She remembered a great deal about him (in fact, pretty much everything) but she’d never seen him angry (well, not this angry). She didn’t know what to say, she didn’t even know if she could speak.
Then she remembered what to say.
“So I can leave you to dinner and get to my rooms.”
His head gave a small jerk and he looked over her shoulder, probably, she decided, to gain control.
Then his eyes met hers.
“Their mother died of a brain tumor,” he told her and it sounded like those words were dredged straight out of the depth of some hole inside of him that was too deep to measure.
“I know,” Isabella whispered. “Annie told me.”
“It started with headaches.”
Isabella automatically made a noise as if someone very strong had pressed the breath right out of her lungs.
She was going to cry.
She was going to cry.
Oh no.
No, no, no no, no!
She couldn’t cry!
Her hands fisted, the key bit into her palm, the pain shot through her and she didn’t cry.
Instead, she said, “I’m an idiot.”
He turned away, putting one of his hands back to the steering wheel, the other to the clutch.
“I’ll come up with something else, I promise,” she blathered on.
Only his head turned so he could look at her.
“Food poisoning!” she cried, sounding both stupid and desperate.
“I’m not sure food poisoning is good, Isabella, considering you’ll be cooking.”
Yes, stupid.
Yes, an idiot.
Yes, desperate.
Triple threat!
“Oh, right,” Isabella muttered but he’d already turned back away.
Isabella opened her door, promising again (under her breath this time), “Well, I’ll think of something.”
She barely got the door closed when he drove away.
She stood in the drive watching his SUV thinking she hated pretty much everything about her life, but the thing she hated most at that particular moment was hearing Prentice address her as “Isabella”.
Then she turned and walked up to Fergus’s house.