Chapter 17 Isabel
ISABEL
The man at my bedroom door was polite.
That was the thing I kept coming back to during the drive and after.
He didn’t yell, grab, or threaten me. He just stood in the doorway of the bedroom in the cottage I’d thought of as home last night, blocking the gray morning light, and said, “Ms. Van Orr. Your father sent us. We need you to come with us now.”
I was still half asleep, still reaching for the warmth Kick had left behind. The pillow he’d tucked against me was a poor substitute for his body, and I’d been drifting back toward consciousness, vaguely aware that he’d left, vaguely planning to get up and find him.
And then there was a stranger in my bedroom.
I sat up, pulling the blankets to my chest. “Get out. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
The man didn’t move. Behind him, I could see another figure in the hallway. Two of them. Maybe more.
“Ms. Van Orr.” He sounded almost kind. “Your father anticipated your reluctance. He asked me to tell you that if you don’t come willingly, we’ll wait for Mr. Avila to return. And we’ll make sure he understands how serious your father is about bringing you home.”
My blood went cold.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your father has resources, Ms. Van Orr. And he’s prepared to use them. Mr. Avila seems like a good man. It would be a shame if something happened to him.”
I had no idea where Kick was, only that he’d left. When he returned, he’d be unsuspecting and unarmed, walking into an ambush, because of me.
“You have five minutes to get dressed,” the man said. “I suggest you use them.”
I used two.
I put on a sweatshirt and jeans, shoved my feet into the rubber boots by the door, and walked out of the cottage without looking back.
I didn’t take my phone. I didn’t take my purse.
I didn’t leave a note. There wasn’t time, and even if there had been, I didn’t want to give them any reason to stay.
Any reason to be here when Kick came back.
The SUV was waiting right outside. I climbed in without being told. One of the men sat beside me in the back. Another drove while a third sat in the passenger seat in front of me.
We left Whitmore as the sun crept over the hills, and I watched the cottage disappear in the side mirror. Watched the vineyards blur past. Watched the life I’d been building shrink to nothing behind me.
I pressed my hand to my stomach. Our daughter shifted beneath my palm, restless, as if she could sense my fear.
“It’s okay,” I said silently. “We’re going to be okay.”
I didn’t believe it. But I said it anyway, because that’s what mothers were supposed to do. Give comfort. Not that mine ever had.
The drive was shorter than I expected.
We wound through back roads, past vineyards I didn’t recognize, until we turned onto a private drive marked by a stone pillar half hidden by overgrown hedges. The name carved into the stone was weathered, barely legible.
Miremont.
My heart stopped when he drove through the gates of the place I’d always believed would become mine when my mother passed away.
Then, a few months after she did, my father told me he’d sold it. He said the upkeep was too expensive, the property too far from our other holdings, and the memories too painful. He’d taken the money and invested it “on my behalf.” Every cent of which he controlled.
I’d grieved this place like a death. Like losing my mother all over again.
The SUV rolled up the long drive, past rows of dormant vines that had clearly been neglected for years. Weeds choked the spaces between the rows. The trellis wires sagged. The cover crops had gone wild, reclaiming the land in tangled masses of brown and green.
But the bones were still there. The gentle slope of the hillside. The old stone walls that marked the property boundaries. The winery building in the distance, its windows dark, its doors chained shut.
And the house.
The house where my mother had spent her summers as a girl. The house where she’d married my father in the garden, surrounded by roses and grapevines and all the hope of a young bride who didn’t yet know what her husband would become.
The house looked as abandoned as everything else. Paint peeled from the shutters, and the gardens were overgrown. The fountain in the circular drive was dry and cracked.
But lights glowed in the windows. Someone was here. Someone was waiting.
The SUV stopped, and the man beside me opened my door.
“Your father is inside,” he said. “He’s looking forward to seeing you.”
I climbed out on legs that didn’t feel steady. I stood there for a moment, staring at the house that should have been mine, and felt something crack open in my chest.
Not grief. Not anymore.
Rage.
Baron was waiting in the room I remembered my mother referring to as the parlor.
He stood by the fireplace, one hand resting on the mantle, the other holding a glass of what looked like whiskey.
He was dressed immaculately, as always—dark suit, silk tie, shoes polished to a mirror shine.
He looked like a man receiving guests for brunch, not one who’d just had his pregnant daughter kidnapped.
“Isabel.” He set the glass down and crossed to me, arms open as if expecting an embrace.
I stepped back before he could touch me. “You told me you sold it,” I spat at him.
“I said what needed to be said at the time.” He lowered his arms, his expression smoothing into something patient.
Paternal. The face he wore when he was about to explain why he knew better than everyone else.
“You were twenty-two. You’d just lost your mother.
You were in no state to manage a property of this size. ”
“So you lied to me.”
“I protected you.”
“From what?” My tone hardened. I couldn’t stop it. “From my own inheritance? From the one thing my mother left me—the one thing that was supposed to be mine?”
“From yourself.” Baron’s tone hardened. “You would have run this place into the ground within a year. You had no experience, no discipline, no understanding of what it takes to manage a working vineyard. Your mother’s family made the mistake of leaving it to you without conditions. I corrected that mistake.”
“You stole it from me.”
“I held it in trust for you, Isabel. You can cease these dramatics.”
“In trust for me? You watched me grieve this place—watched me cry after you told me it was gone—and you said nothing. You let me believe the last piece of my mother’s family had been sold to strangers, and the whole time, it was sitting here.
Empty. Abandoned. Because you’d rather let it rot than let me have something that was mine. ”
“The property required significant investment. You weren’t capable—”
“I wasn’t capable because you never let me be capable.” As I spoke, it felt like a dam breaking after years of pressure. “Every time I tried to do something on my own, you undermined me. You kept me dependent on you, and then you used that dependence as proof that I couldn’t survive without you.”
Baron’s expression flickered. Just for a second. “Everything I did was for your own good.”
“No. Everything you did was so you could control me. You made me into the spoiled princess everyone sees—and then you punished me for being her. You created the very thing you claim to despise.”
I gestured at the room around us. The dusty furniture. The faded wallpaper. The portraits of my mother’s family hanging on walls that should have been mine to care for.
“How could you?”
“I did what I always do—saved you from the embarrassment of failing publicly, the way you’ve failed at everything else.”
He might as well have slapped me. I’d heard this same rhetoric my entire life. You’re not ready. You’re not capable. You’re not good enough. Hearing it all again now felt different. Sharper. More brutal.
Because I wasn’t the same woman I’d been a year ago. Six months ago. Even six weeks ago.
“I’ve been working,” I said. “At Whitmore. Actually working. In the vineyard. With the crew.” I held up my hands, showing him the calluses on my palms. “For the first time in my life, I have proof that I can do something other than spend your money. And you know what? I’m good at it.
Thomas says I have excellent instincts. The crew respects me.
I’ve earned something real, something that has nothing to do with you. ”
Baron’s gaze flicked to my hands, then back to my face. His expression didn’t change. “Playing in the dirt doesn’t make you a vintner, Isabel. It makes you a dilettante. A rich girl pretending to be something she’s not.”
“I’m not pretending anymore. That’s what scares you, isn’t it? That I might actually become someone who doesn’t need you. Someone who can stand on her own.”
“You got yourself pregnant.” He sounded bitter, cold. “By a rodeo cowboy with no ambition and no future. You ran away from your family, your responsibilities, your life—and you think playing farmhand for a few weeks makes you independent?”
“There is no money.” I stepped closer to him, close enough to see the way his jaw tightened.
“You cut me off, remember? You told me another scandal and I was done. Well, here I am. Pregnant. Unmarried. Living with the father of my child. Every scandal you warned me about, all at once. And you know what happened?”
I waited. He didn’t answer.
“He stayed.” My voice cracked. “Kick stayed. Not because of money—there isn’t any. Not because of status or connections or any of the things you think matter. He stayed because he loves me. Because he wants to be a father to our daughter. Because when I pushed him away, he refused to go.”
“He’s using you.”
“For what?” My laugh sounded harsh and bitter. “I have nothing. You made sure of that. You said it yourself. I have no trust fund, no inheritance, no access to Van Orr money. I’m worthless by your standards. And he stayed anyway.”