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Were they still quarreling over Bella? I’d best get my lying ass out of the way so they could work things out. “Good night,” I said, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ian lift his hand to stop me, then drop it again.
I was out of there a moment later, and my temporarily happy mood vanished as if I’d been slapped in the face. Granda was truly dying, and there was nothing I could do about it, and it gutted me.
I managed to keep calm until I made it safely inside the Queen’s Room, when everything erupted. My grief, my guilt, my fears, washed over me as I cried. I had to be the world’s biggest idiot. I despised Ian, and yet I’d wanted nothing more than to have him wrap his arms around me and hold me. I was confused, obnoxiously needy, filled with a clawing sense of loss, and my misery served me right. I rubbed at my eyes, trying to push the steady stream of tears away. The salt would bleach my eyelashes, making Bella’s makeup even more difficult, and I would have to...
I froze in sudden horror. I was rubbing my eyes. My eyes with no colored contacts in them—I’d taken them out when I’d gone to bed. I’d seen everyone with my hazel eyes, not Bella’s vibrant green ones.
Had Ian noticed? No, he couldn’t have! The room and the hallway had been dark, shadowed, and our angry conversation hadn’t allowed time for him to look soulfully into my borrowed eyes. He had far too much on his mind to notice such a slight anomaly, and besides, there’d been nothing strange in the way he looked at me, not even when he caught me and pulled me into his arms.
I couldn’t afford to make mistakes like that. Despite what Granda had said, Kitty wasn’t welcome here. She wasn’t one of the heirs, she wasn’t even a member of the family anymore. All the cousins, from Marcus to quiet Valerie, had more of a right to be here.
At least I’d stopped crying. I hurriedly splashed water into my face, blinking back at my reflection in the mirror. My hazel eyes were almost green—surely no one would have noticed. People didn’t really pay attention to eye color, apart from romance novels. I was safe.
Safe from what? I’d been trying to leave Mariposa ever since I got here. If I simply told Ian the truth, I’d be out on my ass in no time, off on my magical week in Paris, and the cousins could deal with it. Bella wouldn’t fare too well if our subterfuge got out, but I was past the point of caring. Bella was a far cry from the warm-hearted cousin I’d so foolishly believed in, and she deserved to pick up the pieces of our shattered masquerade.
There was only one problem with my plan. I didn’t want to leave Granda. Even in his confused state, he’d known that one of his granddaughters was there, and it would shatter him to know we’d been lying, tricking a dying man. I couldn’t walk away from him, even if it was the honorable thing to do. Honor had taken a hike long ago, and all I could hold onto was my hopeless love for the old man. The moment he was gone, I’d be off, with Ian booting my ass out the door.
And what did that mean about Ian? He’d kissed me, and I still couldn’t figure out why. Why had he hauled me onto his lap, why had he kissed my panic away, leaving me dazed and longing for something I could never have?
It was all too much. Wiping away the last of my tears, I headed back into the bathroom, turning on the shower and stepping beneath it with no regard for Bella’s pre-Raphaelite curls. I stood there beneath the pounding water and let it wash everything away—my grief, my guilt, my confusion, and when I finally had enough, I simply walked over to my bed and lay down, letting the sheets dry my body. The hair would fix itself once it dried—the perm had been worth every cent of the fortune Bella had paid. I would deal with it in the morning. In the meantime, I was going to sleep if it killed me.
At half past five, I was awake, and not going to sleep again. Not with the memory of Granda lying there, so still and gray. Climbing out of bed, I dressed quickly, popping the colored contacts into my still swollen eyes. I had no expectations of seeing anyone at this hour, but I wasn’t taking any more chances.
The door was shut to Granda’s room, and there was no noise coming from behind it. He was dead, I knew it. I froze with my hand on the doorknob, and then heard the reassuring sound of the ventilator pumping oxygen into him. Pushing open the door, I could see him in a small pool of light, still and silent as the machines breathed for him.
I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me. There was no sign of the nurse or doctor, which meant he had to be relatively stable. Grabbing a large, overstuffed chair, I dragged it to the bedside, the legs screeching against the highly polished wooden floors. I curled up into it, taking Granda’s limp hand in mine, and closed my eyes. If he was going to die, I was going to make damned sure he didn’t die alone.
Some small sound must have woken me. My eyes shot open, and I could see the early light of dawn begin to peep from behind the curtains. Granda hadn’t moved, but if anything, he looked worse, with a gray-blue tinge to his crepey skin, and even though I’d slept, I still held his hand.
Another noise, and I jerked my head around to see Ian at the foot of the bed, lounging in one of the straight-backed chairs, and I braced myself for some snarky comment. He would hardly miss the chance to infuriate me.
But instead, he simply nodded, as if acknowledging our unexpectedly joint vigil, and I leaned back in my chair, trying to ignore the warm feeling that flooded me. Ian and I were enemies, there was no doubt about that. But we were united in our love for this old man, and a grief that we could no longer halt the passage of time. Granda would be gone soon, and there was nothing either of us could do about it.
Chapter Sixteen
I would have been grateful the nurse didn’t toss us out of the sick room a few hours later if it weren’t for the fact that our presence would make no difference. The grief was like a leaden weight inside me, as my own breathing matched his machine-assisted respiration, and I wanted to weep, I wanted to fight; I wanted to do something, anything to keep this from happening.
Instead, I sat, dry-eyed, silent, still holding his limp hand, hoping that he somehow knew I was there.
Ian had disappeared when the nurse returned, and I told myself I preferred it that way. This was between me and Granda, the real me, not the tarted-up parody of Bella. This was Kitty, who’d always adored him, even when he betrayed her and let her go.
What had he said to me earlier? He’d called me Kitty, but that was simply because of his confusion. He knew perfectly well that Kitty wasn’t anywhere around, that it was Bella by his side.
And yet the look in his eyes wasn’t the look he gave Bella. When he looked at Bella, his gaze was fond and indulgent and just the slightest bit wary...why did I just realize that? When he looked at Kitty, there was nothing but love.
Or had been, until my mother had dragged me away from this place and he’d written me off. I’d hoped to use Bella as a conduit back to him, but she’d explained in the most reluctant of voices that he didn’t want to see me. That I’d left and was no longer part of Mariposa.
He was a proud old man, and I’d listened to my mother rather than to him, not that I had any choice. It was perfectly conceivable that he’d hold a grudge.
But there’d been no grudge when he’d asked where Kitty was. And the warmth in his eyes hadn’t been for Bella...
Who the hell was I kidding? Of course it had been for Bella—who else would he have thought would be by his side with pre-Raphaelite curls and designer clothes?
I needed to make my peace with him. I needed him to wake up just long enough for me to tell him who I was, to apologize for tricking him, to tell him I loved him.
But Granda, who’d towered over me my entire life, seemed to be shrinking in the big bed, drawing in on himself, and I knew he was going to go without my confession. Probably better for him anyway.
“I love you, Granda,” I whispered, holding his hand. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”
