THE FAKE FIANCÉE

CHAPTER THREE

Most families were complicated, Lisa reassured herself, as she looked across at her ailing grandfather, feeling torn between a sense of love, loyalty, respect, but also resentment. Until she forgot her mother, she could never forget their treatment of her, and she could never forget the unhappiness they'd brought to her mother's life. Until the day she'd died, her mother been miserable, torn away from the only man she'd ever loved, made to feel that she wasn't good enough for the Manoban family. The fact she'd been working as a domestic in a three-star hotel when she'd met Lisa's father had been a death knell, so that her grandparents and aunt had hated Elodie before they'd even gotten to know her.

And yet, after her death, her grandparents had stepped up, helping to raise Lisa when her father's busy schedule made him unavailable. It was Leo and Anais's house she would go to in the school holidays, not her own home. Henry, by then, was busy with any one of his string of girlfriends.

"This has gone on long enough." Leo's voice was throaty and thin, no longer the loud, booming tone Lisa had come to associate with strength and success.

"What has, grand-père?" Lisa played dumb, even though she knew where this was going. They'd had this argument many times. Lisa never came to agree with her grandfather, and yet she liked sparring with the older man. For a moment, when they argued, things were simple again, and her grandfather was strong. It was only in conflict, Leo found his voice these days.

"You are no longer a child."

"Nor am I an old person."

"True, true." A smile cracked the older man's thin lips. "But you are old enough to settle down. To marry. To be happy."

"I am happy."

"You are busy, it is not the same thing."

"Says the man who worked every day of his adult life-and most nights too."

"Bah!" Leo's growl was irritated. "I still had a life. I still had fun."

"As do I."

"You work from early in the morning until late at night. The concept of a weekend is lost on you."

"That's not true." As a point of fact, Lisa found weekends highly irritating, because her work ethic was not shared across the board. She hated trying to work only to find half her staff unavailable. Naturally, her management team answered her calls at any time, day or night, but outside companies shr worked with were not so flexible.

"I'm old."

Lisa frowned. It wasn't so much that her grandfather was old, in fact, but that he was ill. Though he'd recovered from the cancer that had, two years ago, riddled his body, the treatment had been so exhaustive, and had destroyed so much of his immunity-not to mention the sections of his bowel that had been removed-that his quality of life was low, his energy practically non-existent.

"You are as young as Anais, and I do not see her taking to bed for days at a time."

It was insensitive, but Lisa knew tough love was the best way to speak to her grandfather.

Usually, at least.

But this time, it wasn't working.

"Listen to me, Lisa." He spoke with urgency, reaching out and placing his hand on Lisa's. Fingers that had always been so capable and confident were cracked and swollen now, the joints fluid filled and wonky. "I know I don't have long."

Lisa frowned. "Why not? Have the doctors said so?"

"They don't have to," Leo dismissed. "I can see it in their faces. And I can feel it in here. I am fading. It's okay. We live and then we die. That is the only absolute in life, no?"