Chapter 15
Islammed into wakefulness, blinking in the darkened room. Something was very wrong. There were noises, footsteps racing along the corridors, and I quickly pulled on the silk robe over my utilitarian boxers and T-shirt, tying it as I pushed open the heavy door. There was no one in sight, but I could hear people talking excitedly, and all my instincts were firing on ten.
I caught Maldonado as he was rushing toward the stairs. “What’s wrong? Is Granda all right?”
He barely paused. “Your grandfather has had a stroke,” he said abruptly. “The doctor should be here by now.” He pulled away, scurrying off without a backward glance, and I didn’t hesitate, racing up the broad flight of stairs to Granda’s room.
All the lights were blazing, and I remembered how he hadn’t liked the bright lights. I saw him lying flat in the bed, struggling for breath, an oxygen cannula doing little to improve his gray color, and his nurse was busy taking his blood pressure, a worried expression on her usually placid face. Mary Alice was nattering on about how he should be in a facility, with Valerie piping up her agreement at regular intervals, all the while Marcus made soothing noises. Only Ian was silent, standing a little apart from the other grandchildren, a stark expression on his face. For some reason, I wanted to go to him, but I stayed where I was, just inside the door, as the doctor rushed through, followed by Maldonado.
“I need the room cleared,” he announced in sharp Spanish.
“I don’t see why I should have to!” Mary Alice announced. “He’s my grandfather and I want to be with him...”
“He’s my grandfather too,” Marcus said with just a trace of petulance.
“Mary Alice, dear,” Valerie began in a vain effort to soothe things.
“Get out!” Ian said in a tight voice, turning away. “He doesn’t need you vultures hanging over him.” He appeared to be including his own brother, which surprised me, and Marcus flushed at the reprimand even as Ian headed toward the door, when a muffled sound came from the bed.
“He’s trying to say something,” Mary Alice pointed out unnecessarily. “We’re not leaving until...”
The doctor had bent close to Granda’s pale, crackled lips. “Who’s Kitty?” he turned to ask.
It gave me no joy that the name seemed to infect the room with temporary paralysis. “Kitty’s not here,” Marcus said finally. “I need to explain...”
The doctor was leaning down again, and then his gaze fell on me. “He says he wants Bella then.”
“Of course he wants Bella,” Mary Alice sneered. “I, for one, am not about to sit around while she makes a play for his money...”
“The will has already been notarized,” Ian snapped. “It was sent off yesterday morning. He’s not likely to change it at this point, though if he wanted to, it’s his every right. Now get the hell out of here and leave the old man in peace.”
“What about you?” Mary Alice sniped, stress stripping her of her usual sang-froid.
“I’m going too. He wants to talk to Bella, and none of us are standing in his way.” It was a warning, even a threat, and no one seemed inclined to argue. With a low rumble of complaint, they filed out of the room, leaving me behind, feeling awash with guilt and misery. I wanted to run away too, rather than lie to the old man who still meant so much to me.
But with one cold, final glance at me, Ian shut the door behind them, and I slowly approached the bed.
“Be quick about it,” Dr. Madhur said. “We have to try and stabilize him, and he needs calm and peace.”
“I can come back...” I said, about to move away, when Granda’s pale hand reached out and caught mine in a weak grip. His eyes were open, and he was staring at me, for all the world like he knew who I really was.
“Kitty...” he wheezed, the sound barely audible, and once more I cursed the lies I’d agreed to tell.
“I’m Bella, Granda,” I said, hating myself.
He shook his head, whether in negation or as a response to the nurse hooking up a new IV solution. “You must...marry...him...” This time it was a whisper.
Marry him? Was he talking to Bella, or to Kitty? It had to be Bella and the supposed engagement. After all, who was Kitty supposed to marry? “Don’t try to speak, Granda,” I said soothingly. “Just let the doctor take care of you...”
His grip tightened on my hand. “Kitty,” he said again, and my heart sank. “Don’t...worry. I did it on purpose.” Or at least, that was what it sounded like.
“What did you do, Granda?” I said desperately. “And I’m Bella, not Kitty.” More and more lies, hot tears stinging my eyes.
“Kitty,” he said with the softest of sighs, and his faded blue eyes closed. Before I could ask another question, they’d snapped an oxygen mask over his mouth, and I was being tugged away from the bedside by the nurse.
“We need to let the doctor work,” she said. “He’s the only one who can help him now. The doctor and God Himself.” She was leading me toward the door, inexorably, and I could hardly put up a fight. I could see as well as anyone that Granda was unconscious, and tonight there’d be no more confused, tumbled words.
And then I was alone in the hallway, the door shut firmly behind me, and I wanted to beat my fists on it in rage and misery. What had he been trying to tell me? But he should know I was Bella! Unless the stroke had managed to confuse him into thinking I was plain old Podge, miraculously transported back...
“What did he say to you?”
I didn’t jump. I hadn’t seen him, but I’d somehow known he’d be there, waiting for me.
“He thought I was Kitty,” I said in a raw voice. For some reason, I didn’t want him to see the hot tears that were ready to spill over. He’d already seen me vulnerable, and I couldn’t bear his pity, not as I mourned a man I wasn’t allowed to claim any longer.
“He’s a tough old buzzard.” There was no kindness in Ian’s voice, but no harshness either. “He’ll pull through this. He’s made it through worse.”
“I don’t think so,” I said with a muted hiccup. I was not going to cry in front of him.
“Don’t look so bereft, Bella-Beast. It’s not as if you really cared about him. You’re about to come into a hefty bit of money—we all are. No need to be hypocritical about it.”
“Go to hell, Ian!” I snapped. “Who the hell are you to tell me who I do and don’t care about?”
“Because you don’t care about anyone but yourself, not when it comes right down to it. You’re a sociopath, a classic one, and crocodile tears aren’t going to convince me otherwise.” He tilted his head, surveying me. “Of course, you may end up with nothing at all. I don’t know if Granda was as enchanted by your little girl act as my brother is. He’s old enough to know better.”
I closed my eyes, trying to close him out. “Is money all you think about? I really don’t care if he’s left me anything. If he has, I’ll turn it over to you and the farm. I don’t want it.”
I’d managed to startle him. “Why the hell would you do that? You know you hate this place.”
There was no way Bella could hate Mariposa—no way anybody could not love the beautiful old house and the surrounding land, even someone as sophisticated as Bella with her jet-setting ways. But I could hardly protest—Bella hadn’t been back here in five years. What would Bella do? Whatever it was, I didn’t want to do it.
“Just leave me alone, Ian,” I said wearily. “You can believe any damned thing you want, as long as you leave me alone.” He was standing between me and the stairs, and there was no way I could get back to my room without passing him, coming too close to him, when that was the last thing I wanted.
He didn’t move, and the moment of silence stretched between us. And then he spoke. “Maybe you do care about the old man after all.”
“And maybe I don’t give a shit what you think. I’m tired and I want to go to bed.” There was no reason those words should sound so loaded—he despised me, and right then, I was on my way to a healthy dislike in return.
He started to say something, then bit it back. “Granda’s not going anywhere,” he said finally. “Get some sleep.”
I walked past him, cool and elegant as the doppelganger inside my head, when he reached out and caught my arm. His skin was cool against my heated flesh, and I had a sudden flash of what it would be like, all that cool, beautiful skin pressed against mine. On top of me, pressing me down into the bed.
I froze, staring at him in the murky light of the hallway, and he stared back, neither of us saying a word. I could lean toward him, take a small step in his direction, and I knew where it would end. Where everything with Ian had been leading since I stepped off the plane, where everything had been leading since I was Podge and he was unexpectedly kind to me.
He wasn’t kind now. And sleeping with him wouldn’t fix anything but scratch an unexpectedly powerful itch. I wasn’t going to go there, no matter how much I wanted to, and that need was more powerful than anything I could remember feeling.
“Take your hands off of me,” I said in a low voice.
If anything, his grip tightened, and we stared at each other. I don’t know who moved first—I had the depressing thought that it was me. I went into his arms, and they closed around me, firm and tight, and all I could feel was his strength, his warmth, the very solidness of his existence as his strength flowed into me.
We stayed that way for a long time, neither of us saying a word. I know I was shaking, but his warmth enveloped me, and I felt like...like I had come home.
“What the fuck is going on?” Marcus’s wrathful voice broke through my momentary daze, and I tried to tear myself away. Ian wasn’t letting me go. In fact, he turned so that my back faced his brother, and he pressed my face against his shoulder.
“Comfort,” he said briefly, but his hold was inexorable, and I didn’t really want to break free.
“Find someone else to comfort!” Marcus snarled, and I finally broke free enough to look at him. As far as I could remember, Marcus and Ian had never fought. And now they were fighting over me?
Over Bella, I reminded myself. Always Bella. “Enough,” I said sharply. “Don’t be an asshole, Marcus.”
“I don’t want anyone groping my fiancée,” he said sulkily, his anger vanishing. “Not even my brother.”
“I’m not your fiancée,” I said. “It’s a sham to make Granda happy. We’re not really getting married.”
To my amazement, Marcus’s dark, sulky expression vanished, as if it had never been there. “Of course not,” he said cheerfully enough. “Sorry about that—I just got all caveman all of a sudden.”
Ian was watching him with an odd expression on his face, and I was still standing too close to him. I wanted to move closer. The silence between them grew uncomfortable, and I finally broke it with a Bella-like laugh. “All’s forgiven,” I said lightly.
“Go to bed, Bella,” Ian growled, still watching his brother.
Marcus smiled winningly. “Yes, that’s a good idea. I know Granda will be right as rain tomorrow morning and...”
“One doesn’t recover from a stroke overnight.” Ian’s voice was low and withering.
Were they still quarreling over Bella? I’d best get my lying ass out of the way so they could work things out. “Good night,” I said, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ian lift his hand to stop me, then drop it again.
I was out of there a moment later, and my temporarily happy mood vanished as if I’d been slapped in the face. Granda was truly dying, and there was nothing I could do about it, and it gutted me.
I managed to keep calm until I made it safely inside the Queen’s Room, when everything erupted. My grief, my guilt, my fears, washed over me as I cried. I had to be the world’s biggest idiot. I despised Ian, and yet I’d wanted nothing more than to have him wrap his arms around me and hold me. I was confused, obnoxiously needy, filled with a clawing sense of loss, and my misery served me right. I rubbed at my eyes, trying to push the steady stream of tears away. The salt would bleach my eyelashes, making Bella’s makeup even more difficult, and I would have to...
I froze in sudden horror. I was rubbing my eyes. My eyes with no colored contacts in them—I’d taken them out when I’d gone to bed. I’d seen everyone with my hazel eyes, not Bella’s vibrant green ones.
Had Ian noticed? No, he couldn’t have! The room and the hallway had been dark, shadowed, and our angry conversation hadn’t allowed time for him to look soulfully into my borrowed eyes. He had far too much on his mind to notice such a slight anomaly, and besides, there’d been nothing strange in the way he looked at me, not even when he caught me and pulled me into his arms.
I couldn’t afford to make mistakes like that. Despite what Granda had said, Kitty wasn’t welcome here. She wasn’t one of the heirs, she wasn’t even a member of the family anymore. All the cousins, from Marcus to quiet Valerie, had more of a right to be here.
At least I’d stopped crying. I hurriedly splashed water into my face, blinking back at my reflection in the mirror. My hazel eyes were almost green—surely no one would have noticed. People didn’t really pay attention to eye color, apart from romance novels. I was safe.
Safe from what? I’d been trying to leave Mariposa ever since I got here. If I simply told Ian the truth, I’d be out on my ass in no time, off on my magical week in Paris, and the cousins could deal with it. Bella wouldn’t fare too well if our subterfuge got out, but I was past the point of caring. Bella was a far cry from the warm-hearted cousin I’d so foolishly believed in, and she deserved to pick up the pieces of our shattered masquerade.
There was only one problem with my plan. I didn’t want to leave Granda. Even in his confused state, he’d known that one of his granddaughters was there, and it would shatter him to know we’d been lying, tricking a dying man. I couldn’t walk away from him, even if it was the honorable thing to do. Honor had taken a hike long ago, and all I could hold onto was my hopeless love for the old man. The moment he was gone, I’d be off, with Ian booting my ass out the door.
And what did that mean about Ian? He’d kissed me, and I still couldn’t figure out why. Why had he hauled me onto his lap, why had he kissed my panic away, leaving me dazed and longing for something I could never have?
It was all too much. Wiping away the last of my tears, I headed back into the bathroom, turning on the shower and stepping beneath it with no regard for Bella’s pre-Raphaelite curls. I stood there beneath the pounding water and let it wash everything away—my grief, my guilt, my confusion, and when I finally had enough, I simply walked over to my bed and lay down, letting the sheets dry my body. The hair would fix itself once it dried—the perm had been worth every cent of the fortune Bella had paid. I would deal with it in the morning. In the meantime, I was going to sleep if it killed me.
At half past five, I was awake, and not going to sleep again. Not with the memory of Granda lying there, so still and gray. Climbing out of bed, I dressed quickly, popping the colored contacts into my still swollen eyes. I had no expectations of seeing anyone at this hour, but I wasn’t taking any more chances.
The door was shut to Granda’s room, and there was no noise coming from behind it. He was dead, I knew it. I froze with my hand on the doorknob, and then heard the reassuring sound of the ventilator pumping oxygen into him. Pushing open the door, I could see him in a small pool of light, still and silent as the machines breathed for him.
I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me. There was no sign of the nurse or doctor, which meant he had to be relatively stable. Grabbing a large, overstuffed chair, I dragged it to the bedside, the legs screeching against the highly polished wooden floors. I curled up into it, taking Granda’s limp hand in mine, and closed my eyes. If he was going to die, I was going to make damned sure he didn’t die alone.
Some small sound must have woken me. My eyes shot open, and I could see the early light of dawn begin to peep from behind the curtains. Granda hadn’t moved, but if anything, he looked worse, with a gray-blue tinge to his crepey skin, and even though I’d slept, I still held his hand.
Another noise, and I jerked my head around to see Ian at the foot of the bed, lounging in one of the straight-backed chairs, and I braced myself for some snarky comment. He would hardly miss the chance to infuriate me.
But instead, he simply nodded, as if acknowledging our unexpectedly joint vigil, and I leaned back in my chair, trying to ignore the warm feeling that flooded me. Ian and I were enemies, there was no doubt about that. But we were united in our love for this old man, and a grief that we could no longer halt the passage of time. Granda would be gone soon, and there was nothing either of us could do about it.