His eyes swept her from top-to-toe and then they settled on her face, “Go get changed, Isabella. You’re in a family home in the wilds of Scotland, not about to step out with the glitterati.”
There it was again. The non-physical slap. She barely held back a flinch but she managed it.
“Of course,” she muttered, starting to turn to the door.
“It makes me wonder,” Prentice started conversationally, she turned back and saw his gaze was speculative.
“What makes you wonder?” she asked when he didn’t continue.
“This,” he replied nonsensically.
“What?”
“This desperate warning not to pay attention to your best friend. It makes me wonder what secrets you’re keeping.”
“I’m not keeping any secrets,” she replied softly and it wasn’t exactly a lie.
It was just that he lost the privilege to know her secrets twenty years ago when he walked out of Fergus’s living room and didn’t look back.
Prentice went on, “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll pay close attention to everything he says.”
As a matter of fact, she did mind.
Mikey could be considered certifiably insane on entire continents. No one knew what was going to come out of his mouth. That was why he was still single.
Furthermore, why would Prentice care?
“If you’ll open the doors, Isabella, I’d like to serve my guest his drink.”
With nothing else for it, she opened the doors and walked out beside Prentice.
“Thank God! My cocktail,” Mikey exclaimed.
Isabella gave him a look that would turn marble into sand but bounced off Mikey. She smiled weakly at Sally and Jason. She ignored Prentice completely. Then she turned on her spike-heeled pump and used everything she had to force herself to walk calmly down the hall and to the guest suite.
Once there, she dashed around like a crazed demon, yanking off her (very pretty, she thought, still, it was expensive but then practically everything she owned was expensive, she was rich, for God’s sake!) sapphire blue dress. She tugged off her matching sapphire blue suede pumps and pulled on a pair of jeans and a sage green, tunic style sweater. It had a boat neck and bell sleeves and was hand-knit from the finest wool by what could only be considered a craftsman. It was one of a kind and cost a mint.
It would have to do.
She snatched the bobby pins out of the complicated chignon she’d fashioned at her nape (she’d always been good with hair, it was one of her few true talents, even her father begrudgingly admitted that) and shook out her hair. Once she’d done that, she piled it up on her head in a messy knot and fastened it loosely with a ponytail holder.
She allowed herself a split second to look in the mirror to see if she was fit for spending the evening in “a family home in the wilds of Scotland”.
She decided she wasn’t but she took off out the door anyway.
When she hit the kitchen, Sally and Mikey were in it, Jason was seated at the counter and a quick glance showed that Prentice was on the phone in his study.
Maybe her luck had changed.
“We’ve decided to call you Miss Bella!” Sally shrieked from her place on the stool at the counter, tea towels already wrapped around her.
“Have you, now?” Isabella muttered, entering the kitchen to see the groceries unpacked, the peas were at the boil and the water for the noodles was already at a flame on the stove.
At least Mikey had some uses.
“Mister Mikey says I can help,” Sally announced.
Isabella gave her a smile and started to get busy. “That you can, sweetheart. Your choice, you can do the crunchy bit or the smushy bit.”