CHAPTER 4

Pretending to be affronted, Shamus scoffed. “Well … maybe I’ll transfer. Luche is stealing all the attention and the last thing he needs is a bigger ego.”

That penetrated her sister’s false indifference. “Don’t you dare!”

Shamus laughed and nudged her shoulder. “I’d never.” He gave her a playful wink. “You know what today feels like?”

Toni hung on his every word. “What?”

“Ice cream. How about we take a ride into the city? You and Isa put on fancy clothes and we’ll make dinner reservations at your dad’s hotel, but we’ll only order off the dessert menu.”

The pinch surrounding Isadora’s heart eased as Toni’s eyes cleared, her cheeks stretching into a wide grin. “What about supper?”

Shamus lovingly knocked a knuckle against her upturned chin. “Some situations call for special exceptions. What do you say we go break the rules of good social conduct?”

“Isa, can we?” Toni bounced with enthusiastic impatience.

“Why don’t you and Shamus go? Have fun. I think I’m going to rest.” “You’re never any fun, Isa.”

“Hush, brat. Your sister’s entitled to some time to herself.”

Isadora smiled at Shamus, appreciating his help. “Thank you, Jamie.” He nodded. “Come on, Antoinette. Let’s go make reservations.”

Staring out at the vacant drive, Isadora sighed as Shamus escorted Toni inside the house.

“How come Lucian and Isa call you Jamie sometimes?” her sister’s raspy voice asked as they climbed the porch steps.

“Because that’s my name. Shamus is Irish, but the English version is Jamie or James.”

“I like Shamus,” she told him. “And I prefer Antoinette to Toni.”

When the house was quiet and Isadora was truly alone, her momentary ease faded. She wandered the silent halls questioning how everything still appeared the same, yet felt so different.

She ended up in her father’s study, the cold ambiance a gentle mocking of the hollowness she felt on the inside. The problem with formidable men, she decided, was when they left there seemed a whole lot of emptiness in their absence.

Twenty-three years old, suffering empty nest syndrome for a son that wasn’t her own, and trapped in a life she never intended to lead—her master plan never had time to truly formulate.

When she’d thought of running away eight years ago, she’d only been a confused little girl chasing a deep yearning for any sense of home. This was her home. It was all she’d ever known, but the desire for more still lingered. The yearning to feel loved and needed—necessary—was perhaps her strongest driving force and what had made her stay rather than go all those years ago.

Easing forward in her father’s chair, she pulled open the top drawer of his desk. The heavy wood gave way and—predictably—an aged bottle of Macallan rolled to the front. She lifted the scotch, cradling it in her lap, and brushed her thumb over the label, never quite able to tell if it was brown or red. Her color blindness was just another one of her characteristics her father ignored, because when certain handicaps could not be resolved with money, he refused to acknowledge their existence.

Turning the bottle, she examined the faded words. She’d held it a hundred times but never took a sip, always worrying—or perhaps hoping— her father would eventually return and want to know who drank his aged scotch.

The ornate cork pulled free with little force, interrupting the silence with a soft pop. While she resented her father’s neglect for her siblings’ sake, she never said much on the subject. Toni was the most indifferent to his absence. But Lucian, who recalled his cruelty well and knew exactly what sort of cold-hearted person could jettison three young children… Lucian digested their father’s abandonment like bitter poison, the sort that left a lingering aftertaste that could only fade once the venom was exorcised.

Toni forgot. Isadora compartmentalized. But Lucian remembered every cruel instance, and those bitter, flammable memories fueled so much of his unyielding drive for success. All of them, including their mother, had been affected by Christos’s toxicity.

Her brother intended to even the score, had vowed to do so since he was old enough to process the abnormalities of their family life. Once he finished college, she had no doubt he’d seek the vengeance he’d always wanted. Maybe then he could find the closure they all desired.

Sitting in the shadows, she raised the aged scotch. “Good luck, Daddy.

He won’t stop until he’s beaten you.”

She drew from the mouth of the bottle, forcing back a gasp as the fiery liquid scalded her throat. Taking a long, healthy swallow of air, she laughed in the darkness.

“How does he drink this stuff?”

Perhaps she’d become a rich lush, like so many older females in similar situations after their children left, their purpose obscured by years of subservience and little chance left to forge their own identities. The thought stung and a misplaced laugh slipped from her lips.

She wasn’t old. She was the age of any college graduate, minus several rites of passage and the luxury of a degree. But she had other luxuries and complaining only made her feel like a spoiled ingrate.

“Don’t be a pathetic martyr.” She slouched in the large leather desk chair. “One day you’ll matter as much as the rest of them.”

“Isadora?”

Her shoulders knotted with a spike of surprise. Her eyes widened, but no one was there. “Hello?” How strong is this scotch?

“Where are you?” the masculine voice called from the hall.

She dropped her hands beneath the surface of the desk, hiding the bottle in her lap. Her face heated, as she feared someone might have overheard her talking to herself like a first class lunatic.

Clearing her throat, she calmly answered, “I’m in the study.”

The door creaked as Sawyer Bishop, her father’s colleague and long- time family friend, gazed into the room. His eyes rested on her for only a moment, before searching the shadows.

“Are you alone? I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

Her face flushed with another flood of heat as she reached for the small accent lamp poised on the corner of the desk. A dull amber glow revealed dust over the unused surface.

“No, it’s just me. Antoinette went to the hotel for dinner with Shamus Callahan.”