But here, only weeks later, she stood on the crumbling precipice of a plunge into something powerful and dangerous—love.
And it was a beautiful, strong, loyal and fierce man who had her heart whispering with the need to take the fall.
She was afraid. Even as a fragile hope beat its wings inside her, she wasafraid.
She reached the foyer and glanced out the window next to the door. Shock rocked through her.
Helena and Gabriella.
What...?
As if on autopilot, Isobel unlocked the door and opened it.
“Hello,” she greeted, surprised at the calmness in her voice. “Please come in.” As they passed by her and entered the house, she shut the door behind them. “Darius isn’t here at the moment...”
“That’s fine. We can wait,” Helena said, turning to face Isobel with a coldly polite smile. “We apologize for showing up unannounced, but he told us you were having Thanksgiving dinner with your family. We wanted to catch him before you left.”
Unease sidled through her veins, but she pasted a smile on her lips and waved a hand toward the living room. “He should be back shortly, if you’d like to wait for him in here.”
Part of her wanted to run up the stairs and let Darius deal with his visitors when he returned, but at some point she had to become accustomed to being around them without Darius as a buffer. She could handle a few minutes.
“You and Darius seem to be getting along well,” Helena commented as she moved into the room and settled on the couch.
Isobel nodded, stalling as she considered how to answer. As if a physical trap waited to be sprung at the end of her reply. “Darius is a kind man.”
Gabriella strode over to the mantel and studied the array of pictures there. “Yes, he is. It’s both a blessing and a curse,” she said. “Have you two set a wedding date yet?”
Unease knotted Isobel’s stomach, at both the cryptic comment and the switch in topic. “Not a definite date,” she replied. But remembering the stipulations Darius had set in their contract, she added, “Sometime in January, I believe.”
“You believe,” Helena echoed, and Isobel couldn’t miss the sneer in her words as her gaze flicked to Isobel’s left hand. “No ring yet, I see. Doesn’t that tell you something, Isobel?”
“No,” Isobel murmured, sensing the shift in the other woman’s demeanor and steeling herself. “But I suppose you have an idea about that.”
“He hasn’t set a wedding date and hasn’t even bothered buying you a ring.” Helena cocked her head, her steady contemplation condescending, pitying. “What you said earlier is very true. Darius is a good man. The kind who would sacrifice his own happiness for those he loves. Yet he’s obviously reluctant to shackle himself to you. A man who is looking forward to marriage publicly claims his fiancée.”
“I’m afraid she’s correct, Isobel,” Gabriella agreed, strolling the few feet to stand next to the couch her mother perched on.
A smirk curved the younger woman’s lips, and a sinking, dread-filled pit yawned wide in Isobel’s chest. Was insulting her the purpose behind their visit? Or just a bonus since Darius wasn’t home yet? She glanced toward the bottom of the staircase.Please, God, let Ms. Jacobs keep Aiden upstairs.
Briefly, she considered exiting the room. But that smacked too much of running, and she’d quit doing that when she returned to Chicago.
“You don’t know anything about my relationship with Darius,” she said, tone cool. “But why don’t you go ahead and have your say so we can get all this out in the open? That way we no longer have to indulge in this pretense. You don’t want me with Darius.”
Helena’s lips firmed into a flat, ugly line, anger glittering in her eyes. “I thought we were rid of you for good. But you found a way to sneak back in, didn’t you? It wasn’t enough that you used my son and took him away from us, but now you’ve latched onto my other son. And if we don’t want to lose him or our grandson, we have to deal withyou,” she spat out.
“I would never come between you and Darius,” Isobel objected.
“As if you could,” Gabriella snapped. “We have a real relationship. We love each other. You don’t know anything about that.”
Dragging in a breath and struggling to contain her temper in the face of their venom, Isobel straightened her shoulders and tipped up her chin.
“As I was saying,” Isobel gritted out. “I would never come between you and Darius. His relationship with you is yours. And if it’s as strong as you say, then there’s nothing I could do to harm it,” she pointed out. Ignoring Helena’s outraged gasp, Isobel continued, “But while you might revise history with Darius, don’t look me in the eye and speak it to me. We both know I’ve never tried to keep you from your grandson. You were the ones who didn’t believe he was a prestigiousWells.” She uttered that name as if it were sour. “You decided he wasn’t worthy of your time and attention. Your love. As for me, I don’t need your approval or acceptance. I don’t even want it. But now, for some reason, you’ve changed your mind, and I won’t deprive Aiden of knowing his father’s family. But if you believe for one second that I’ll let you twist and poison him, then you’re absolutely correct. You won’t see him.”
I won’t allow you to turn him into his father.
“Twist him? Poison him?” Gabriella bit, her lips curling in a snarl. “That is rich coming from you of all people. You, a gold-digging wh—”
“What’s going on here?”
