She shouldn’t have.
If she hadn’t, she would have missed what Isabella Austin Evangelista did.
See, Prentice brought up her bags and she thanked him graciously while he completely ignored her (this had made Fiona smile).
Then Isabella had taken off her suit jacket and Fiona had been supremely happy she hadn’t done it in front of Prentice for the shirt underneath might have had a high neck but it also had no sleeves and it was sexy as all hell.
Then she made the bed and carefully unpacked as if all her precious belongings should be placed in a high security vault, not the lowly (but beautiful) guest suite that Prentice had designed for their home.
She’d placed four leather bound volumes next to the bed, arranging them amongst her plethora of expensive night creams and eye creams and even (Fiona narrowed her eyes to get a look at the tiny, squirty bottle) aromatherapy (for God’s sake, aromatherapy?).
She’d showered which Fiona absented herself for and spent some time with her wee ones.
By the time she came back, Isabella had changed into a nightgown that Fiona was really, really, really glad Prentice didn’t see because he wasn’t just an ass man he was very visual and he liked sexy underwear and sexy nighties and that was the sexiest one Fiona had ever seen.
She was writing in her journal but closed it after carefully putting a velvet ribbon in the page and setting it just so on top of the others.
Then she went to the luggage she’d stored tidily in the wardrobe.
She dragged out and opened the biggest bag and got down beside it. Sitting with her legs folded under her, she pulled out the lining and dug in the side, a secret compartment she’d obviously made herself.
Then she unveiled a silver double frame that was folded in on itself.
Fiona floated over her while she opened it then floated back several feet when she saw what was in it.
On one side was a photo of Isabella and Prentice together, he was swinging her up in his arms, she had her arms around his neck, her head thrown back, his head was tilted to look down at her and they were both laughing. On the other side was just a photo of Prentice, close up, much younger and, as ever, deliciously handsome.
He was looking at the camera in a way that was familiar to Fiona. It was because his face was soft and warm and infinitely loving.
It was then Isabella Austin Evangelista did the thing Fiona wished she’d never, never, never seen her do.
After touching Prentice’s face lovingly with just the tip of one finger, she opened the frames, slowly sliding out the photos. Then she tossed the frame back in the bag and replaced the bag in the wardrobe.
Then she walked to the bathroom.
Standing over the toilet, while Fiona stared in horror, she ripped up the photos and tossed them in.
But she wasn’t done.
Pulling a very thin, delicate, gold chain from her neck, it was freed from the bodice of her nightgown and Fiona saw it held a diamond engagement ring.
Tears falling completely silently down her beautiful face, Isabella Austin Evangelista tossed the engagement ring Prentice gave her twenty years ago in the toilet. A ring Fiona knew because of the photos, and the tears, had been hanging around her neck for every one of those twenty years.
Isabella stared in the toilet for what seemed like forever.
And Fiona stared at Isabella as the tears rolled down Isabella’s face, her neck, down her chest, wetting her gown.
So many tears.
God, she didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone cry that many tears, especially not silently.
Then Isabella leaned toward the handle and Fiona found herself trying (and failing) to shout, Don’t do it!
Isabella flushed.
Then she walked out of the room.
Fiona hovered over the toilet and looked down it hoping for the first time that Prentice’s excellent plumbing would be faulty.
It wasn’t.
Fiona floated back into the bedroom. It was dark, Isabella motionless in bed, her eyes closed but with her super keen, supernatural senses, Fiona saw that her hands were clenched so tightly they were mottled red but white at the joints.
Fiona watched Isabella a long time, not knowing what she was feeling but thinking something pretty colossal had changed in the way she thought about Isabella Austin Evangelista.
She only knew it had changed when Isabella finally fell asleep, her hands relaxed to open and Fiona saw the deep grooves that her fingernails had made in her palms.
It wasn’t even the new, angry, purple grooves.
It was the overabundance of white, fingernail-shaped scars that surrounded them.
Chapter Three
Ginger Snaps
Isabella
Isabella sat next to Prentice the next morning as he drove them toward Fergus’s home after they’d dropped the children off at school.
She had carefully missed the pre-school preparations, although she heard them because she’d opened her door so she could. Mostly Sally’s ceaseless chatter but also Jason’s low mumbles and Prentice’s deep rumbly commands. It sounded manic but fun.
She’d come down at what she’d hoped was the last minute (and she’d been correct) and did her best to be cool and detached from Sally and failed miserably. She couldn’t be cool and detached from the sweet, high-spirited, brown-eyed, brown-haired girl who looked startlingly like Fiona, a fact which had to be both heartbreaking and easing for Prentice.
Then she’d asked for a ride to Fergus’s to which Prentice agreed.
While on their way to school, Sally asked approximately one thousand questions about what “Mrs. Evangahlala” was making for dinner that night give or take a question or two. Then she’d stood at Isabella’s door of Prentice’s Range Rover, slapping it and waving madly until Isabella smiled and waved back. Only then did she turn and run toward the school.
Now, Isabella had her hands clenched tightly in fists, feeling the calming pain, her eyes looking out the window.
“This is the last time you’ll have to do this. I’ve a rental car being delivered today,” she told him.
“Aye,” he replied shortly.
Isabella forged ahead in her attempt to be polite. “I know Annie has a goodly number of guests coming this week but I’ll call around to some B&Bs and –”
He cut her off, “I wouldn’t do that.”
Isabella persevered, “Maybe there’s a cancellation or –”
Without taking his eyes from the road, he interrupted her again, “Don’t do it, Isabella.”
She found this vaguely surprising. He’d made it perfectly clear he didn’t want her in his home. He’d made it infinitely clear he didn’t want her around his children. Why wouldn’t he want her to find alternate accommodation?
“It’s no bother,” she went on. “They have cancellations all the time, I’m sure something will come up.
He glanced swiftly at her then back to the road. “Likely, aye.”
“So, I’ll make some calls.”
“No, you won’t.”
She turned and looked at him.
Age, she thought, had not been kind to him.
It had been generous.
How he could be more beautiful now than when they’d been together when she thought he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen (because he was) was a cruel twist of fate.
He still wore his thick hair (which she described to her girlfriends at Northwestern as “exactly two shades lighter than the darkest, dark brown”) a little long. Sun and laughter had given him attractive lines radiating from the sides of his eyes. His jaw had lost none of its sharp angularity, nor had his cheekbones. His eyes were the same unusually beautiful every-color as they’d always been. Even his body had become better; he was bigger, more muscular, more powerfully-built.