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“Leave her alone, Ian,” Marcus said gallantly. “Let Bella do what she wants, okay?”
“Not okay,” he snapped, no longer teasing. “No one sees her for years, and then the moment the estate is on the line, she comes rushing back, the prodigal daughter.”
“Prodigal granddaughter,” I said flippantly. “And I came because Granda is dying, not because I care about the money.”
“Granda’s been dying for the last year—it might have been nice if you’d come to see him while he could still enjoy it. And the day you don’t care about money is the day I become one of your euro-trash lovers.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you!” I snapped back, infuriated, only to see the sudden heat in his eyes, a heat that effectively silenced me.
A moment later it was gone. “No, I don’t think I would. You’re not my type, Bella, and you never have been.”
Marcus cleared his throat. “Don’t be such a prick, Ian. We’re delighted to have Bella back, and it’s made Granda very happy. Can’t you be pleasant for once in your life?”
I could feel Ian’s now-wintry eyes brush over me, and I stared back, uncowed. Ian had never frightened me in the past, and I wasn’t going to let him get to me now. There was a lot of conflicting emotions assailing me at Mariposa, and I needed to sift through them if I was going to make it through the next few days.
“I need something to be pleasant about,” Ian said, rising from the table and taking his coffee with him as he strolled toward the windows looking out over the hillside. He was dressed as he’d been yesterday: worn jeans, a black T-shirt, boots. Even if he didn’t have Marcus’s magnificent physique, he filled the T-shirt out nicely, and it looked like he was ready for a day of hard work.
Marcus, on the other hand, was in white pants and a white linen shirt, a match for my pricy outfit. He’d probably be spotless by the end of the day whereas I’d be reduced to a ragamuffin.
I glanced at Marcus shyly. He hadn’t changed, not really. He was still perfect, from his dazzling white teeth to his swimmer’s build. I was the one who had changed.
It only made sense: what shy, sensitive teenage girl wouldn’t be dazzled by a golden god? But it had been twelve years, and I’d grown up. It was a good thing I was no longer besotted, but a small, contrary part of me missed that desperate, innocent passion.
“Granda’s waiting for us,” Ian said abruptly. “Are you going to finish that churro?”
Despite the undercurrent of tension in the room I’d managed to go through all the food I’d piled on my plate, and I scooped up my remaining churro as I rose. “I can take it with me.”
I was expecting a snort of disgust from both of them—after all, as a plump teenager they had teased me unmercifully about my appetite, but neither of them said a word, and it took me a moment to remember this was Bella they were seeing, Bella the glorious, not sad little Podge.
We headed upstairs in silence, the tension growing thicker as we reached the third floor. There was a nurse on duty this time, and she viewed us with disfavor.
“I’ll check if he’s ready to see you,” she said in her soft Andalusian accent, running a contemptuous eye over Marcus and me. Her disapproval didn’t seem to extend to Ian, and I could understand why. Marcus and I were butterflies, uselessly flittering. Ian was cut from a different cloth.
A moment later we were ushered into the sickroom, and I felt a small surge of relief. Granda was sitting up against a pile of pillows, freshly shaved, his thinning white hair combed over his pink skull, a trace more life in his sunken eyes. “What took you so long?” he demanded in a shadow of his cantankerous voice. “I’ve been waiting hours, and this scheming bully won’t let me have coffee. I had to endure Mary Alice reading Dickens to me, and I hate Dickens!”
The nurse, seemingly used to being called names, simply held out a glass with a straw, and he sucked at it for a moment, giving us a chance to react.
Marcus reached the bedside first, all handsome deference and charm. “Granda, you know you’re glad to see us. Sorry it took me so long to get here, but the flights were horrendous. But look, Bella is here!” he added enthusiastically, pushing me forward.
“I know she’s here,” Granda snapped. “She came in yesterday, along with the other girls, probably wanting to know if I kicked the bucket yet.”
WWBD, I reminded myself. “Nothing could kill you, Granda,” I said cheerfully, wishing it were true. “The devil’s not ready for you yet.”
“Hmph,” he said, sounding pleased, and I knew I’d hit the right note. “It’s good to see the three of you together again. Mind you, Ian’s worth more than you two wastrels, but you’re family, and that’s what counts. Even Mary Alice and Valerie belong here, much as I wish they hadn’t come. I just have one question to ask.” He fixed his faded gaze on me, staring through my Bella-tinted green contacts. “Where’s Kitty?”
The name was like a bomb dropping in the room—dead silence from the three of us, as if he’d said something unmentionable. Oddly enough, Marcus was the first to recover.
“Granda, you know you sent Podge away. You didn’t want her to come back.”
It was all I could do to keep silent. Granda hadn’t sent me away—my mother had dragged me, and I’d had no choice. He was the one who’d cut off all communication, effectively exiling me from the family, but he hadn’t been the one who’d banished me in the first place.
Granda didn’t correct him. “I told you to bring her too,” he snapped. “Where is she?” And once again his eyes moved over me.
“She told you long ago she didn’t want to have anything to do with you,” Ian said. “I don’t think that’s going to change.”
It was another shock to my system, another lie, but not one I could refute. Ian was enough of a snake to have made it up on his own, in order to secure more of his inheritance, and I finally said something. “Are you sure? Podge never struck me as one who held grudges.”
Ian’s smile was nothing short of cruel. “Am I sure? You’re the one who told us she never wanted to hear from Granda again. Changing your story at this late date?”
