“You’re not easy to forget.”
Isabella’s head tilted to the side as if genuinely perplexed.
“Really?” she asked quietly. “You could have fooled me.”
With that successful parting shot, she turned on her booted foot and walked away.
Prentice watched her go. Then he watched the empty hall. Then, as Fiona knew he’d do, he went to the study, got himself a whisky and went to the upstairs balcony to study the sea.
After some time, he went back to his study, refilled the glass and resumed his position on the balcony.
He left that glass on the railing beside the other one.
Chapter Six
Knight in Shining Armor
Isabella
Isabella sat in the car beside Mikey as he drove them back to Prentice’s house after they’d had the formal tea with Annie’s bridal party, select close, female friends and Mikey, Robert and Richard.
Today had not been as bad as yesterday mainly because there were very few villagers there (especially Hattie Fennick, who Isabella always thought kind of disliked her but then again, Hattie seemed to kind of dislike everyone) and Clarissa, Annie’s Mom, had finally arrived and she was another one of the few people on the planet who liked Isabella.
Also making the day not so bad was the fact that Isabella only saw Prentice for a very brief period of time.
She’d woken early, done the ironing, had the coffee brewed and was pouring herself a second cup by the time Prentice came downstairs wearing, by the by, a shirt that was very handsome on him but really needed to be ironed.
His beautiful eyes never left her as he moved directly to the coffeepot, saying, “Morning, Isabella.”
“I’m making the children breakfast,” she blurted in reply, rather impolitely and her voice didn’t sound soft and foggy like it did when she was on the anti-depressants but almost, to her own ears, defiant.
His attention turned away from the cupboard from which he was pulling a mug to her and his brows were up.
Then his face changed, she didn’t know how but it did.
“You are?” he asked quietly.
She instantly had second thoughts about defying Prentice Cameron. If yesterday was anything to go by, he could be moody and if the days before were anything to go by, he could be mean.
She didn’t reply, just held his stare.
Then he queried, “What are you making us?”
He said “us”. That word out of his mouth gave her a shiver up her spine.
Earlier, while she was ironing and psyching herself up to approach him about breakfast, she hadn’t thought forward to what she was actually going to make, just that she was going to demand the right to make it.
She made a quick decision and announced, “A fry up.”
He burst out laughing.
Isabella stared.
God, she forgot how handsome he was when he laughed. She thought she remembered but she sure as heck didn’t.
Or, maybe it was that he looked better now.
She hid her reaction to his laughter and calmly waited until he got over his bizarre hilarity.