“Yes, I know.”
Angelica eyed him with disapproval. “It’s more than a little creepy knowing you investigated me, the way that—that reptile Searcy is always snooping around trying to find dirt on my mother.”
She decided that she was definitely going to arrange to have herself paged by Mara.
“I wasn’t looking for any dirt, nor did I find any, Angelica. And I only know a few basic facts about you. At this point, I’ve told you as much about myself as I know about you.”
They stared at each other. Angelica was surprised to see how wary and alert, how very much on guard he appeared to be. In fact, he looked the way she felt.
That struck her as strange. Why should Flynt be uneasy around her? She couldn’t disrupt his life, the way he’d most certainly disrupted hers. Unless…
She remembered Searcy’s crude comment on the porch, and her own foolishly impulsive glance at Flynt’s groin. Angelica felt her cheeks begin to grow warm. She was blushing!
This was a nurse? One whose career was based on the results of reproduction? It was disconcerting to realize that she could comfortably and competently discuss the anatomy and other clinical aspects of sex with any man, woman or child on the planet, yet the flash memory of Flynt Corrigan’s bulging fly made her flush as crimson as a sheltered Victorian maiden.
It was also mortifying!
She couldn’t let him know how he affected her, that he was capable of turning her into a blushing schoolgirl. But then, his own actions made it clear that he didn’t want to acknowledge her erotic effect on him, either. Flynt had tried to ignore the evidence as much as she had; he’d not even hinted at making a pass at her.
The realization bolstered her self-confidence. The two of them could operate under an unspoken agreement, without admitting their mutual sexual awareness. Such an arrangement would permit them both to maintain control. Which would be as important to Flynt as it was to her. She recognized a fellow control freak when their paths crossed, Angelica mused wryly.
“I’ll check with Brandon and then get back to you about tonight,” Flynt said, already heading out of the kitchen. “Where can I reach you? Here or—”
“I’ll be at my own apartment.” Angelica scribbled down her phone number on the ransom note and handed it to him. “Oops. Did I just tamper with evidence or something?” she asked snidely.
“Brandon isn’t responsible for this, Angelica. Believe it.”
“Then maybe it was Searcy,” mocked Angelica. “I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
“You could be right. There’s a whole world of suspects out there, now that you and your mother have been eliminated.”
They reached the small vestibule. The umbrella was still lying on the floor where she had forced him to drop it. Flynt stooped down and picked it up.
“You suspected me of extortion?” Angelica was incensed. “Or Mama?”
“You two were the first ones we suspected,” drawled Flynt. “See how easy—and how foolish—it is to jump to conclusions?” He placed the umbrella in her hand. “I’ll talk to Brandon and then call you, probably within the next hour.”
“Can’t wait,” Angelica muttered, watching him stride down the walk.
She tried to ignore the unwelcome fluttering in her stomach. She was not nervous! That threatening note was too amateurish to be taken seriously, she decided. The pasted letters were too ridiculous, like something out of a junior detective novel. Anyway, she didn’t feel like a Fortune, she didn’t feel like Brandon’s daughter so the threat didn’t really apply to her, no matter what Flynt might say.
Nor was she nervous about meeting her father for the first time; she didn’t care enough to be nervous, Angelica staunchly reminded herself.
“Fathers!” She said the word aloud and heard the scorn in her voice. “Who needs them?”
Who needed them, indeed? She remembered her brother Daniel’s father, Tom Harper, though she had only been seven years old the final time she’d seen him. He was a big, rough, hard-drinking cowboy in East Texas, who’d resented even the slight domesticity forced on him during his visits to Romina’s tiny apartment and was abusive to the mother of his son.
Angelica thought of that last evening when Tom Harper and her mother had been fighting as usual, with Mama screaming, Tom cursing, and both of them throwing things. Poor little Danny, not quite two, had cried and cried. In her mind’s eye, Angelica could still see Tom Harper bursting into the small bedroom, bending over the crib to grab the terrified toddler.
She saw her young self charging Tom like a bull in the rodeo, knocking him off his already unsteady feet. He had risen up like an enraged giant, and then it was Angelica who’d been thrown, right into the wall.
That had done it for Romina, who’d endured Tom’s abuse but wouldn’t tolerate a man’s hand being raised against her children. She’d immediately decided they were leaving Tom Harper and Texas the next day. For a long time afterward, Romina had boyfriends only, sparing Angelica and Danny any further interactions with fathers until she met Sarah’s, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, seven years later.
Barry North, a charming, smiling man, Angelica recalled. Handsome and well-groomed, some kind of professional because he always wore a suit when he came to visit. A married man. She and Danny had rummaged through his wallet once when he was in the other room with mama, and had seen the family photo he proudly carried. There they were, the North family. Barry, his wife and three kids.
Barry North was not interested in having a fourth child, at least not with Romina. After Romina told him she was pregnant, they never saw him again.
Shortly after Sarah’s birth, they had moved to Birmingham, Alabama. Romina met Casper’s father, Jurgen Heintz, an introverted physics professor at the university, on one of her cookie runs to the campus. He’d made it clear during his infrequent visits that the presence of Angelica, Danny and little Sarah unnerved him. He did not like children, and he certainly didn’t want any of his own.
Angelica knew that because at fourteen she’d become her mother’s confidante—or confessor. Jurgen Heintz refused to have anything to do with his child and arranged for a departmental transfer to the main campus at Huntsville. Before leaving town, he gave Romina a lump sum of cash.
“He bought his way out of Casper’s life for six thousand dollars,” Angelica remembered her mother saying as she clutched the professor’s check.
They’d used it as a down payment on this house.
At least Jurgen had provided them with that much; Tom Harper and Barry North hadn’t donated a penny toward their children’s welfare. Yet even as she credited Jurgen Heintz for his contribution, Angelica thought of Casper, wanting all those expensive, exciting, challenging things they couldn’t afford.
“Casper is too smart for his own good,” Romina often said. “It’s too bad he inherited that high IQ from his father.”
Fathers. Angelica shivered. She’d always felt lucky to be spared knowledge of her own. Now that was about to change.
The fluttering in Angelica’s stomach became genuine pangs. Which could not be anxiety! She refused to be anxious about meeting some guy from her mother’s past—which was all that Brandon Fortune meant to her.
“Is she coming?” Brandon asked Flynt for what seemed like the thousandth time since they’d taken a booth in the trendy Southside nightspot called Swank.
The place had been Brandon’s choice. He’d polled the staff at the Premier Living Suites for the “hottest new place in town” and been told Swank was it.
The place boasted no fewer than seventy-five varieties of beer, plus a cigar bar stocked with fancy smokes, cognacs, wines and premium cocktails. There was also a billiard room, a smoke-free lounge with thick-velvet upholstered chairs and sofas and a marble dance floor. Flynt and Brandon were currently occupying one of the dark leather booths in the softly lit Martini Lounge. Strains of a yearning ballad filtered in from the dancing area.
“The setting’s gotta be right. I wan
t my kid to think her dad is the coolest dude ever,” Brandon had explained to Flynt. When Flynt mentioned Swank to Angelica, she had agreed to meet them there at nine o’clock in a tone so utterly indifferent that he knew she was faking it.
“Do you see her? Is she here yet?” pressed Brandon.
“No, I don’t see her, she’s not here yet,” Flynt replied, for what felt like the thousandth time.
He’d followed the traditional security seating arrangements and faced the entrance of the lounge, putting himself on guard duty. Meanwhile, waiting with Brandon for Angelica to arrive seemed to him a lot like watching for Santa on Christmas Eve with an eager kindergartner. Neither possessed much patience or any sense of time.
“I’ll have another drink, Kimmy,” Brandon called to the waitress. “Same as the last.”
“That’ll be your third martini, Brandon.” Flynt took a sip of his beer. His first, from a local microbrewer. “In addition to the wine with dinner. Think you’d better slow down?”
He suspected Brandon had a few drinks earlier, too. Monitoring the other man’s alcohol intake made him feel like a prep school chaperone.
Apparently Brandon agreed. “What’re you, a teetotaling watchdog?” he snapped, his voice slightly slurred.
“You don’t want to be drunk when you meet your daughter for the first time, do you?” Flynt grimaced. He sounded like a condescending scold, but he didn’t want Angelica to find her father soused upon her arrival.
Maybe another approach would be better received. “Look, Brandon, I know you’re nervous about meeting Angelica—who can blame you?—but—”
Flynt paused as Brandon jumped to his feet to snatch his latest martini from the waitress’s tray. Still standing, he glanced at the entrance of the lounge.
“Oh, wow!” Brandon downed a large gulp of his drink. “Flynt, is that her?”
Flynt followed the direction of Brandon’s pop-eyed stare. A young woman in a short blue dress was striding into the lounge. She wore high-heeled strappy sandals that gave her added height and showcased a pair of shapely legs. Her thick shiny black hair flowed around her shoulders and she held her head high as she walked.
She was not only beautiful, she had presence, she radiated sexual charisma, and Flynt knew that every male eye in the lounge was on her. On Angelica.
“Can that be my little girl?” Brandon fairly gasped the words.
Flynt figured that although Brandon had seen the photograph of Angelica, he somehow, against all logic, must have been expecting “a little girl.” Perhaps a sprite in pigtails and kneesocks.
“Brandon, I think you’d better sit back down,” Flynt said, trying to ease him back into the seat. Poor Brandon didn’t look too well.
By the time Angelica reached their booth, her father was pale and hyperventilating.
“I think he might be having an asthma attack,” guessed Kimmy, who’d returned to check out the commotion.
“Or maybe a cardiac arrest,” a patron at a nearby booth suggested helpfully. “Does anybody know CPR?”
“I do, I’m a nurse,” said Angelica. She leaned over Brandon, holding his wrist to take his pulse. It was quite strong, not at all indicative of cardiac distress.
“I’m pretty sure he’s having an anxiety attack,” Flynt said quickly, before Angelica and the interested group of spectators who’d gathered could begin CPR. “A paper bag would be helpful.”
Someone shoved a bag into his hands. “Breathe into this, Brandon,” Flynt ordered, holding it up to his face.
Brandon took a few deep breaths and gradually resumed breathing naturally.
Angelica met Flynt’s gaze over the top of Brandon’s head. So this was her father? She decided to get this over even more quickly than she’d originally planned.
She would introduce herself and then take off. “Hello, I’m—”
“Don’t even think it,” Flynt growled, and she knew he’d read her thoughts—all too accurately.
The other customers returned to their booths. Kimmy asked if Angelica would like to order a drink.
“That’s my daughter, can you believe it?” Brandon sounded like he didn’t. “Give her whatever she wants. Money is no object.”
No doubt her status-conscious father expected her to order a magnum of the most expensive champagne, Angelica thought. Well, she would not bow to greed. This was her first opportunity to show him that, apart from sharing a gene pool, she and Brandon Fortune were not alike in any way.
“I’ll have a chocolate martini, please,” said Angelica.
Flynt assumed she was being sarcastic. “Angelica, if you don’t order something, I’ll order for you,” he gritted through his teeth.
“No, she’s already ordered, Flynt.” Brandon leaped to her defense. “A chocolate martini is the cool, up-to-the-minute drink. Of course, my daughter would know such things.” He gazed raptly at Angelica for a long moment.
“A chocolate martini?” Flynt grimaced. “Who dreamed that one up? And why?”
“It’s cool and up-to-the-minute,” Angelica assured him, a gleam of humor in her dark eyes. She kept them focused on Flynt, stealing only a covert glance at her father.
“Sit down, both of you!” Brandon played host. “We have so much catching up to do.” He slid over, making room for Angelica on his side of the booth.
Instead, she slipped into the other side, across from her father, casting him a veiled sidelong glance. Brandon’s eyes were slightly bloodshot, his face tanned and somewhat dissolute, his hair too blond and too long for a man of his age.
He was her father. Her father! Shouldn’t she be feeling something, anything, toward this man? Some sort of allegiance based upon biology, at the very least. Instead she felt…
She felt nothing. Angelica’s eyes collided with Brandon’s, and she noticed that he looked away as quickly as she did.
She twisted the napkin that she hadn’t even realized she’d picked up. Well, maybe she was feeling something, Angelica conceded, a confusing inner turmoil that she wasn’t sure how to identify or to handle. What were she and Brandon Fortune supposed to do now? What could they possibly say to each other? He was her father, but she didn’t know him.
There was no need to know him, she reminded herself, she didn’t want to know him.
“My daughter, huh? I’ve been in some really weird places but this kind of tops them all,” Brandon said, breaking the silence again. “I mean, I thought meeting my mother and sisters and brothers for the first time was—was…” His voice trailed off. Clearly, he was at a loss for words.
“Weird?” Angelica supplied one.
She was suddenly intensely curious about this man. Weird hardly covered the unsurpassingly strange series of events that comprised Brandon Fortune’s life.
“Yeah, weird,” Brandon agreed.
Flynt sat down beside Angelica, closer than he needed to be. Close enough for her to feel the sturdy strength of him, to absorb the heat from his body. Instead of being offended at this invasion of her personal space, she found his nearness to be comfortable, familiar.
“Are you okay?” Flynt asked in a low quiet tone, for her ears only.
Angelica nodded her head, grateful for his concern. For his presence. If he had taken her hand for an encouraging squeeze, she knew she wouldn’t have objected.
But Flynt rested his arms on the table, folding both his hands around his bottle of beer. “I have to admit, I’m not sure how to proceed from here. Should I introduce you two to each other?”
“No introductions necessary, Flynt,” said Brandon. “Angelica and I know who we are.”
Angelica swallowed. If this wasn’t the most bizarre moment of her life, it was certainly a prime contender. “Yes, we know.”
“So what do you think of your old dad?” Brandon asked in faux hale-and-hearty tones.
“I don’t know you well enough to be able to answer that, Mr. Fortune,” she replied. And instantly took herself to task. No, that sounded wrong. Too cold and formal
, maybe even critical which she didn’t mean to be. “Um, Brandon,” she amended. But that didn’t sound right either.
“You can call me Dad,” Brandon said rather breezily.
Flynt winced. In his book, that suggestion earned Brandon the title King of Superficiality. But Angelica’s response stunned him.
She smiled. “Okay, Dad.”
“Say, this is a lot easier than I thought it would be.” Brandon looked pleased.
And then Flynt began to understand the dynamics between the pair. The title, the very concept of Dad, meant nothing to Angelica. She probably attributed the same emotional weight to the word Dad as she did to man or person.
And Brandon shared her attitude completely. Dad held no special meaning for him, either. As Brandon Malone, he’d grown up without a dad, thanks to his adoptive mother’s succession of lovers and his own father’s hideous betrayal. Flynt frowned thoughtfully. The more he considered it, the more Dad seemed an imprecation for this pair. A subtle, convenient expression of hostility.
Which was a shame. The two of them shared a common loss, without either realizing what they’d missed. Inevitably, came memories of his own dad, whom he’d deeply loved. Flynt felt the familiar dark sadness well within him and immediately suppressed it. This wasn’t the time or the place to think about the late John Corrigan.
He ignored the niggling guilt, reminding him that he’d never found the proper time and place to think about his father, that he’d been keeping those memories at bay for too many years.
Kimmy’s arrival ended his reverie, and Flynt was glad to let it go. He watched as the waitress placed a peculiar-looking drink in front of Angelica.
“So that’s a chocolate martini?” He eyed it dubiously.
“Would you like a taste?” offered Angelica, lifting the glass.
“No, thanks.” Flynt politely declined. He saw no reason to add that the very idea of a chocolate martini made him feel like gagging.
“Do you have a picture of your mother with you, princess?” Brandon asked Angelica. “Romina was my first love, you know. You never really forget your first love, right?”
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