What the Single Dad Wants...

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Good. About time my son saw the value of the company of a decent young woman.” She rolled her eyes as she confided, “You should have seen who he’s taken out in the past. They all looked like special deliveries directly from some upscale cathouse. And not a single one of them would drown in a flash flood even if they wanted to, if you know what I mean.” She gave Isabelle a penetrating look.

  She knew exactly what Anastasia meant. That the women Brandon Slade went out with were all well-endowed—or at least well-enhanced.

  In that kind of inflated company, she was definitely someone who could be overlooked or lost in the shuffle when it came to large cup sizes, Isabelle thought.

  “Not one of them has the IQ of an intelligent shoelace,” Anastasia lamented. She shook her head. “I have no idea what he sees in them—beyond the obvious, of course.” She shook her head as she continued to attempt to walk without allowing the scarf to drop. “He has better standards than that.”

  Maybe he didn’t, Isabelle couldn’t help thinking. “I don’t think your son’s end goal is to really be mentally stimulated,” Isabelle pointed out. But heaven knew that the word “stimulated” was dead on in this case. Forcing her mind back on Anastasia, she frowned. “And you’ve stopped moving,” she told the actress in as stern a voice as she could manage. She glanced at her wristwatch. “C’mon, you’ve only got ten more minutes to go.”

  Anastasia scowled. She looked down at the scarf, which had slipped several inches and was in danger of pooling down to the floor altogether. Keeping it up was a combined effort of the muscles in her thighs and sheer determination. The exercise, one that Isabelle had created herself, had her moving from one end of the gym to the other, waddling in effect, while keeping the multicolored scarf in place.

  So far, the actress was having only moderate success. Each time the scarf sank past her knees, the event was accompanied by more than a few choice words hurled at the world of physical therapy in general.

  As before, several steps later, the scarf had sunk down, this time encircling Anastasia’s ankles and threatening to make her trip.

  The woman lost her legendary temper. “What is the godforsaken point of all this ridiculous nonsense?” she thundered in a voice that she usually used to project to the very last seat in a large theater—without the aid of a microphone.

  Isabelle bent down and retrieved the scarf, once again slipping it back into place for the actress.

  “In an odd sort of way, the point is the same as learning to walk with a book balanced on your head. One is to perfect your posture and keep your back erect and strong, the other is to strengthen your thighs, especially the one on the leg that’s been operated on. Both boil down to a matter of extreme complete control.”

  Anastasia looked unconvinced. “You’re just trying to change the subject,” she sniffed.

  No, she didn’t want to discuss the subject, Isabelle thought. What had happened was between Brandon and her. Last night had been special, and she had tucked it away, out of the light of day, where it would remain.

  Right now, what she wanted to do was to concentrate on the reason she’d been hired in the first place. To rehabilitate Anastasia in time to join the tour before it left Los Angeles.

  She pinned Anastasia with a look that was meant to convey to the woman that she meant business. It was a look she’d seen her mother give her father often enough when she was growing up. Back then, there’d been frost attached to it.

  “As far as I’m concerned, Anastasia, you are the subject.”

  It was obvious that, although it was usually second nature to the woman, this time the actress didn’t want to focus on herself. At least, not yet. “Be that as it may, I want to know if you two really enjoyed yourselves.”

  She knew. For a self-absorbed woman, Anastasia certainly did pick up on things in her surroundings, Isabella thought.

  “I can’t speak for your son, but yes, I had a very nice time at the reception,” she said evasively.

  “And afterward?” Anastasia asked shrewdly.

  “Afterward was nice, too,” Isabelle allowed, trying not to smile too much. This much she could tell the woman, she thought.

  Anything more was either admitting too much or taking something for granted. That part was up to him to admit or deny. She didn’t want to get ahead of herself—or get carried away. With her father as a glaring example, she was well aware that acute disappointments lay in that direction. She would far rather just go along the way she was than get her hopes up, only to see them come crashing down around her in shattered, painful fragments.

  Besides, if things went sour with Brandon while she was still here working with Anastasia, at the very least it would make working conditions awkward for her. At the worst, it would make them intolerable. She was not about to do anything to set those kinds of waves in motion.

  Better to have nothing than to have something blow up on you.

  To her surprise, Brandon’s mother didn’t press any more. The woman gave her a completely inscrutable smile, murmured, “I see,” and then terminated any line of further questioning.

  Isabelle didn’t know whether to be highly relieved—or very suspicious. From everything she’d ever read about the dynamic actress, Anastasia Del Vecchio was not the type who subscribed to the “let sleeping dogs lie” philosophy. On the contrary, she was the kind of person who insisted on always being in the know and in the thick of things.

  What was she up to?

  Again, Isabelle forced herself to focus on the exercise at hand. She tapped her watch. “You still have nine more minutes to go, you know.”

  “No, I don’t,” Anastasia protested. She swept her hand majestically toward the south wall and pointed to the clock. “Eight minutes have gone by since you said I had ten to go.”

  “Ten working minutes,” Isabelle emphasized. “Not talking minutes.”

  Anastasia pouted. “Anyone named ‘Legree’ in your family tree?” she asked. “As in Simon Leree? He was the evil plantation—”

  “I know where the reference comes from, Anastasia,” Isabelle replied patiently. Humoring the woman, she answered, “And no, there’s no one with that surname in my family tree. Not to mention the fact that he was fictional.”

  Anastasia smiled despite her impatience to get the exercise over with. The fact that Isabelle was familiar with a book written in the mid 1800s was, to her, a testament to the young woman being well-read and well-rounded. That made her all the more perfect for Brandon. There had to be some subtle way to make him see that.

  But not too subtle, Anastasia silently emphasized. For the most part, too much subtlety was lost on men, her son included.

  She decided to work a little on Isabelle. Surely the young woman wouldn’t object to a few honest questions. “But you do find my son attractive?”

  The question ended on a note that implied she was waiting for nothing short of a positive answer. Isabelle debated whether it was worth the effort to tell the woman that this was not exactly the sort of subject that should be discussed, seeing as how Brandon was her son. It probably wasn’t worth the effort, she decided, and gave the only answer possible, since she had twenty-twenty vision.

  “Yes, I find him attractive.” What woman in her right mind wouldn’t? His face was the stuff of dreams. Erotic dreams, she amended. “I would have to be blind not to.”

  Anastasia bestowed an almost beatific smile on her. “He needs a good woman, you know.”

  No, she didn’t know. And neither did Brandon, she was willing to bet. From the articles she’d read about him before she’d met him, Brandon seemed very happy with having a different woman on his arm for each occasion. Yesterday, it had been her. Tomorrow, it would be someone else.

  Why that made her stomach into a knot she wouldn’t even explore. She’d known all this before she’d gone to bed with him. Before she even accepted the job. It was just the way that things were.

  Out loud she said, “He seems very happy with his present l
ifestyle. Don’t turn your right leg out that far,” she coached. “You want to keep your gait equal to give your left leg enough time to catch up properly.”

  “He isn’t, you know. Happy with his present lifestyle,” Anastasia explained when Isabelle looked at her quizzically. “Brandon’s the marrying kind. Unlike me, for him marriage was supposed to last forever. Part of him is still in shock dating back to when Victoria’s mother, Jean, walked out on him. Brandon had to beg her to have Victoria, you know,” she added, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper in case her granddaughter picked this moment to walk in. “Jean wanted to terminate her pregnancy the minute she knew for certain that she was expecting.”

  No, she didn’t know that. It wasn’t any of her business to know, Isabelle thought. But even so, the knowledge of that one not-so-small fact, that Brandon had wanted his daughter from the moment she came into existence, made her heart open up a little more toward the man.

  No longer even pretending to work her exercise, an immobile Anastasia shook her head. “Poor guy thought that when Jean held the baby in her arms, she’d come around. Well, she didn’t and I say he’s the luckier for it because she took her self-centered behind and ran off when Victoria was less than a month old.

  “She did try to come back,” Anastasia told her, lowering her voice in case it carried. “Right after Brandon hit the New York Times bestseller list for the first time. He almost, almost forgave her, too,” the actress lamented. And then she smiled. “Until he realized that she didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. That and the private investigator’s report made up his mind for him and he turned her away.”

  “Private investigator’s report?” Isabelle echoed, waiting for more details.

  Anastasia nodded, looking very smug and pleased with herself. “I hired one to look into what my ex-daughter-in-law had been up to since she’d last darkened Brandon’s door. Quite the promiscuous little party girl, Jean was. Still is, probably.”

  “Mother, you have to have more recent stories than that to entertain your physical therapist with.”

  Both women nearly jumped, startled. Brandon stood in the gym’s doorway, having entered silently behind them.

  With a dramatic intake of breath, Anastasia splayed a very heavily jeweled hand across her ample chest. “You shouldn’t sneak up on me like that, Brandon. You could have given me a heart attack,” she declared. Then her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “How long have you been standing there?

  “You know you don’t get heart attacks, Mother. You give them,” he told her with a knowing smile. “And as for how long I’ve been standing here listening, I’ll just leave that up to your fertile imagination.”

  Indignant, Anastasia chided her son. “Brandon, you shouldn’t eavesdrop.”

  “I wasn’t eavesdropping,” he countered. “I came by to ask Isabelle if she had plans for dinner tonight.”

  “Oh, wait, I think I hear Victoria calling me,” Anastasia announced. She looked from Isabelle to him before continuing. “I’d better go and see what she wants.”

  “Victoria must have a more powerful voice than I thought. She’s down the street, at Marisol’s house,” Brandon said, doing his best to suppress a smile. He only partially succeeded. “That’s her best friend,” he said for Isabelle’s benefit.

  “I know. She told me,” Isabelle replied.

  Somewhat shy at first, Brandon’s daughter had taken to her rather quickly, a fact that pleased her a great deal. She found the young girl refreshingly devoid of all the stereotypical angst and hang-ups associated with most girls her age. The twelve-year-old was really more of a young adult than an adolescent. In a way, Victoria reminded her a lot of herself.

  Anastasia refused to be caught in a lie, even if everyone already knew that it was. This was no exception. “Still, I’d better go and check. I’m absolutely certain I just heard her.” Placing a hand on her son’s arm for balance, she shimmied the scarf off her thighs and gracefully stepped out of the bright, colorful circle. Finally regaining her mobility, the actress nodded at the scarf on the floor. “Be a dear and pick that up for Isabelle, will you, Brandon?”

  With that, the woman swept out of the room, as regal as any queen.

  “Your wish is my command, Mother,” he murmured good-naturedly, bending over to pick up the scarf. Straightening, he offered it back to Isabelle. “I’ll say one thing for my mother. She is nothing if not dramatically colorful.”

  “I heard that.” Anastasia’s voice echoed back into the room despite the fact that she was no longer in his line of sight.

  Seeming to address Isabelle, he raised his voice so that it would carry. “Among other things she has in common with the nocturnal creatures, she also has the hearing of a bat.”

  This time, his mother prudently said nothing. There was no way she was about to acknowledge his very flippant remark.

  Isabelle’s curiosity was getting the better of her. She supposed she could pretend that he hadn’t initially said anything, but then she might miss out on being with him again. And fleeting though it would, right now she didn’t want to pass up a single opportunity to spend some time with Brandon.

  “You said something about dinner?” she prodded, even as part of her wondered if she really should. She didn’t want to seem too eager. But then again, she was afraid if she remained too passive, he’d just move on that much sooner.

  Brandon nodded, getting back to his initial question. “Right. I promised my friend I’d give his new restaurant a try and my date just canceled on me at the last minute. I hate eating by myself in public, so I was wondering if you were available.”

  His date had canceled at the last minute.

  He had a date. With another woman. After they’d made love together last night.

  Talk about a fast operator…

  Well of course he has a date. He didn’t exactly pledge his undying love and loyalty last night, now did he? And for the record, neither did you.

  Just take it for what it was, a wonderful evening with an extremely desirable man.

  Okay, so it wasn’t a wonderful evening, it was the best evening of her whole life, but that was no reason to lose sight of reality. Their time together had been special, unique. Not the start of something big.

  “Sure. If you can’t find anyone else to go,” she added, deliberately giving him a way out if his first choice called back.

  Brandon picked up on it immediately. He detected a definite lack of enthusiasm in Isabelle’s voice and manner. And he had a sneaking feeling he knew why.

  He’d worded things better in his life, Brandon thought, upbraiding himself.

  “I didn’t look for anyone else,” he told her. “And that date that canceled—”

  She raised her hand as if to physically stop the flow of words. “Wait. Brandon. I’m sorry if I made you think that—well, you don’t owe me an explanation—”

  This time it was his turn to interrupt her. “I know, I was volunteering information. I just wanted you to know that I made that date two months ago, when my friend gave me the opening date for his restaurant. I didn’t even know you then.”

  There was no reason for her to feel that burst of sunshine going off inside of her. After all, she knew this was just temporary and had just spent the morning telling herself over and over again that she wasn’t expecting anything lasting from him.

  And truth be told, if she suspected their friendship could last, she’d already be packing up and heading for the hills.

  Because something like that, something that promised to be lasting, that promised her love for a lifetime, had disaster and heartache written all over it in big, bold neon letters.

  Even though she knew how she would react, and still, still she couldn’t help herself. Right now, in this very moment in time, she just couldn’t stop smiling.

  As if she actually believed in love and “happily ever after.”

  She knew better than that.

  Isabelle kept on smiling anyway. />
  Chapter Thirteen

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  Brandon sat on Victoria’s canopied double bed, watching his daughter debating between which pair of almost identical white cutoffs to take with her to summer camp.

  Was it his imagination, or were there fewer stuffed animals lining the bottom shelf of her bookcase in her ultrafeminine bedroom than usual?

  It was official. His daughter was growing up much too fast.

  Victoria never broke stride. She was only half packed and her best friend’s mother was coming by soon to pick her up to drive them to the camp bus. She’d been adamant about her father not coming along. She didn’t think he was up to watching her board the bus.

  “Dad, I’m all packed and you paid for my two weeks at camp way back in April. It’s nonrefundable,” she reminded him.

  Money was so not the point here. He was finally at a stage in his life where money no longer represented a concern of any kind.

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. If you’re having second thoughts or cold feet about going, don’t feel as if you have to leave,” he told her.

  Victoria paused to smile at him fondly. “My feet are as warm as the rest of me, Dad. I want to go. It’ll be fun,” she promised him encouragingly. She crossed to the bureau to check if she’d left anything behind on the list she’d made for herself.

  Victoria might not be having second thoughts, but he was. He liked having his daughter around, and this was her first time away from home. Victoria was well-traveled, but they had always done it together.

  “All right,” he allowed reluctantly, “but if you get there and decide you want to come home—”

  She closed her eyes and answered him, reciting the words as if they’d been drummed into her head. “I’ll call you to come rescue me.”

  “Right.” Well, at least he’d gotten that across to her.

  After his daughter crossed back to the bed, she deposited three more items into the suitcase, then snapped the locks into place. This was it. She was really going. With a sigh, he got off the bed.