“I think –” Fergus started, his voice sounding weirdly strangled.
Annie cut him off. “Dad, I told you about this.”
“It’s okay, Mr. McFadden,” Isabella had leapt to her father’s defense. “Honestly. He just a little –”
“Don’t say another word, Bella,” Fergus clipped and Isabella’s mouth snapped shut, mainly because he hadn’t called her “Bella” since that last summer (and no one called her “Elle” except Prentice, not in her life and she loved it when he called her that too). “Not another word.” Fergus’s eyes went to where they last saw her father, he muttered, “Christ,” under his breath and then he ushered the two women in, his arms protectively held around both of them.
As humiliating as that scene had been, Isabella was glad that Fergus didn’t hate her anymore. She’d always liked him a good deal. He was lovely, a wonderful man, a doting father, something, at least from afar, Isabella could definitely appreciate.
She was also glad he’d won his battle over cancer.
And lastly, she would be happy to see him again.
At least there was one thing to look forward to.
“Look at that house!” Mikey cried from beside her, craning his neck and moving around in the backseat, trying to get a look at the house as they rode at a crawl next to it. “It’s something out of a movie!”
“Or a modern day fairytale,” Isabella teased, Mikey looked at her and smiled a beautiful, gleaming, happy smile.
She smiled back but it felt funny on her face.
With great exuberance, Mikey vaulted out of his door.
Isabella took a deep breath and, with far less enthusiasm (in fact, none at all), she exited hers.
* * * * *
Fiona
Prentice Cameron stood staring out the window at the sleek limousine, watching as the effeminate man bounded out one side and continuing to watch as the beautiful, elegant woman sedately exited the other.
If Fiona Cameron had breath, she would be holding it.
She stood, ghost-like (because she was a ghost) and invisible, behind her husband and watched over his broad shoulder as his first love nodded at the driver regally then looked up at the house, her stunning face blank and cold.
God, Fiona hated her.
Years ago, Prentice had caught Fiona studying a picture of Isabella Austin Evangelista in a glossy magazine.
The picture was amazing.
She’d been wearing a dress that had to cost as much as Fiona’s entire wardrobe. She was walking, her gait wide, the slit up the front of her dress exposing thin, shapely legs, and she had on a pair of stylish, strappy, high-heeled shoes.
No one could walk in those dainty, death-defying shoes with grace except f**king Isabella Austin Evangelista. She could probably run in them, dance in them, play netball in them, the bitch.
In the photo, Isabella held a beaded clutch in one hand and the other hand was lifted, holding the thick fall of her (fake, fake, fake) streaked honey-and-white-blonde fringe to the side of her temple, her eyes to the ground.
Her cheeks shimmered. Her dark brows were arched perfectly (which had to be the work of what Fiona was certain was a top-notch brow-shaper person at a posh salon). And, lastly, her lips were glossed in a way that it looked like da Vinci himself had held the lip brush to her lips.
Fiona was so engrossed in the picture, she hadn’t heard Prentice approach and didn’t know he was there until she felt his lips at her neck.
“Doesn’t hold a candle to you,” he whispered in her ear.
Even as she felt a shiver at his words, she laughed and shook the picture in front of him, trying not to be embarrassed at being caught ogling his famous, beautiful ex in a magazine.
“Right.”
His eyes had moved to the photo for barely long enough to take it in before they came back to her.