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“You tell me,” Granda said. “So, when’s the wedding?”
“There’s no hurry,” I said calmly.
“There’s every hurry!” he snapped. “I’m dying. I want to make sure everything’s settled before I shuffle off this mortal coil. That’s Hamlet, you know.”
“To be or not to be, yes, I know,” I replied, letting some of my own irritation loose. “I’m perfectly familiar with the classics.”
“Since when? You went to that girl’s school for idiots in Switzerland, and then wasted your time and my money in attempting the Cordon Bleu, dropping it when you grew bored.”
“They wanted me to butcher a cow,” I said, which seemed reasonable enough for a legendary cooking school. “I declined.”
“I don’t think you’ve read a book since you were a teenager, not even a trashy romance.”
Considering that among my twelve boxes of books was a goodly selection of romances, I said nothing. “Everyone knows Hamlet,” I said finally, but Granda didn’t look convinced.
“When’s the wedding?” he demanded again.
“Marcus and I haven’t talked about it yet. Next year, some time.”
Granda shook his head. “Your fiancé was here before you. He’s agreed to next week.”
“No,” I said immediately, panicked. “I want a big wedding, with a white dress, and lots of guests and champagne.”
“And the glitterati of the world. Yes, I’m sure you do, though I would think the white dress would be a bit of a stretch. That’s easy enough—you’ll have a legal ceremony next week, followed by a religious ceremony the following year. Plenty of people do that—I have no objections.”
I looked at the old man calmly arranging my life. “I do.”
“Get over them!” he snapped.
“Are you terrorizing Bella again, Granda?” came Ian’s drawling voice from the doorway.
“Nothing can terrorize Bella,” Granda grumbled. “Tell her she has to marry Marcus next week.”
Ian strolled into the room, looking snarky and bad-tempered, his rough work clothes a far cry from Marcus’s pale linen. It was only natural that I liked a man who actually did something, not Eurotrash...
“I won’t tell her any such thing. She’ll marry my brother when she’s ready to—you’ve bullied her enough already.”
Granda looked affronted. “Me, a bully? If anyone’s a bully it’s Bella, taunting me with my fondest dreams and then holding out.”
“Too bad, old man. I’m on Bella’s side on this one. I don’t think she and Marcus are the perfect match you do. Give them some time to make sure they’ll do well together.”
“I don’t care if they do well together!” Granda’s voice was rising in both pitch and volume. “I want my inheritance secured. I didn’t work all my life just to lose everything.”
“You’ll be dead,” Ian said heartlessly. “You’ll have lost everything already. You can’t take it with you, remember?”
“My legacy...”
“I’ll be here. The olive groves will continue.”
“Then why don’t you marry Bella? I swear I think you’re the better match.”
“She turned me down,” he said lightly, glancing over at me. “Didn’t you, my pet?”
I controlled my instinctive glower. “If you don’t leave me alone, I won’t marry anyone.”
“Not even your gangster boyfriend?”
“What gangster boyfriend?” Ian demanded, amused. “How did I miss this?”
