The admission hung in the air like a confession. Isabella couldn’t look at either man, focusing instead on the congealing eggs on her plate. Why had she said that? She never talked about Tony, never admitted to anyone how completely he’d destroyed her life. But something about these two, about this morning, had lowered her defenses in a way that now felt dangerous.
Christopher’s hand moved across the table like he might reach for hers, then stopped, respecting the boundary but offering silent support. “That’s rough,” he said, anger and disgust flashing in his eyes.
“He sounds like a real piece of work,” Gabe added, his voice carrying the particular tone military men used when they werebeing polite about someone they’d rather say something much harsher about.
Before Isabella could respond, the kitchen door opened and Jane walked in. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. Where Holly moved through spaces with warmth, Jane carried a coolness that wasn’t quite unfriendly, but neither was it welcoming. This morning she wore jeans and a simple blue sweater, her auburn hair pulled back in a pristine ponytail that caught the morning light.
“Good morning,” Jane said, her voice professionally pleasant. Her blue eyes swept over the scene: the remnants of breakfast, the casual intimacy of the three of them around the table. Something flickered in her expression, there and gone too quickly to identify.
“Morning, Jane,” Gabe offered, but Jane had already turned her attention to Isabella.
“There’s someone on the line for you, Isabella.” Her tone was neutral, giving nothing away. “I tried to transfer it to the kitchen phone, but it doesn’t seem to be working.”
Isabella glanced at the old phone mounted on the wall, its receiver slightly askew. Jane moved to it with efficient grace, examining the cradle.
“That’s why I’m not getting through,” Jane said, more to herself than anyone else. She adjusted the receiver, pushing it properly onto the cradle with a decisive click. “There, itshould work now.”
“Who is it?” Isabella asked, but Jane was already heading back toward the door.
“He didn’t say. Just asked for you specifically. But he was adamant that he speak to you.” Jane paused at the doorway, looking back. “I’ll transfer it now.”
And then she was gone, leaving behind only the faint scent of her perfume, something expensive and cold, like winter flowers.
“She’s not very friendly, is she?” Gabe observed once the door closed behind her.
The words sparked something protective in Isabella. “Jane has had it rough,” she said, surprising herself with the vehemence of her defense. Her heart squeezed with empathy as she thought about what little she knew of Jane’s story. “She also lost people she loved in a car accident three years ago, where she herself was badly injured, and then she still came back here to take care of the inn and her grandmother.”
“I’m sorry,” Gabe said. “I didn’t know.”
“That’s terrible,” Christopher said quietly.
“It is.” Isabella stood, beginning to clear plates to give her hands something to do. “Whatever I’ve been through, it’s nothing compared to what Jane has. At least I have Maddy. At least I got something beautiful from my disaster. Jane lost everything.”
The phone on the wall rang, the shrill sound making Isabella freeze mid-motion. Every muscle in her body tensed as shestared at the device like it might bite her. She knew. Somehow, before she even answered, she knew.
“Excuse me,” she managed, setting down the plates with hands that had begun to tremble.
She crossed to the phone slowly, each step feeling like walking through quicksand. Behind her, she could feel Gabe and Christopher’s eyes on her, their concern palpable. She turned her back to them as she lifted the receiver, needing whatever small privacy she could get.
“Hello.” She forced her voice to be steady, firm, refusing to let it betray the fear crawling up her spine.
“Beautiful babe... did you block me?” The voice slithered through the phone line, exactly as she remembered it. Smooth, confident, with that particular note of arrogance that had once charmed her and now made her skin crawl. After all these years, that voice could still make her feel twenty and naive and gullible.
Isabella turned further from Christopher and Gabe, pressing herself into the corner between the wall and the phone, making herself as small as possible. “I told you to leave me alone,” she hissed into the receiver, keeping her voice low. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Well, I have plenty to say to you, beautiful babe.” The endearment that had once made her melt now felt like insects crawling on her skin. His voice carried that smug certainty she remembered too well, the tone of a man who always got what he wanted. “And if you don’t hear me out...”He paused, and Isabella could picture him perfectly: that calculated dramatic pause he’d perfected, the slight tilt of his head, the smile that never reached his eyes. Even after all these years, she knew his manipulations by heart.
“If I don’t hear you out…What?” Isabella whispered, hating herself for asking, for taking the bait, but unable to stop herself. “You’ll come burn what I’ve built down again?”
“No…” He said, in a slow, deliberate tone, baiting her. “I was thinking more along the lines of, I wonder what the court would think about what you stole from me.”
The words hit her like ice water. Her knees actually buckled slightly, and she had to grab the wall to stay upright.
“I didn’t steal anything from you,” Isabella hissed, but her voice came out weak, uncertain. “You were the one who stole from me!”
“That’s not how I remember it,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “In fact, I have documentation that suggests otherwise. Amazing what a good lawyer can do with the right... interpretation of events.”
Isabella’s mind raced. This couldn’t be happening. After all this time, after everything she’d built, everything she’d survived, he couldn’t just waltz back in and destroy it all again. Could he?
