Chapter 20
Ifroze in his arms. And then I shoved him, and he rolled off me, on to his side, perfectly at ease with the bombshell he’d just dropped on me. “For how long?” My voice was accusatory.
“Since you got off the airplane. I tend to remember the women I sleep with, and you weren’t Bella. I just couldn’t figure out why.”
“But why did you treat me like I was Bella?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“I don’t like liars.”
It was hardly promising, and I felt the familiar shame wash over me. “I just wanted to see Granda before he died,” I said quietly. “It was my fault—I never should have listened to her.”
“You’re right. She’s a treacherous bitch. But why didn’t you come all those other years when Granda asked for you?”
“He never did,” I said miserably. “He told me he never wanted to see me again.”
“He asked Bella to bring you back for the last ten years, and you’ve always refused.”
“I never...” I let my voice trail off.
“She never told you, did she? I’m surprised Granda trusted her, but then, the old man always had a soft spot for the two of you.”
This was making no sense. Everything I’d believed in, known to be true, was shattering around me, and I struggled to sit up in the bed, my sundress down around my waist. I quickly started to yank it up when his hands stopped me. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked lazily.
“I don’t know. I need time to think...”
“You can think in bed,” he said as he deftly did away with the rest of the tiny buttons that held the skimpy dress together. “You’re staying here.”
“And if I don’t want to?” I shot back. He wasn’t the enemy, I was. So why was I being so hostile?
He smiled at me, a lazy smile that made my stomach knot in longing, and then he leaned over and kissed me, slowly, thoroughly, scattering my desperate attempt to make sense of all this. “You don’t want to go anywhere, do you?” he whispered, nipping at my lower lip.
“No,” I said in a very small voice.
He knew. He’d always known. I felt foolish, raw, exposed, but he took my hands and placed them on his strong shoulders. “We can talk about this later.”
“You should leave,” I said instead.
“You should stay,” he said, mimicking my tone of voice. “We’ve barely begun.”
“I finished,” I said flatly. “And so did you.”
He shook his head, that lazy smile of his totally demoralizing me. “We’re far from finished, Kitty. I don’t know if we ever will be.”
It had been so long since I’d heard that name in his rich, gorgeous voice. It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it was something, and he was tugging me back into his arms, and I was going, unable to resist him, and there were no more words.
When I awoke,I was alone, a small mercy. I felt...so many things. Exhausted, confused, angry. And though he hadn’t said the words, loved.
He had touched me in ways I’d never been touched, coaxed me into doing things I’d never considered, and every time I was ready for sleep, he would touch me and I roared to life again. The ugly truth was inescapable. My childhood passion for Marcus’s big muscles and dashing smile was exactly that, the passion of a child. Ian’s drugging, deeply erotic actions of the night before had stripped me down to nothingness, externally and internally, and all I could think of was him.
In the daylight, the other side of my bed was empty—and I realized with shock it was after eleven. I didn’t ask myself how I’d managed to sleep for so long. Given the things he had done to me, the things we had done together, it was amazing I was thinking clearly at all. I grabbed the sundress I’d left on the bathroom door and pulled it over my head, and despite the fact that we’d taken a long, depraved shower together, I still needed another one. But before I planned to do anything else, I had to find Ian. I intended to sneak down the back stairs and confront him. He’d never said a word to me last night, apart from slow coaxing, and I needed to know what he was going to do. Tell everyone? Profess his dying love, or hatred for that matter? No, he didn’t hate me. I would be an idiot to think so. I just needed him to set my mind at ease, and then I’d disappear back into my bedroom. Where I might just strip down and roll in my rumpled sheets, remembering.
I was practically tiptoeing down the massive stone staircase when I heard Marcus’s voice and swore beneath my breath,, whirling around to try to escape.
Too late. “Bella!” he called out, appearing in the doorway, his handsome face wreathed in smiles. “We’ve had the best surprise ever!”
I wasn’t keen on the idea of surprises, but I plastered an interested smile on my face. I swung around, hoping it looked as if I were just heading upstairs. “Oh, really? You can tell me about it when I come back down. I need a shower and...”
“Where have you been?” he demanded, his eyes narrowing, and I prayed to God I didn’t look guilty. Not that there was anything to feel guilty about.
“I got up early and went for a walk,” I lied.
“Next time, wear shoes,” he said, and came toward me. “Come and see her.”
“Her?” I echoed as he pulled me into the blue salon where the family was gathered. “Who...?”
“It’s Podge!” he announced cheerfully. “Just in time for Granda’s service.”
She was standing there, a sweet smile on her face, something very close to a smirk in her eyes. “Hi, Bella,” she drawled in my American accent. “It’s been too long.”
I didn’t move as she came forward and hugged me, her small hands hard and painful as she clutched me to her. “Get your shit together,” she hissed in my ear, and then took a step back, beaming at me. “You look wonderful, as always.”
It was more than I could say for her. She’d braided her long hair and tucked it into a bun, she wore no makeup, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that I’d never wear, and she’d either been eating nonstop in the time we’d been apart or she was wearing padding around her middle. This was her vision of Podge: plump, plain, bespectacled.
I was too numb to do anything more but smile faintly. “It’s good to see you, Kitty,” I said. “When did you get here?”
“Oh, hours ago! I shocked the hell out of Ian, but he recovered quickly enough. You didn’t tell me how handsome he is, Bella.”
Ian was nowhere in the room—just Marcus and the cousins and Maldonado. “I suppose so,” I said carefully. “Where is he?”
“Oh, he had to go out to deal with some paperwork, he said,” Marcus volunteered. “Probably dealing with that fool Fergell.”
“Fergell? Oh, the lawyer,” I said.
“Keep up with things,” Mary Alice snapped from her position on the lounge. “We’ve got a will to fix.”
I cast an immediate look at Bella, but she was smiling happily, like a nitwit. “Don’t worry, Mary Alice,” she said sweetly, and I suddenly remembered her name for her. Ian was Ian the Wretch, I was Podge, and Mary Alice was Malice. Valerie wasn’t enough of an entity for her to bother with a nickname. “I’m sure we’ll be able to clear everything up once I get back to the States.”
“Why wait till then?” Mary Alice snapped.
Bella turned to her, all dewy innocence. “My lawyer is there. Surely you don’t think I should do this without my lawyer.”
“Do what?” I demanded.
Bella smiled sweetly at me. “Make Granda’s will right. I have no idea why he left it all to me, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”
The letter I gave her should have explained at least part of it, I thought, but she was still looking at everybody like a halfwit, eager to please. Was that really how she saw me?
“As long as it’s fair,” Mary Alice said, and Valerie made agreeable sounds.
“Of course,” Bella said, and maybe it was only me who noticed that she hadn’t said she was giving up the money.
Why the hell had she decided to show up? How was she possibly going to convince everyone of her real identity when she returned, and what did she expect me to do?
“I’m tired,” I announced abruptly. “Kitty, why don’t you come upstairs with me so we can talk? We have a lot to catch up on.”
“Oh, Bella, I’d love to!” Her eyes were shining with delight, and it turned my stomach. Had I really been that needy? “But I really need a nap myself. Jet lag, you know. Can we talk later?”
I could hardly insist. “Whatever you need. I’m in the Queen’s Room when you’re up to visiting.”
Bella’s eyes narrowed. “Of course you are.” She let out a heartfelt sigh. “I always loved that room.”
“You should give it up to her,” Mary Alice said. “After all, for the time being, she owns the house and everything here.”
“Nonsense,” Bella said. “I couldn’t ask Bella to give up her bedroom.”
I gave her a tight smile. “Of course you couldn’t,” I said, deliberately not offering. The old Kitty, Podge, would have immediately offered to move out. I had no intention of doing so.
A strained silence filled the room, and then Bella shrugged. “Which room am I staying in?”
“Selene is making up the blue room on the third floor.” Maldonado spoke for the first time. “It should be ready by now.”
“Bring up my bags, will you?” she said carelessly, too much like the old Bella, but Maldonado’s face was inscrutable.
“I will!” Marcus said. “I want to get reacquainted with my long-lost cousin.”
He’d never had time for me before, and I wondered at his sudden friendliness. Not that I wanted to think badly of him, but the woman he thought of as Podge now controlled everything, at least for a while, and Marcus was a sensible man.
I headed upstairs after them, just as Mary Alice was launching into a diatribe about who should sleep in the Queen’s Room, but they were out of sight by the time I reached my hallway. For some reason I locked the door behind me.
An hour later, I was cleaned up, neatened up, made up, though I was sorely tempted to give up the Bella mask I’d been wearing. Now that she was here, the truth had to come out, and the sooner the better.
But clearly Ian hadn’t spilled the beans. I didn’t know whether that was a blessing or a curse.
The timid knock on the door didn’t fool me. Scrambling off the bed, I went to unlock it, to face my doppelganger. “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?” Bella said innocently. “I’ve been cooped up for too long.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted her to tell me exactly what the hell was going on, but for some reason, I didn’t want her in my coveted room.
“Okay,” I nodded. “Let me get some shoes.” I slipped on a pair of sandals. They were stylish and comfortable, but a disaster if I needed to run. What an odd thought! Why would I need to run?
We kept up a stream of meaningless chatter on the way downstairs. As far as I could tell, she’d left New England the same day I flew out of Logan, but I had no idea where she’d been. She waited until we were outside in the bright, sunny courtyard to berate me.
“What the hell were you doing, wandering in looking like you’d spent the night with a squadron of Russian soldiers?” she hissed. “I’ve got my reputation to consider.”
Considering that her reputation was better suited to Russian soldiers than mine was, I said nothing. “I went for a walk,” I said stubbornly, knowing there was no way to prove otherwise.
“Then why did you have that ‘thoroughly fucked’ look about you?” she demanded, her servile sweetness vanishing.
I had been. Quite thoroughly, quite gorgeously. Even if I didn’t know quite where I stood. “Your imagination,” I said briefly. “How did you get here?”
“Easy enough. I called the house and Marcus came down to fetch me in the town car.” She’d walked over to the Alfa that had sheltered me last night. “He should have brought this.” She turned to me, her face alight with enthusiasm. “Let’s go for a drive!”
“I can’t drive the thing. I don’t know how to drive stick.” For some reason, I didn’t want to get into that car with her.
“I can.”
“Bella never let anyone drive her car,” I pointed out. “Make Marcus take you out.”
“But I want to talk to you.” She opened the driver side door and looked in, a satisfied expression on her face. “Come on!”
“What are you trying to do, Bella?” I demanded, staying a good distance away. “Why did you show up? You’ve put this entire insane masquerade in danger.”
“Don’t be such a wimp. We’ll carry it off, as long as you don’t lose your nerve.” She looked at me, and even beneath her unflattering disguise, I could see the real Bella, the hard Bella. “So why don’t you tell me what’s between you and Ian?”
That was the last thing I wanted to discuss with her, when I had no idea where I stood. I did know he’d pretended to accept her as Podge, and I wasn’t about to set her straight. If Ian wanted to keep our secret, he must have some reason, and I wasn’t about to say anything until I talked with him.
“Nothing,” I said. “We fight all the time.”
“Well, at least that’s nothing new. And he seemed normal enough when he greeted me. He was very sweet. You know, I used to wonder if he had a thing for you, Podge. After all, he couldn’t have me, and there’d always been a protective air about him where you were concerned.”
I ignored that. “And he didn’t doubt who you were?”
“Not at all,” she said smugly. “He gave me a kiss on the cheek and even called me ‘Podge.’”
What the hell was going on? Ian would have known who she was—why hadn’t he confronted her? “You must have been doing your job well,” Bella continued. “I never thought you could carry this off.”
“You sent me off thinking they were going to recognize me?” I demanded, horrified.
Bella shrugged, that insouciant gesture I’d worked so hard to replicate. What Would Bella Do? “It was worth the chance.”
Not for me, it hadn’t been. But then, I had learned the hard way that Bella didn’t think about anyone but herself.
“Come on, Podge, get in the car,” she wheedled, that pretty smile on her face. “You can drive us down to the first turn and I’ll get behind the wheel after that. I’ve missed my car!”
“This isn’t your car. It’s an exact duplicate. Yours was in an accident.”
Her fine eyes narrowed. “Who was driving it?”
“Ian. The brakes failed and we plowed into a tree.” In the ensuing days, I’d almost forgotten about my concussion, but right now my head was pounding.
“So where did this come from?” She was sounding very displeased.
“Marcus bought me a new one.”
“Don’t you mean Marcus bought me a new one?” she said in a silken voice.
“Whatever. It’s definitely yours, not mine.”
“I want to drive it. Get in.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”
“Don’t be such a stick in the mud. Obviously, I can’t take it out myself, and it’s been too damned long. Besides, we need to talk where we can’t be overheard.”
She made sense. I was being irrational and stupid about the car—just because I’d had an accident in one didn’t mean the replacement was a death trap. I reached out for the passenger side door when I saw something out of the corner of my eye, over by the stables.
It was Salvador, and he was shaking his head “no.” I practically jumped back from the car as if it were electrified. “Come up to my room—we can talk there. I want to know why you decided to show up out of the blue...”
“They were looking for me. For you. Sooner or later, they would have found out too much—it only made sense to show up. After all, it’s not every day that you’re bequeathed hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“You weren’t bequeathed it. It was a mistake, something Granda should have fixed. The moment I get back to the States, I’m going to take steps to relinquish it.”
“I wouldn’t be too hasty about that.”
I froze, dumbfounded. “You wouldn’t?”
“It’s a lot of money. You and I could split it, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. And you needn’t worry about your precious Ian—I’d give him enough to keep the farm going.”
“You’re not serious!”
“Aren’t I?” Bella asked. “Get in the damned car, Podge, and we’ll talk about it.”
I couldn’t help it, I looked at Salvador again, and Bella followed my gaze, her own eyes narrowing. “Who’s he? Your guardian angel?”
“You might say so. Come up to my room when you’re ready to talk.” Without another word, I turned and walk away, knowing, just knowing, the fury with which she watched me.