What the Single Dad Wants... (15 page)

“Camp,” Anastasia repeated with a disapproving shake of her head. “Camping out with bugs and furry creatures that eat with their hands.”

“Paws,” Brandon corrected, amused.

That only made his mother shiver. “Disgusting,” she declared. “And completely uncivilized. I don't know why you sent her.”

He hadn't
sent
Victoria anywhere since she was six years old. Wherever she went—school, dance classes, art lessons—she went willingly, because she wanted to.

“I didn't
send
her, Mother. She went because she wanted to go. It was her idea, remember?” he reminded his mother. “She thought she'd have fun. And besides, Marisol was going,” Brandon added. The two girls had been fast friends since they'd sat next to one another the first day of kindergarten.

Anastasia moved her shoulders in a careless shrug. She never surrendered when it came to an argument, even if she was proven wrong. She knew how to turn things around to seem as if she'd been right all along.

“Well, I suppose there's that, too,” the actress conceded loftily. “At any rate, solitude is highly overrated,” she said, waving her hand about to include the whole house. “I've gotten accustomed to the sound of you rattling around, making noise.” She drew herself up, as if preparing to go to her room. “Now that you're home, I can go to sleep.”

Amused despite himself, Brandon couldn't help asking his mother, “Just what do you do when you're in your own home?”

Anastasia offered him a very sly smile in response.
“Who says I'm alone there?” And with that hanging in the air between them, she majestically turned away and withdrew.

“She really is something else,” Isabelle said, admiration echoing in her voice as she watched the actress disappear around the corner leading to her bedroom.

“Yes, she certainly is,” Brandon agreed. “And someday science will figure out exactly what that ‘something' is.” And then his demeanor shifted as he turned his attention to her. “But enough about my mother.” He did a fairly good imitation of a radio announcer from a more dramatic, bygone era. “I believe when we last saw Isabelle and Brandon, she was in his arms and he was having a difficult time controlling his desire for her.”

Isabelle laughed, amused. She would have never expected this lighthearted, boyish side of him. “Are you planning on narrating everything that happens between us?” she asked, doing her best to maintain a straight face.

“Probably not.” He brushed his lips against each cheek, then dusted her eyes with one tiny kiss apiece. “Suspense thrillers are my forte, not romantic scenes, remember?”

She smiled up into his eyes as he pulled her into his arms. “Oh, I wouldn't exactly say that,” she contradicted. “You seem to have a very natural aptitude for romantic scenes.”

“Nice of you to notice,” he told her, continuing to shower her face with tiny, arousing kisses. “I think you should know that no matter what I'm doing, I always try to top whatever I've done before.”

Right at that moment, her heart launched into a triple beat. “Well then, in the words of the immortal Bette
Davis, I guess I'd better fasten my seat belt because it's going to be a bumpy night.”

“Don't bother fastening anything,” he instructed. “I'll only have to unfasten it.”

Brushing his lips against hers one final time, he then took her hand and led her upstairs to his room, which he'd been dying to do all day.

“P
hysical therapist by day, goddess of love by night. You really are the total package, aren't you?”

Brandon's breath warmed her skin as he made his half teasing observation.

They were lying in his bed, his arm tucked protectively about her, her nude body still throbbing from the thrill of making love with him just a few short minutes ago. He stroked her hair and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She hung on to the glorious euphoria that had been wrapped around her for all she was worth.

She heard him laugh softly. “If I pull something because I give myself too much credit for flexibility, you can fix me and put me back together again. Total package,” he repeated with admiration.

“As long as you're not Humpty Dumpty, I can give it my best shot,” she replied.

The heat of his body reached out to hers, stirred her. Whispered of another go-round.

She could literally
feel
herself aching for him.

“Your best is more than enough for me,” Brandon told her.

At times it's almost too much,
he added silently. Isabelle could wear him out and then have him begging for more in an incredibly short amount of time, he marveled. What kind of power did this woman have over him? She'd turned a perfectly normal man with ordinary needs into this insatiable creature whose appetite just insisted on growing. This new man had nothing in common with the man he'd
thought
he was.

Brandon inhaled the fragrance in her hair.

Obviously he'd thought wrong. He was so much more. If he was wrong about one thing, he could very possibly be wrong about other things as well, he told himself as his arm tightened around Isabelle.

For instance, he could be wrong about the way he viewed his future, he speculated. Until Isabelle had entered his life with her sunshine and her laughing eyes, he'd thought he knew exactly the way the rest of his life would unfold. He'd work, attend parties and be there for both his daughter and his mother. The idea of another woman permanently installed in his life was utterly out of the question. Once on the marriage-go-round had definitely been more than enough for him. Besides, he'd reasoned, most likely, he'd make the same mistake over and over again and pick someone like Jean.

Isabelle was
nothing
like his first wife.

Consequently, for the past couple of weeks he'd begun to have second thoughts about his overall view of the rest of his life in general, and about his view of marriage specifically.

Most of all, he'd rethought the concept of giving up. After all, he hadn't just thrown his hands up when he'd received his first rejection slip, hadn't said he'd given it his best shot and stopped trying.

No, like a glutton for punishment, he kept coming back for more. And more. Until he got what he was after. A publishing company that gave him a one book contract and a chance to prove himself.

That, of course, had led to other books, other contracts. After that humble beginning, he never looked back.

Why would he approach marriage any differently? He had picked the wrong person the first time, that was all. Looking back, that had been over thirteen years ago. He'd been an untried kid of twenty at the time. He was far more sophisticated now, more discerning, more versed in analyzing characters and the motivation that went into them.

Moreover, he knew what he was looking for in a life partner, and he was well aware of the danger of just jumping in with both feet without assessing the situation first.

He was assessing it now, and he
liked
what he saw. Liked the thought of facing each day knowing that Isabelle would be somewhere around within that day—and within all the days to come.

That didn't automatically mean that the thought of marriage didn't make him nervous. And it didn't mean that the prospect of getting married again, of trusting someone else with the care and keeping of his heart, was not scary as hell, because it was.

SCARY in big, bold capital letters.

But, risk nothing, gain nothing—wasn't that what he'd told Victoria more than once? If it was an edict he
felt was good enough for his precious daughter, it sure as hell was good enough for him.

All he had to do, he thought, looking at the woman tucked into the crook of his arm, was get up the courage to ask Isabelle.

But he had a little time before he had to work on getting up his nerve. Right now, Isabelle was still very much in his life and would continue to be as long as his mother needed her.

He found himself torn. He certainly wanted his mother to bounce back to her incredible old self, but her reaching that plateau would do away with the need for Isabelle's presence.

Brandon smiled to himself. Who would have thought that he'd wind up being a very strong advocate for slow-and-steady winning out in the long run, like the tortoise in the fable?

An uneasiness began to undulate through Isabelle. Brandon had been quiet for a while now. Longer than usual. As a matter of fact, this was the longest he'd ever been quiet without the excuse of dozing off.

Asleep, there was a reason for the silence. But he wasn't asleep. And he wasn't talking.

What was he thinking?

Her uneasiness grew, slipping through her veins, putting out the fire that had just been there a few short seconds ago. She went from hot to freezing cold in one heartbeat.

Something was wrong. She could
feel
it.

Isabelle vacillated between coming right out and asking Brandon what was wrong and ignoring the entire thing.

But that was no way to move ahead. Ignorance was
not
bliss and anyone who believed that was an idiot. Not
knowing was the basis for constant uneasiness and the onset of paranoia.

Still, a little voice inside her voted for ignorance. It whispered that ignorance was better than being forced to face a harsh truth that could shatter everything good at this moment.

So, rather than lie there, speculating, having thoughts bouncing about in her head as if she was the ball being lobbed back and forth in a continuous game of tennis, Isabelle turned into him, bringing her nude body up closer against him and sealing her lips to his. With instant results.

The way she saw it, she was buying herself a little time, reveling a little longer in the fairy tale world that they had spun for themselves.

The sudden maneuver caught Brandon completely off guard.

But not for long.

As ever, he prided himself on being able to rise to the occasion. This time was no different.

“You're going to wear me out, you know that, don't you?” he asked with affection echoing in his voice.

She responded with a laugh and drew him even further into their fiery new world.

He went willingly.

 

“You know, when you first came, I had my doubts about you,” Anastasia told Isabelle frankly.

She had just completed an exercise she had found too grueling and next to impossible a few short weeks ago. This time, much to her satisfaction, it had all gone perfectly. She'd begun at one end of the exercise room and made it all the way over to the other end, not just in
record time, but without losing the tension in the band that Isabelle had placed around her lower thighs.

Of necessity, she'd waddled like a duck, but a very graceful duck, she liked to think. And that, to Anastasia, meant that she had passed the “course” set before her. From here on in, any exercises she faced would be the regular kind, meant to keep her body flexible and limber, something she liked to think kept her youthful as well.

“Oh?” Isabelle asked, her curiosity aroused. “What kind of doubts?”

Anastasia shrugged in that vague, dismissive way of hers. “I knew you had to know your stuff. After all, you did get a degree in physical therapy. But I didn't think you were woman enough to ride herd over me—” She saw the surprised expression on Isabelle's face and watched it melt into bemusement. “Yes, I know I can be, let's just say ‘difficult' by some standards—”

“You, Anastasia Del Vecchio, are difficult by anyone's standards,” Isabelle interjected with genuine affection. The woman was an experience like no other, and she would always be grateful for the opportunity to be with her. “But it's also what makes you uniquely you,” Isabelle concluded with complete conviction.

Anastasia appeared exceedingly pleased with the assessment.

“Glad you could see that. Anyway,” she said getting back to original point, “I didn't think you could make me do these silly little exercises, but you could and you did and I'm obviously the better for it.” That was said a bit grudgingly. “Thank you,” she declared, then surprised Isabelle even more by pulling her into her arms and awarding each cheek with a kiss. “You have done me—and my public—a tremendous service.”

“I'm glad I could be of help,” Isabelle replied, doing her best to look serious.

Inside she suddenly struggled with a tidal wave of bittersweet feeling that threatened to completely overwhelm her.

Somehow, she managed to keep a smile on her face and an upbeat note in her voice, but it was definitely
not
easy.

This is the end,
a voice in her head whispered.
It's over. The fairy tale you've been gliding on is about to break apart. Time to get back to the real world, Cinderella.

Isabelle took a breath. She might as well know it now. “When do you go on tour, Anastasia?”

“They leave the day after tomorrow.” She tossed the words in her direction as if they were of no consequence. As if they didn't have the power to blow up a carefully crafted world, spun entirely out of sugar. “Thank God, I got in a little rehearsal time before my accident—not that I don't know the play cold,” she added with her customary, undaunted confidence. “You'll come to the show when we bring it back to L.A.?” the actress asked her suddenly.

Isabelle drew in a breath, as if that could somehow protect her heart, put a shield around it and forced a smile to her lips. “Wouldn't miss it for the world,” she promised.

The woman graced her with a satisfied, beatific smile. “Good, then I'll be sure to leave a ticket at the box office for you.”

A ticket.

A single, lonely sliver of paper to denote her status in life, Isabelle thought. Single. Forever.

Funny, she had resigned herself to that before she
came here, making peace with it. Knowing it was better than living in a constant heightened state of dread, subconsciously waiting to be betrayed, the way her father had betrayed her mother.

But being here, being a part of this family, a family she had come to care about a great deal, had changed everything for her, at least temporarily. Living here had made her dream and yearn for something more. Something richer.

She'd even begun to think that it was possible…

That, idiot, was your big mistake. How could it have been possible? He's Brandon Slade, for God sakes, and you're…just you.

Stop it,
she ordered herself sternly.
You knew it would be like this when you signed on. This is a world-famous writer. What do you have to offer the man he can't get somewhere else? Nothing.

Her old life was calling and she had to go. It was good enough for her once, it would be good enough again. And very soon, all this would just seem like a dream, a wonderful, euphoric dream.

“Oh, my,” Anastasia said, moving about her room. “There's a thousand things I have to see to before I leave. And I have to call Tyler,” she announced suddenly. “Tyler Channing is the director.” She tossed the name carelessly toward Isabelle. “He's been pulling out what little hair he has left, worrying whether or not I'll be ready to join the tour in time. He has this little contract player on standby,” she confided, then snorted at the very thought of someone else taking her place. “Well, she can just keep on standing by because, thanks to you—” the actress beamed at her “—I'm ready. Ready to bring down the house,” she declared with relish.

In the world of Anastasia Del Vecchio, there was no such thing as half measures.

“God, I don't know where to start,” Anastasia said to herself, turning about in a complete circle as she surveyed every inch of her room, obviously trying to decide where to begin.

Isabelle slipped out of the room as the actress continued making plans, obviously happy to reclaim the life that had once been hers.

Too bad we can't all feel that way,
Isabelle thought.

She sincerely doubted that the actress even noticed that she'd left.

Now what?
Isabelle wondered as she walked down the hallway.

The house was empty.

Brandon was in Hollywood for a good part of the day. He and his powerhouse of an agent, Maura, were meeting with a producer who had expressed no small interest in bringing one of Brandon's earlier books to the movie screen.

For the first time since she'd arrived here, the large house felt hauntingly empty to her. It was an omen, Isabelle decided. Time for her to pack up her things and leave.

The thought of saying goodbye brought a lump to her throat. With her luck, the words would probably get stuck there if she tried to say them. She wasn't very good at taking her leave. She lacked the gift of knowing what to say and how to say it. Slipping off into the darkness was more her style.

It was just better this way. She certainly didn't want Brandon to feel awkward in her presence. Didn't want him to feel he had to say something to her about the time they'd spent together. And she
certainly
didn't
want him to feel that he had an obligation to stay in touch with her.

That was something she would have wanted to have happen because he
wanted
to, not because he felt he
had
to.

And even so, even if he told her that he wanted to stay in touch, who was to say that she would actually welcome that? Wasn't she the one with an underlying fear of commitment? A fear of commitment because she was afraid of the disappointment that seemed to go with it?