The Villa

strained, but she tried. "It's stunning, gorgeous—just like she is. It's all right." But already she was turning the gold band she continued to wear round and round her finger. "Really, it's all right"
    "The hell it is. I hate her. I hate both of them, and I'm going back in there and telling them right now."
    "You're not." Pilar got up, gripped Sophia's arms. Did the pain she could see in her daughter's eyes show as clearly in her own? And was that her fault? Had this endless limbo she'd lived in dragged her daughter into the void? "It solves nothing, changes nothing. There's no point in hate, Sophie. It'll only damage you."
    No, Sophia thought. No. It could forge you.
    "Be angry!" she demanded. "Be furious and bitter and crazed." Be anything, she thought. Anything but hurt and defeated. I can't bear it.
    "You do it, baby." She ran her hands soothingly up and down Sophia's arms. "So much better than I could."
    "To walk in here this way. To just walk in and shove it in our faces. He had no right to do that to you, Mama, or to me."
    "He has a right to do what he wants. But it was poorly done." Excuses, she admitted. She'd spent nearly thirty years making excuses for Anthony Avano. A hard habit to break.
    "Don't let it hurt you. He's still your father. Whatever happens, he always will be."
    "He was never a father to me."
    Pilar paled. "Oh, Sophia."
    "No. No." Furious with herself, Sophia held up a hand. "I am obnoxious. This isn't about me, but I just can't help making it about me. It's not even about him," she said, winding down. "He's oblivious. But she's not. She knew what she was doing. How she wanted to do it. And I hate her coming into our home and lording that over you—no, damn it, over us. All of us."
    "You're ignoring one factor, baby. Rene may love him."
    "Oh, please."
    "So cynical. I loved him, why shouldn't she?"
    Sophia whirled away. She wanted to kick something, to break something. And to take the jagged shards of it and swipe them over Rene's perfect California face. "She loves his money, his position and his goddamn expense account."
    "Probably. But he's the kind of man who makes women love him—effortlessly."
    Sophia caught the wistfulness in her mother's voice. She'd never loved a man, but she recognized the sound of a woman who had. Who did. And that, the hopelessness of that, emptied her of temper. "You haven't stopped loving him."
    "If I haven't, I'd better. Promise me one thing? Don't cause a scene."
    "I hate to give up the satisfaction, but I suppose chilly disinterest will have more impact. One way or the other, I want to knock that smug look off her face."
    She walked back, kissed both her mother's cheeks, then hugged her. Here she could, and did, love without shadows and smudges. "Will you be all right, Mama?"
    "Yes. My life doesn't change, does it?" Oh, and the thought of that was damning. "Nothing really changes. Let's go back."
    "I'll tell you what we're going to do," Sophia began when they were in the hall again. "I'm going to juggle my schedule and clear a couple of days. Then you and I are going to the spa. We're going to sink up to our necks in mud, have facials, get our bodies scrubbed, rubbed and polished. We'll spend wads of money on overpriced beauty products we'll never use and lounge around in bathrobes all day."
    The door of the powder room opened as they walked by, and a middle-aged brunette stepped out. "Now that sounds wonderfully appealing. When do we leave?"
    "Helen." Pilar pressed a hand to her heart even as she leaned in to kiss her friend's cheek. "You scared the life out of me."
    "Sorry. Had to make a dash for the john." She tugged at the skirt of her stone-gray suit over hips she was constantly trying to whittle, to make certain it was back in place. "All that coffee I drank on the way up. Sophia, aren't you gorgeous? So…" She shifted her briefcase, squared her shoulders. "The usual suspects in the parlor?"
    "More or less. I didn't realize she meant you when Mama said the lawyers would be coming." And, Sophia thought, if her grandmother had called in Judge Helen Moore, it meant serious business.
    "Because Pilar didn't know, either, nor did I until a few days ago. Your grandmother insisted I handle this business personally." Helen's shrewd gray eyes shifted toward the parlor.
    She'd been involved, one way or another, with the Giambellis and their business for nearly forty years. They never failed to fascinate her. "She keeping all of you in the