Fairytale Come Alive (Ghosts and Reincarnation #4)(49)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“You didn’t ruin their wedding.”

“No? Who did? Me being here brought my father here and –”

“This is insane, Elle. You aren’t –”

“Insane? Like my mother?” Fiona watched Prentice’s head jerk but Bella wasn’t done. “She was insane, Prentice. People in their right minds don’t kill themselves.”

“People in their right minds find reasons to kill themselves every day,” he returned.

“You don’t know.”

“You don’t either.”

“I know my mother wasn’t in her right mind. I know that for certain.”

“Elle –”

“And you don’t need that in your life or in your children’s lives.”

Prentice’s face grew stunned. “Are you saying –?”

“I’m saying I’m a product of her and him and that is what you’ll have around your children if we carry on with this madness.”

“You may be a product of them, Elle, but you’re you.”

“And who’s that, then? You said yourself you don’t even know me!”

“Yes, I do. You’re the girl I fell in love with twenty years ago. That girl came home drunk two nights ago. Last night, she let me make love to her, telling me it’s never been that good, and later, she slept in my arms.”

“That girl isn’t me.”

Prentice glared at her.

Bella glared back.

Then he tore his hand through his hair and, at that gesture, Fiona knew he was losing patience because she’d seen him do it many times before.

“This is ridiculous,” he clipped.

Yes, losing patience.

“I agree, just let me go.”

His eyes narrowed. “I told you, this time I’m keeping you.”

She put her hands to his chest and gave a hearty shove. Prentice’s torso rocked back but then came in closer.

“You can’t keep me,” she snapped. “I don’t want to be kept.”

He put his face close to hers. “Bollocks.”

She pulled in breath through her nose and looked at the heavens.

When she looked back at him, she asked, “Prentice, don’t you see?”

Fiona shouted, No! No, he doesn’t see! You have to tell him. You have to tell him so he can sort you out. He has no idea. You HAVE GOT to TELL him.

Bella shook her head to clear Fiona’s words.

And then she said, “It’s for the best. It was twenty years ago, and you can’t deny that.” His mouth got tight at that and Bella went on, this time quietly, “It will be again. You’ll find happiness, Prentice. It’s just never something you’d find with me.”

Prentices eyes got hard. “Elle, you get in that car and drive away, that’s it. You leave me and the children this time, if you get second thoughts and you come back, I’ll no’ make you work for it. There’ll be nothing to work for.”

To Fiona’s shock, disappointment, anger and sadness, although Bella’s face paled and her throat convulsed, her head nodded.

Prentice felt those same four emotions and he didn’t hide them.

His voice was gruff when he stated, “The last time, even though I didn’t know it, you were taken from me. This time, if you leave, it’s all you.”

Fiona saw Bella’s eyes flash with indecision.

“Prentice,” she whispered.

Don’t get in that car, Bella, Fiona shouted, Don’t do it.

Then, seeing Bella make her decision (the wrong one) and shift toward the door, Fiona tried yelling at Prentice.

Don’t let her go. She needs you to save her. She needs her knight in shining armor, not a man who’d let her go. This is twice, Prentice, and you don’t even know this is all on you. Twenty years, and it’s all YOU. You should have gone to save her the last time and you let her go. This is the same. She isn’t leaving you, she has this idea that she’s saving you. This is NOT her LEAVING. This is YOU LETTING HER GO!

As usual, Prentice didn’t hear a word Fiona said.

And by the time she was done yelling, Bella was in the car and she didn’t even look at Prentice’s angry, tight face as she reversed the rental out of the spot and she didn’t look back as she drove away.

Chapter Ten

Isabella’s Return

Isabella

The next three weeks went by in a fog for Isabella.

Well, not all of it.

She remembered texting Annie and Mikey repeatedly to let them know she was okay and not about to drive her car over a cliff.

And she remembered Fergus showing up at the hotel she’d checked herself into after her mad flight from the wedding reception. She remembered him having a drink with her in the bar, guiding to her room and holding her while she cried and tucking her into bed when she was exhausted from her tears. She also remembered him taking her to breakfast the next morning and to the airport that afternoon.

She also remembered her heretofore unknown fury likely induced by her not sleeping (even a little bit) and her mind playing and replaying the night before and day of Annie and Dougal’s wedding, second by second, in a constant loop, boiling up and rolling over.

This gave her the equally heretofore unknown courage to confront her father days after her return.

She walked right into her childhood home and asked him why on earth he’d shown up and ruined Annie and Dougal’s Scottish Fairytale Come True Wedding and she’d used those exact words. And she asked him why on earth he’d come tearing to Scotland when he’d heard she was there and then treated her like a fifteen year old he’d caught heavy petting with her boyfriend in a car instead of a forty year old divorcee dancing with a man at a wedding.

And she remembered his answer.

“Isabella,” he’d started on that disappointed sigh she knew way too well, “after this last stunt, I’ve given up on you. No matter what I’ve done, how hard I’ve worked; you’ve turned out just like your mother. Therefore, in a way, I’m glad you came because you should know and it’s saved me the trouble of seeking you out. You’re disinherited. My will has already been changed. I’m giving my legacy to the Art Institute of Chicago. We’re in discussions for them to name a wing after me.”

Isabella stood in front of him, stunned at his answer which, incidentally, was not an answer at all but simply a mean, nasty statement.

And she stood in front of him stunned that he showed not one smidgeon of regret or embarrassment for striking her in front of an audience to the point she fell to her knees.