put the icing on the cake.
At this point there was nothing I could do about it, but that didn’t mean I was giving up. I could rent my own car, I could fucking hitchhike back to the airport. I would get out of here when and how I wanted, and no inscrutable nemesis like Ian would be able to stop me.
I headed for the wide front door, climbing onto the marble steps for the first time in forever, and I could feel unexpected tears sting my eyes. I scrambled for sunglasses, perched them on my nose, and reached for the knob.
