“I think you should stay away from the house for now,” Marion says as she backs onto the road. “Away from your father.”
“Agreed,” Connolly says.
She stops at the Closed Road sign and peers past it. Connolly directs her to take another route.
“I would also suggest, strongly, that you resist any urge to publicize your . . .” She clears her throat. “Change of relationship. It will be easier for me to sort out the contract without that complication.”
“And how do you intend to sort it out?” Connolly asks.
For a moment, she says nothing. She’d hoped he wouldn’t ask for details, that he’d just trust her. He doesn’t, and she can’t expect him to.
“You do not need to worry about the debt coming due on your birthday,” she says. “That isn’t to say I will erase the debt—”
“I wouldn’t ask for that.”
I want to say it should damn well be erased. It was student debt incurred by a responsible and hardworking young man whose parents who could afford to send twenty sons to Harvard—or, better yet, two sons and eighteen scholarship kids. They made it worse by taking advantage of his youth and naiveté, encouraging him to rack up debt with fancy apartments and lavish student living when—if he’d understood it was going onto his bill—he’d have opted for a nice campus residence.
I see unfairness here, but isn’t my place to point it out. Even if he was given the option, Connolly would repay the money. He needs to cut every invisible bond.
“I would like two years,” he says. “I can manage that. I would also like the obligation to marry removed. Should I somehow fail to repay the debt, I would be subject to normal penalties. And I will move out of the house by the end of the week.”
“That’s your house, Aiden.”
“Not unless I can find a way to pay for it, which I doubt. You may take it back. Though I would suggest you sell it rather than drive a wrecking ball through it.”
Her full-bodied flinch is almost a convulsion. Then she lowers her voice and says, “I had no idea he planned that. I would have stopped him.”
“Then you should have said something. Even after the damage was done.” Connolly glances over. “And I don’t mean the damage to the house.”
She’s saved from a reply by her phone ringing. She glances irritably at the screen and then jabs the Answer button.
“Yes, Lauren?” Marion says, her voice sharp.
“Where is my granddaughter.” The words come not as a question but a demand.
“I have no idea. I’m a little busy this morning. I—”
“She’s with you, isn’t she. You or that son of yours.”
Marion’s face tightens, and her words snap, cold as icicles. “I am currently with ‘that son of mine.’ Neither of us is with Theodora.”
“Is something wrong?” Connolly says. “My apologies for eavesdropping, but we’re in the car and you’re on speakerphone. I did see Theodora last night around five, but when I left, she was going out for dinner with friends. Is something wrong?”
“Don’t you pull that with me, boy,” Lauren says. “I know what you’re all up to. You and your parents and my daughter and that husband of hers. You are going to drag Theo into this marriage kicking and screaming. I’d say you’ll do it over my dead body, but I suspect that would present only a minor obstacle.”
“We are not with Theodora,” Connolly says, his voice calm. “I don’t want to marry your granddaughter any more than she wants to marry me, and my mother has agreed . . .” He slants a question his mother’s way. Marion nods. “She has agreed to drop this arranged marriage foolishness entirely. I am not getting married anytime soon, and when I do, it will be to the person of my choice, who will not be your granddaughter.”
“If you’re looking for Theodora,” Marion says. “I’d suggest you call your former pool boy.”
“What?”
“Leon Navarro,” Marion says. “Worked for you, I believe. The pool boy. Cliché, but true.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen Leon in years.”
“Because he went to work for your son-in-law? First on his security detail and then on mine, as a spy planted by your daughter and her husband. A spy who is also sleeping with your granddaughter.”
I expect the older woman to sputter. Instead, she snorts and says, “Good for her. I always liked Leon. However, whether your gossip is true or not, that doesn’t explain my granddaughter’s disappearance. I have spies of my own, and I know my daughter and son-in-law were well aware of Theodora’s reluctance, and they were scheming to overcome her objections, by force if necessary.”
“Force her into marriage?” Marion sounds horrified, as if that wasn’t what she’d been doing to Connolly. She doesn’t see it that way. Not a shotgun wedding. Just strong encouragement to follow family tradition.
“Don’t sound so shocked, Marion. I know what you luck workers are like. I have it on good authority that Theodora was at her parents’ home last night, and there was a loud argument about marriage. Then my daughter and her husband left, and my contact presumed Theodora was staying over, sleeping in her old quarters. This morning, my daughter hadn’t returned . . . and there was no sign of Theodora.”
“Perhaps, but if they are forcing a marriage on her, it’s not to Aiden.”
“Because he’s there, in the car with you, apparently opposed to this union.”
“Very opposed,” Connolly says.
“In that case, Aiden, perhaps you ought to consider why you are in a car alone with your mother. Where she might be taking you. My granddaughter seems not to be the only one in danger here.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Marion says, her Irish accent thickening. “I am not driving my son to a forced wedding. How would one even manage such a thing in this world? They’d get an annulment by morning. Aiden’s car broke down, and I picked them up—at his request—and now I’m driving them to his car.”
“Them?”
“Yes, Aiden and his girlfriend.”
So much for keeping that a secret.
Marion continues, “I’m sorry, Lauren, but I can guarantee you that we are not arranging a wedding for Theodora and Aiden. It was your daughter and son-in-law who pushed the match. We were letting Aiden make his choice, and his choice is that he doesn’t want to follow our traditions. At least not for now.”
“Not ever,” Connolly murmurs.
Lauren cackles. “Oh, she’s not going to take that one so easily, boy. But you keep at it. Don’t let them trap you into—”
Marion clears her throat loudly. “The point, Lauren, is that we have no idea where Theodora is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to ask Aiden why his car was abandoned along a closed road.”
She disconnects the phone as the car rolls to a stop. “Your car is down there?”
“Evidently,” Connolly says, checking his phone.
“A road that is closed at both ends, with your vehicle in the middle. How did you fail to see the signs?”