Because now, Fiona was jealous of Isabella Austin Evangahalala.
And Fiona had a lot more to be jealous of.
Prentice
Prentice was surprised to go back to his room and see his bed empty.
He thought after that episode with Jason (likely made worse by Isabella foolishly, and unkindly, talking about his dead mother), Sally would have woken and climbed in his bed.
In case she was awake and upset in her own bed, Prentice went to her room. She wasn’t there either.
He felt fear slice through him and he moved out of her room, checked the playroom and then went swiftly down the stairs.
She wasn’t on the couch in the great room or the one in the television room. He looked in his study and then stood in the hall wondering where the hell his daughter was.
Then, slowly, his head turned to look down the hall.
Sally would go there. No doubt about it.
The door to the guest suite was open but Sally wasn’t on the couch.
The door to the bedroom of the suite was open as well and Prentice stood in it seeing Sally’s dark hair and Isabella’s blonde against the pillows.
He walked to the side of the bed and looked down at them in a room bathed in moonlight.
His daughter was nestled snug in the curve of Isabella’s body, her arms tight around the girl. Isabella’s hair was blended with Sally’s, dark and light. The sheet was down at Isabella’s waist and he could see she had some lacy nightgown on.
Prentice’s first demented thought was to climb in bed with them.
He had no idea where that thought came from and he cast it aside instantly.
His second thought was to rip his daughter from that bitch’s arms and take her far away.
Instead, he strode from the room, went to his study, poured himself two fingers of whisky, walked to his bedroom, put on a sweatshirt and walked onto the balcony.
Dinner had been interesting.
The woman he’d fallen in love with twenty years ago had come back, though not completely.
There was no fidgeting energy and mile-a-minute conversation, not that Isabella could get a word in edgewise.
But she had her long, thick hair (and it pissed him off but he had to admit that he liked the blonde, it looked too fucking good on her) tied up in one of those haphazard knots that made her look effortlessly beautiful (which she, unfortunately, was) rather than coolly beautiful.
She wasn’t dressed in some ludicrously expensive designer outfit that made her look untouchable but track pants and a tunic that made her look real as well as sexy as all hell.
She laughed uproariously and uncontrollably when Sally had her incident with the flour and, he further hated to admit it, but Isabella’s face in abandoned laughter was, just as he remembered it, stunning.
And she hadn’t made his daughter feel a fool for her childish mistake.
She’d smiled often at both Sally and Jason during dinner, engaging with Sally in her jabbering and carefully drawing out Jason like she was a qualified grief counselor.
And she cooked like a fucking dream.
But she completely ignored Prentice like he didn’t exist.
Completely.
Prentice found this annoyed him.
Then he found the fact that this annoyed him annoyed him even more.
Now he found the fact that he was thinking about it at all annoyed him even more.
He sipped from his drink.
Isabella seemed determined to insinuate herself in his children’s hearts.
And she was, as ever, fucking good at it.
Sally was already half in love with her and Jason hadn’t talked about his mother with anyone but Prentice since she died.
Prentice took another sip from his drink.
He had two choices; kick her out or let her do her worst with his children and pick up the pieces when she left them behind.
Kicking her out meant breaking Annie’s heart and Annie had enough heartbreak in her life, she didn’t need any more.
And his children had been left behind by a far better woman than Isabella Evangelista and they were surviving.
And, even though Isabella was a part of it, Prentice liked hearing laughter in his kitchen and seeing his son grin. Jason hadn’t grinned for months.
He took another sip of the whisky.
He had no choice really and he found that annoyed him most of all.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered to the sea.
Fiona
You can say that again, Fiona’s silent words were lost on her husband.
She floated with him as he finished his drink, his beautiful eyes never leaving the sea.
He’d found that piece of land for them, paid a fortune for it and carved a house out of a cleft in the cliff.
Fiona hadn’t wanted to be out of the village even though it was only a ten minute drive away. But Prentice wanted privacy and space for his family.
And he needed the sea.
So she had no choice, really.
He put the glass on the railing which irritated her.
He always did that when he was out on the balcony brooding which wasn’t often but it happened.
Prentice could be moody, mostly about work stuff and lately about having a dead wife stuff.
She’d find his whisky glasses, sometimes days or even weeks later and they’d be filled with rainwater and mucky. It was ridiculous. Why couldn’t the man carry his glass inside?
He walked into the room, pulled off his sweatshirt and got into bed.
She knew the minute he fell asleep which was a long time after he lay down.
Then she hovered by his alarm clock poking the “off” button again and again, her finger going through each time.
It was late. He’d had the episode with Jason, he’d found his daughter had not gone to his bed for safe haven but she’d been cuddled with his ex and he’d brooded and brooding had to take a lot out of him since he did it so damned well.
The kids were out of school the next day so they could attend Annie and Dougal’s picnic, he didn’t have to get up early.
And he needed his sleep.
Fiona poked and poked and poked and then, when she lost her temper and gave it one final poke, the button depressed, the light indicating that the alarm was on went out and Fiona smiled a gleeful, triumphant smile.
Then she laughed a gleeful, triumphant (but silent) laugh.
Then she laid a ghostly kiss on her husband’s cheek which caused him to turn with agitation in bed which was what he always did which was so very not what he’d do when she’d kissed him while he was sleeping when she was alive, so she wondered why she did it while she was dead.
Then she went to her son’s room and hovered beside him while he slept.
Chapter Five
The Picnic
Prentice
Prentice opened his eyes to see the late September sun shining through the windows that made up one wall of his bedroom.
He stared through the windows.
Then his eyes cut to the alarm clock.
He leaned toward the clock; saw the alarm which was never turned off had, somehow, been turned off.
He’d slept in.
“Shit,” he muttered, throwing back the covers and knifing out of bed.
He needed to get the children up, fed, showered, dressed and he needed to get some work done before the picnic.
Not to mention he needed to do laundry or the children wouldn’t have any clothes to wear to the picnic.
He walked out the door to his rooms and stopped dead.
He heard Sally’s chatter then he heard Jason’s low mumble then he heard Isabella’s laughter, not wild and uninhibited but softer, more controlled and also clearly genuine.