“Who?”
“I didn’t catch her name. Isobel?”
The heat drained from Monica’s face. “Isabella?”
“Perhaps. Anyway, I need to use the bathroom before my next appointment. Have a gander if you want. It’s busy enough out there.”
Monica was out of her seat before Madison entered the employee bathroom.This better be a joke.Someone with a similar name. That was it. There was no way that it was…
She halted at the opening of the main room when she spotted her mother-in-law in a large armchair, her attention vaguely lingering on Blair, who looked more uncomfortable than a student caught without her notes on test day.
“Isabella.” She injected herself into the lukewarm conversation before thinking. “What are you doing here?”
Her mother-in-law sniffed as if she had been askedHow dare you be here?She wrapped her hands around her crossed knee, her fur stole falling off her shoulders and revealing a cocktail dress beneath.
“You own this place, do you not? As part of your…hospitalityempire.”
Monica held back a gasp. She direly hoped that her first inclination was not true. “Yes. This is one of my properties. Has something happened?”
Bushy yet trimmed eyebrows arched on that wrinkled forehead. “Not at all. I’m out for a tepid night on the town while my husband and son talk shop in some stuffy gentleman’s cigar lounge. All for Gerald’s show, I assure you.” She sipped the cocktail sitting on the small coffee table between her and Blair. “I thought… why not surprise my favorite daughter-in-law with a visit? I assure you this isn’t an inspection.” She glanced at Blair. “I daresay I don’t know enough about that.”
“No. I suppose you don’t.” Monica jerked her head to Blair. “If you don’t mind, I’ll relieve you of duty tonight, Ms. Thorne.”
Blair was more than happy to get away from the ice-cold gaze coming from by the windows. As Monica took over on the loveseat, she was aware that her mother-in-law was about to say something strange.
“That girl has more body than brains.” She laughed at her own insult. “Suppose that’s part of the appeal. I admit, I thought there’d be more men in here. Wouldn’t that be your bread and butter?”
What does she want here?Although Isabella hadlongbeen aware of her daughter-in-law’s ventures, she only had disparaging things to say about them. She would never be caught dead in a place like the Château, for example. Yet here? In a more lowkey lounge where guests paid for drinks and a pleasant conversation with a beautiful woman who was skilled in charm and seduction? Perhaps. But only if she had no idea what she was getting into.
It seemed that Isabella did, though.
“I’m assuming that this particular business is completely above board.” Isabella leaned against the fat arm of the chair,her manicured nails touching her cheek. “No funny business in the back bedroom?”
She laughed before Monica formulated a response.
“I’m not an idiot, Monica. I know what you do, who you are, and exactly what my son has always seen in you. As for the rest of my family… well, like many of the young women here, you’re charming. You know all the right things to say so you never offend anyone. Your submissive nature has not been lost on me. For all of our issues over the years, I’ve at least appreciated that about you. I simply wish you had… better breeding.”
“I’m well aware, Isabella.”
“Of course. No need to rehash the same arguments from before. Now, here I sit, on the cusp of becoming a grandmother again…”
“Excuse me? Have I missed something?” She couldn’t possibly think that Monica was pregnant again. She’d be direly disappointed.
“Suppose they haven’t told you yet, but Eva’s informed me that she and Nadia will finally be enacting the final part of their contract to stay in the will. I suppose that sometime in the next one to three years I’ll have another grandchild, assuming things go as usual with our dear Irish princess.”
Monica was too practiced shuddering at that verbiage.Those two have always discussed having kids.Monica had been privy to some of those conversations, but it wasn’t lost on her that they had signed some shoddy contract with Isabella to keep Eva in the line of secession.Only if Nadia carries a Warren baby. By blood, of course.Or Eva, butthatwas never happening.
“It has me all introspective, Monica. One day, you’ll understand. You’re a mother.”
Something dark lurked in those words. Did she know something that Monica didn’t?
“I heard about the incident up the mountains last week. Really, what are you thinking, taking poor Abigail up to that place?” Isabella pulled a tin of cherry and cranberry mints out of her purse and daintily placed one beneath her tongue. “Do you think it’s appropriate for your daughter, let alonemygranddaughter to grow up around these kinds of women? No offense to such hard work, of course. Everyone has their place in the world.”
Monica sucked in her cheeks as she recalibrated her breathing. “I’m sorry, who told you about that?”
“That soft nanny, Matilda.”
Come on, Matilda…As much as Abigail liked her, Matilda was weak around Isabella.She once spilled all of our birthday party plans for Abigail, and Isabella planned her own for the same time.Every guest had to be rerouted at the last minute. Considering Abigail had been in preschool, it was a mess!
