Catching the scent at the same time he did, his mother exclaimed and bustled down the hall, leaving him to fend for himself. He smothered a grin at that familiar impression of abandonment. Being an only child in an empty villa led to strange fantasies.
And then he remembered the job he was supposed to leave for in the morning, and he growled in irritation. How the hell could he climb a mountain on a crutch?
He didn’t think he could even climb the stairs to his room. Maybe he’d sleep on the enormous kitchen counter he’d spent a year’s wages on to pacify his mother. That had been the year the twins had arrived. She’d needed a lot of pacifying.
The twins were another reason he never came home.
Clumping along on his crutch, he couldn’t expect to catch the fake nanny by surprise. If she was cooking, he hoped it wasn’t poison. There were plenty of people who wouldn’t mind finding him dead.
The scene in the kitchen froze him without need of imaginary toxins.What the friggin’ Hades?
Sitting on tall counter stools, the twins bent their dark curls over a pastry board. At age five, their hands were still pudgy and inept, but they earnestly rolled out rounds of dough with tiny wooden rolling pins. But it wasn’t the twins causing him to blink twice.
The she-devil in wiry, striped hair was expertly slicing up the pasta dough his mother had probably left standing before rushing out to pick him up at the hospital. The intruder wielded a wicked knife and an expert arm, flinging the noodles into the boiling water with the ease of experience.
The last time Dante had seen her, she’d been wearing ominous red stripes in gelled hair. Today, the stripes were silver and the hair was a puff ball of mouse-brown frizz. He recognized the intense focus on her usually impassive features—she was ready to kill. He’d last seen that expression after he’d told her she was insane if she thought he wanted anything more to do with her eccentric family—after she’d nearly got him killed and/or arrested in a potentially career-destroying escapade.
That she was here now...gave him cold shudders. Insulting witches was probably a bad idea.
She glanced up, shot him a look that should have shed blood, and flung the remainder of the noodles into the pot. Ignoring him, she helped the twins press down on their dough until it was flat enough, then sliced it into noodles and added them to the pot.
Dante figured they’d all die of food poisoning from the twins’ dirty fingers. He swore they could wash their hands all day and still be dirty.
“Sit, sit,” his mother cried, gesturing at the centuries-old trestle table she’d insisted on keeping. “I will bring the salad.” She plopped a bottle of wine on the table with an opener and glasses.
“If he’s on painkillers, he shouldn’t be drinking.” The demon woman spoke for the first time—not a greeting but her usual dire warning.
“Do you even know how to sayhelloorhow are you feelingor any of the normal things one would say after taking over a person’s home?” Spitefully, Dante popped the cork and poured himself a glass.
“Waste of time.” She nodded at the children. “Go wash your hands again. Soap and water make everything taste better.”
The twins obediently climbed down from their tall seats and ran to the sink to climb up on a stepstool. They never went anywhere without running.
They never followed orders.
After splashing about in the water, Alex jumped down, hands still dripping, and loped over to wipe them on Dante’s trousers, causing him to wince at the assault on his cracked shin. The boy dashed off, giggling at his boldness. Nan politely dried her hands on a towel and ignored him, much as the fake nanny did.
Well, he probably deserved that. They hardly ever saw him, after all.
Politeness was a waste of time?Fine nanny she’d make. But he already knew that the nanny masquerade was rubbish. Taking another fortifying sip, sitting on the high-backed bench his mother shooed him onto, Dante swung his injured leg up on a side chair and debated the reality of stepping through the Looking Glass. If the demon-woman shoutedOff with his head, she was out of here.
“I’m sorry I didn’t have time to properly introduce myself earlier,” his mother chattered, filling the tense silence. “I’m Emma Malcolm Rossi, Dante’s mother. I assume you’ve already met my son.”
“Malcolm?” The she-devil’s mousy eyebrows shot straight up. She glared at Dante instead of his mother, as if it were all his fault they might have a seventeenth-century ancestor in common.
“I’m from Scotland,” his mother continued, happily setting the table with her favorite colorful chicken-decorated plates. “Dante’s father was Italian, but he has family in Edinburgh and went to school there. It was kismet.”
Dante sipped his wine and waited. As long as his mother was around, he didn’t have to speak, which was probably for the best. He wasn’t exactly in a conversational humor.
“Malcolm-Ives attraction,” the fake nanny declared. “I understand Dante is related to a friend of mine who just discovered he’s an Ives.”
“Oh, is that how you met! How delightful. Are you a professional nanny? Or just wanting to spend some time here? I assume from your accent that you’re American. Let me finish up, and you take a seat and tell me all about yourself.” His mother grabbed the pot of boiling pasta from the stove and nudged their guest aside.
“Shouldn’t the children be sitting at the table? Where did they run off to?” The impostor peered into the other room rather than take a seat near Dante.
“They’ll come when they’re ready. They don’t see their father often, so they’re probably up to mischief. I’ve given up trying to reason with them.” Emma tasted the sauce simmering on the stove, added a few herbs, and tossed it in with the pasta. “I’m sorry, I left in such a hurry, I didn’t catch your name.”
Dante normally would have stood up to help his mother with the heavy pots and bowls, but his leg wasn’t allowing it today. He’d need twice the painkiller later, but he was too caught up in this scene to leave just yet.
