What the Single Dad Wants... (10 page)

Needing a diversion, Isabelle turned toward Brandon's mother. “Is it always this crazy?” she asked.

Anastasia waved a well-manicured hand indulgently
about the crowd. “It's been worse, trust me,” the actress told her, adding after a beat, “it's also been
much
worse.” When Isabelle raised her eyebrows quizzically, the woman elaborated. “Those were the signings when no one came. It took his first book a while to catch on.” Anastasia leaned in so that she didn't have to raise her voice—or have Brandon overhear her. “Personally, I think his looks had a lot to do with those initial sales,” she confided.

“And
he got better,” Victoria interjected loyally, referring to her father's second book. It was all speculation on her part since she had been far too young at the time to know any of the actual details.

“Yes, he did,” Anastasia agreed—whether because she meant it or was humoring her beloved granddaughter was hard to say, Isabelle thought. But the enthusiasm in the older woman's voice would have been the same either way and that was all that counted. It was apparent that in her own, very dramatic way, Anastasia Del Vecchio loved her son very much, even though she found ways to bedevil the ego she feared he'd develop.

Isabelle smiled at the exchange between grandmother and granddaughter.

The next moment, her smile faded as a woman in the line before Brandon's table caught her attention.

A rather statuesque woman, whose long, straight hair was just possibly the palest shade of blond she had ever seen, leaned forward over Brandon's table.

“I'd like an autograph, please,” she murmured in a deliberately melodic voice that sounded as if it had been dipped in honey.

“That's what I'm here for,” Brandon answered, his pen poised. “Who shall I make it out to?” As he asked
the question, he reached for the book she was holding that he assumed she'd just purchased.

But the woman shook her head. Placing the book on the table, she put her hands on top of it and leaned even farther forward. Her blue silk blouse, already unbuttoned farther than Isabelle felt was decently acceptable, strained against the weight of two very ripe breasts that were ready to make a break for it at any moment.

“No, not the book,” she said in what could only be termed a Marilyn Monroe whisper. “I want you to sign
here,
” she instructed with a wicked, come-hither smile. “Make it out to ‘Annaliese, with love and appreciation, Brandon Slade.'” She ended her instructions with a frothy giggle.

As Isabelle watched, waiting to see what he was going to do, Brandon remained completely unflappable. He returned “Annaliese's” smile, but he shook his head.

“I'm sorry, but I can't. I'm afraid that my pen only writes on paper,” he apologized.

Apparently prepared and very much undaunted, the would-be Marilyn Monroe produced a laundry marker from her purse.

“How about this?” she suggested. “It's supposed to write on a
nything,
” she breathed.

For a moment, it looked to Isabelle as if Brandon would give in and sign his autograph on the young woman's very ample chest. But then, to her relief and surprise, he said, “How about I put it someplace where it isn't going to be washed off when you take your next shower?”

By his satisfied expression he knew he had the young woman. She would either say she didn't intend to ever shower again, which was off-putting by anyone's standards, or she'd have to indicate that she didn't care if the
autograph lasted or not, which was ultimately an insult to the man she was trying to flatter.

With a sigh, the woman called Annaliese straightened and allowed the fabric of her blouse to fall back into place, covering at least part of her cleavage. With a pout, she held up the book she'd had to purchase in order to take her place in line to begin with.

“Okay.”

Brandon took extra time and made sure that the message he wrote down was more than just the standard “To my friend So-and-So—”

The young woman's disappointment faded away as she retreated from the line, reading his message and smiling to herself.

“Nicely done,” Isabelle murmured. She'd made the observation under her breath, and it was intended strictly for herself.

Despite that, Brandon had apparently heard her above the din and looked at her over his shoulder.

He flashed a grin at her and said, “Thanks,” before turning back to autograph his book for the next person in line.

So why did that simple one word acknowledgement make her feel as if someone had just lit a fire inside of her? A fire that was warming up every single part of her at once.

She had no answer for that.

Yet.

T
he reception gave no indication that it was about to wind down any time soon. Instead, it appeared to have comfortably settled into a rhythm and gave every indication of going on for hours, conversation and wine flowing effortlessly.

Hired to cater the event, Theresa Manetti made sure that the serving platters on the buffet table were never empty and that all the glasses that were in play were continually being refilled. She had a reputation to maintain.

But aside from that, being here also allowed her the opportunity to covertly observe the young woman she had “unofficially” made her newest project. Isabelle Sinclair had certainly come a long way from the woman she'd glimpsed just a short while ago. The other one had been pretty in a shy, retiring way. This woman was viva
cious. A “knockout” as her father used to say, Theresa thought with a fond smile.

Seeing Isabelle interacting with Brandon Slade gave Theresa every hope that this particular pairing she had undertaken would turn out to be as successful as the handful of others she, Maizie and Cecilia had gotten involved with. So far, their record was five out of five. This, she thought with a smile, just might be lucky number six.

 

Approximately ninety minutes into the reception, Anastasia, with Victoria in tow, made her way over to her son. As always, he was surrounded by a number of women of various ages. This time, he was telling his adoring fans the story of how he'd received the news of his first book making it to the
New York Times
bestseller list.

“At first I thought it was one of my friends, making a crank call and pulling my leg. So I hung up. After the person called back a second time, I placed my own call to my agent—and got the same person who very coldly informed me that my agent was in a meeting and she couldn't be disturbed, but she'd asked him—turns out he was her assistant—to call me with the good news. He sounded very put out. I spent the next fifteen minutes apologizing to him—and then the next forty-eight hours celebrating,” he concluded with a grin.

It was clear that his audience was eager for another anecdote. But the moment he saw his mother approaching with Victoria, Brandon politely extricated himself from the tight circle of women, promising to return with another story “later.”

Crossing to his mother, who was clearly going some
where, he asked, “What's up?” He looked from his mother to his daughter, waiting for an answer.

“Brandon, it's getting late. It might not be a school night, but Victoria and I are going home,” his mother announced.

He could remember when his mother could party not just all night long but several days running, as well. Back in those days, she'd been unharnessed energy and had given no indication of ever slowing down or growing tired.

Age was a bear, he thought with a touch of sadness. For form's sake, because he knew she'd refuse to admit she was tired, he asked his mother, “Is anything wrong?”

“No, nothing's wrong. But it's past Victoria's bedtime and I don't want her overdoing it,” Anastasia elaborated.

The excuse was paper-thin, but he saw no reason to let her know that he saw through it. In order to spare his mother's pride, Brandon played along. He glanced over his shoulder at the circle of women he'd just left. They were still waiting for him. One of the women waved at him.

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger,
he thought, whimsically calling to mind a famous catch phrase from a bygone era. “Maybe I should go, too,” he said to his mother.

Anastasia looked genuinely horrified. “No, no, you and Isabelle stay here,” she insisted, patting his hand. “Enjoy yourselves.”

“Isabelle's not going with you?” Sexy or not, the woman
was
his mother's physical therapist and as such should really be accompanying her, not him, Brandon thought.

“Why should she?” Anastasia asked, surprised that he would even suggest such a thing. “It only takes one of us to make sure Victoria goes to bed,” she said, draping an arm around the girl's slender shoulders.

Brandon noticed that his daughter looked as if she wanted to protest but was prudent enough not to. Wise beyond her years, that girl, he thought with pride.

Digging into his pocket, he located his keys. Brandon took them out and held them out to his mother. He knew that her surgeon had just cleared her to drive yesterday. He assumed she was eager to get back behind the wheel again. Control was all important to his mother, it always had been. “Take my car, then.”

She pushed his hand—and the keys—back. “No need. Maura is taking us home,” she told him, referring to his agent. “She was planning on leaving early anyway.” Anastasia waved her hand vaguely. “Something about having to take an early phone call tomorrow. I don't know,” she confessed. “I wasn't really listening. You know how she can go on and on.”

His agent would just drop his mother off at the curb, never leaving her vehicle. He wasn't sure if he was happy with that. “You'll be all right, going home by yourself?” he questioned.

“I won't be by myself,” Anastasia reminded him, then looked toward her granddaughter. “I have Victoria. What more could I ask for?”

Brandon smiled. There were indeed times when it felt as if Victoria was the adult and his mother, and occasionally, he supposed, he as well, were the children. His daughter was born with an old soul, which was fortunate for him because he wouldn't have known what to do with a typical rebellious teenager.

Walking in at the tail end of the conversation, Isabelle
joined Brandon and his family. “I should be going with you,” she told the actress.

That was exactly what Anastasia
didn't
want. She wanted the two of them to be alone together—as alone as was possible in the middle of a packed reception.

“Nonsense, dear. This is the shank of the evening for you and you're only young once—trust me on this.” The woman patted Isabelle's cheek with her heavily ringed hand. “Enjoy yourself. Keep an eye out for Brandon and make sure some overendowed, eager fan doesn't get it into her head to make off with him,” she requested. “He has trouble saying ‘no.' To anyone except his poor mother.”

Brandon laughed. “There's absolutely nothing ‘poor' about you, Mother.”

Anastasia took it as her due. “Thank you, dear.” As she spoke, she looked around for Brandon's agent. “Ah, there she is. Maura,” she called out, raising her arm and waving from side to side to catch the woman's attention. “We're ready to go.”

His agent, a short, sensible-looking woman wearing a blue sequined dress that transformed her squat torso into a walking blue flame, nodded.

“Then let's go.” She put a hand to the small of each of their backs. “I'm parked in the first row,” she informed her charges as she herded them both off.

Now what?
Isabelle wondered.

She looked after the departing actress, clearly torn between her sense of duty and a very strong streak of desire, a streak that insisted on growing with every breath she took.

“I really should go with her,” she murmured to Brandon.

“No, you shouldn't,” he contradicted. She looked
at him, puzzled. “It took me a while to get versed in Anastasia-speak but if she tells you she wants you to stay, then she wants you to stay. Really.”

Isabelle still had her doubts as she watched the two women and Victoria weave their way through the crowd and inch over to the front of the bookstore. “She's leaving because she's tired—”

“Which is exactly why you shouldn't accompany her,” he pointed out. “She's using Victoria as an excuse to leave. This way, she can slip into bed without damaging her reputation as the queen of the all-nighters. If you go with her, she'll be forced to stay up and pretend that she could have gone on all night—when she couldn't.”

“That's pretty convoluted.” But, she supposed, in an odd sort of way, that did make sense.

“So's my mother,” he pointed out. “Trust me, it's better this way. Besides, she's just a little tired, it's not like she's going to need a blood transfusion once she's home. There's no real reason for you to go with her.” It occurred to Brandon, as he made the case for her to stay, that there could be another reason why Isabelle might be trying to leave. “Unless you don't want to stay.”

“Not want to stay?” she echoed. How could he even
think
such a thing? Maybe this was old hat to Brandon but not to her. “I'm feeling a little like Cinderella at the ball. I don't get to go to many parties in my line of work,” she told him, silently adding that, counting this one, it brought the grand total up to one—if she didn't count the one that Zoe'd thrown to celebrate their fifth year in business last month.

“Then I'm not making you remain against your will,” he concluded. “Good. Feeling adventurous?” he asked completely out of the blue. There was amusement in his sky blue eyes.

Isabelle could feel her heart suddenly hitching in her throat even though there was no logical reason why it should.

“Okay,” she replied tentatively, stretching the word out.

He grinned. “Can I interest you in sampling some appetizers with me?” He indicated the center of the buffet table against the far wall.

He, Isabelle thought, could interest her in sampling chocolate-covered worms. The idea didn't even make her cringe. Since she'd taken on the famous screen icon's case, it had all seemed like one giant adventure to her, and she secretly hoped it would never end, even though she knew it had to.

There were less than three weeks left before the tour for Anastasia's play,
A Little Night Music,
was to begin. That was the deadline she'd been given to get the actress into “top dancing condition.”

Which meant that there were less than three weeks for her to be part of this world that seemed like a fairy tale come true to her.

She realized that she hadn't answered Brandon and he was still waiting. “Sure, why not?” she said gamely.

The three large platters of artfully arranged appetizers formed an exotic array. They each took five different ones, giving them a total of ten to sample.

“Oh, wow, you have to try this one,” Brandon enthused, after taking a small bite of an appetizer that, in Isabelle's estimation, apparently tasted far better than it looked.

Rather than have her go back to the table to get one of her own, Brandon held out the second half of the one he'd sampled and fed it to her.

She hardly tasted it.

All of her senses were otherwise occupied as the intimate moment—despite the people milling all around them—registered all the way into the deep recesses of her soul.

For just that one precious moment, there was nothing and no one else but the two of them and a canapé that involved marinated chicken, guacamole and some unknown, sweet ingredient that seemed to explode on her tongue into a wild spectrum of flavors.

Not the smallest of which was desire.

Breathe! Breathe, damn it, or you're going to pass out right here at his feet, dummy,
she chided herself as she realized that she'd literally stopped exhaling for more than just a beat.

“Good?” he asked, peering closely at her face.

Exquisite. Beyond anything I've ever felt.
Isabelle nodded her response, not trusting her voice to come out in anything except an unintelligible squeak.

He took another two canapés and slipped them onto his plate, intent on sharing each with her. “I don't know who the caterer is, but I'm having them do my Christmas party this year,” he declared. “By the way, you're invited.”

It was an offhanded invitation that she was certain he forgot the moment he offered it. Surely he'd forget by the time the season rolled around.

But she never would.

 

They wound up staying until the very end. Brandon, the epitome of energy, gave every indication of going on forever. And when the reception finally did wind down and then break up, Brandon looked almost sorry that the party was over.

As he said his goodbyes to the bookstore owner, a
heavyset man who pumped his hand and thanked him twice over for coming, Brandon turned toward Isabelle. All sorts of ideas were forming in his head.

She was even more beautiful right now than she'd been at the beginning of the evening—and it wasn't the wine talking because he hadn't had any for the past hour and a half. He hadn't had much before then, either. He liked having a clear head.

Isabelle was fumbling with her shawl, and he slipped it around her shoulders for her, his fingers brushing against her arm's bare skin.

The contact was electrifying. He wondered if she'd felt it, too.

“I don't feel like going home just yet,” he told her. “You up for a walk on the beach?”

She resisted the urge to tell him that if he wanted to run off to the circus, she was up for that, too. Instead, she said, “That sounds very nice. Count me in,” and left it at that.

 

The sound of the ocean, its waves sliding in to flirt with the shore before coquettishly withdrawing, promised to have a very soothing effect. She welcomed the thought. Right now she felt as if she was still fully charged and about to go off like a misfired rocket at any moment.

The beach, as it turned out, was located not that far from the bookstore. They gained access to it by taking a path that started directly behind the store and cut across an alley between two summer homes before it finally brought them straight down to the beach.

There was a full moon out, casting its light onto the waters.

Just for us,
she thought, watching the moonbeams glimmer along the dark waters.

“There's a full moon out tonight,” she commented.

“Like it?” Brandon asked, weaving his fingers through her hand as he deadpanned, “I ordered ahead for it.”