Tempting Isabel (Paradise South #1)

by Rissa Brahm

  “The event block is Friday-Sunday, May 30th -June 1st, but the bridal group arrives Wednesday the 28th for their bachelor and bachelorette parties, which, of course, they’re handling themselves.” Golden Rings didn’t do tacky or crude. Lucinda didn’t need the hassle, the liability, or the chance at staining the company’s reputation.

  To Lucinda, reputation was everything. Isabel had learned from Lucinda how their business was hugely dependent on word of mouth. And since the real money for the Puerto Vallarta wedding industry was found in the wealthier, albeit more finicky, foreign markets, that word of mouth needed to be far-reaching and exemplary.

  And, it so happened, that the foreign focus was perfect, no, necessary for Isabel. If Lucinda’s clientele was based on the local area instead, the woman couldn’t have kept Isabel on, no matter how close Lucinda had been to Isabel’s mother. Isabel’s locally infamous hex would have created havoc for Lucinda’s business. But their wealthy foreign clients didn’t know about Isabel’s curse, nor did they believe in such “mumbo-jumbo” as Lucinda lovingly called the area’s superstitions. So Lucinda only saw Isabel as an asset, always on her game. Or striving to be, at least.

  But there was that one major reputation killer that Lucinda never hesitated to warn Isabel and the other attractive junior planners about, especially with the liquor-driven nature of the weddings they managed. In the name of professionalism, planners and staff could never, absolutely ever, fraternize with their guests. Isabel had watched her assistant get fired just last month, and Lucinda made sure Janine was blacklisted from all the event planning outfits up and down the Pacific coast. Beyond watching out for their own agencies, owners had to also zoom out and take care of the entire region’s reputation, or else all Pacific Coast planning companies would be out of the running for American and European wedding business.

  So, for Isabel, the nightclubs and bars were safest for those intermittent distractions. Es todo—that’s it.

  Isabel continued running through the logistics of her biggest-ticket wedding ever, but glanced up from her notes when she heard the sound of clinking ice cubes. Lucinda was swirling her empty glass as she stared out at the bay, maybe listening to the sound of the high tide rushing in…or to the unimaginable and eccentric dialogue in the woman’s own extravagant mind.

  Isabel could have refilled the glass, but doing so would be committing to an entire day with her boss, because the woman shouldn’t be driving sober let alone buzzed, and Isabel really didn’t want to drive the woman all the way into town. Also, she wanted to get through this monologue of a meeting and be done, as she had tons of other work to do.

  “So the amenities are all opulent elegance—I am of course bending over backwards.” Lucinda knew Isabel went all out for clients. She gave her a satisfied wink. “I even have a courier making ten round trips over the border with the bride’s must-have Californian wedding wine, you know, since Customs doesn’t allow more than the nine liters over per run. But Amy Rine said that ‘the sky is the limit’ since her father, Daniel Rine, is footing the bill.” Her eyebrows lifted for emphasis.

  Lucinda’s attention sparked to the here and now. “Ah, yes, the shipbuilding tycoon. Very nice.” She smiled while she fingered her empty glass, perhaps predicting the total invoice in her money-happy head. “Isabel, love…you keep clinching bigger and bigger clients and giving them what they want, and soon enough you’ll be running the show…and I’ll retire into the lap of a fine young Mexican tamale.” She laughed, obviously pleased with her wit and her future.

  “Sounds…spectacular Lucinda. I mean, running the show, that is.” Isabel flashed a slight smile, cheeks warm.

  She did relish the thought of heading up the company. After so many tragedies in her life, it was something to strive for, to look forward to. And if there’s any glimpse of a silver lining to those heart-wrenching incidents, it’s that no one could compete with her through-the-roof threshold for pain and high pressure, two inevitable components of any high-end destination wedding. And, also, the job’s rapid pace made her blood flow, it made her feel alive. And the fact that she was damn good at her job didn’t hurt.

  “By the way, Isabel, what happened with that gorgeous American steed of a man from the Five Breezes a few weeks back? Did ya screw him? Oh God, please just tell me. Let me live vicariously through you, dear. I have needs…”

  Isabel gave her boss a cockeyed smile. Lucinda was shameless.

  “What? It’s for work, love. Research. Unions are our business,” Lucinda justified, guffawing and slapping her lap.

  Isabel’s employer—her mentor, her sometime matchmaker, her delving, digging friend and sort of motherly stand-in—just never ceased to amaze her. The woman was majorly self-centered and money-focused, but Isabel got to know and near-enjoy Lucinda’s softer, more human side—however awkward and embarrassing, frustrating and circular the resulting conversations became.

  “No. Almost…but no.” Isabel paused, regretting her use of the word “almost,” hoping it wouldn’t open a huge can of worms, with Lucinda asking for all the gory details. “He turned out to be a bit of a scumbag…but better that than some Prince Charming!” she said while avoiding eye contact—Isabel already knew what expression was held on her skeptical boss’s sun-wrinkled face.

  “Isabel.” Lucinda shook her head, kind disappointment in her face. “I swear, Isa, you Mexicans and your superstitions…twenty-five years old, gorgeous, smart, and for God’s sakes, giving up on romance entirely! And what a bride you’d make…if you’d just let me find you the right man!”

  “He’d need to be invincible…immortal. Maybe a vampire?” Isabel half joked. At least she kept her sense of humor. It helped her endure the same optimistic spiel by her boss almost weekly. Between Celeste, Roberto, and Lucinda, she swore she’d lose her damn mind.

  And it was especially laughable hearing it from her boss all these times, because Lucinda Carlyle was very much the expert on ‘the right man.’ With three ex-husbands and the fourth one in process, she could write a book or four.

  As always, Lucinda went on whether Isabel wanted her to or not. “I’m a thirty-year veteran of the wedding industry. Love is my damn business! I can call the success rate of any couple I marry, almost to the day, and you’ve seen me do it!” she bragged, forehead wrinkles pronounced to drive her point home.

  Oh, her point… God, did the woman miss it each and every time.

  “I’m really fine, Lucinda, being on my own.” Isabel really believed it—and never allowed herself to wonder if there was something beyond just fine, because going there was just a waste of time leading to more pain. Inevitable pain. Why not let Lucinda shove Isabel’s already-scarred heart into pellets of dry ice? At least the mist would look lovely to their wedding clients. But Lucinda wouldn’t understand, couldn’t relate, and Isabel couldn’t fault her for it. “Look at it this way. I had a true love once. That’s one more than many can say they’ve had in their entire lives!”

  “Nice try, sweetheart, with the ultra-positive outlook. I’m telling you that you’re not fine, Isabel. You are brilliant, gorgeous and alone. A complete waste of perfectly good pussy!”

  “Lucinda!” she cried as heat rushed to her cheeks. She swatted at her boss, knocking over Lucinda’s empty glass on the coffee table in the process. Isabel was anything but a prude, but to hear her sixty-something-year-old boss reference her cunt was just way beyond not-okay.

  Besides, her pussy got use—a nice, occasional variety of use. And she didn’t need three—almost four—divorces behind her to boast that.

  She had to think of a proper response, though, one that would hopefully end that day’s session of Poor Isabel’s Pussy. But in the nick of time, her cell phone buzzed.

  She read the new text and shot to her feet. “It’s Madeline’s. They have a question about the cake flavor for the Nilson/Edmond gig tomorrow. The clinical sanity of the bride is also up for debate, which makes sense having met her. They want me down there…like
, yesterday.”

  So much for not driving into town. Isabel got her keys from the coffee table where she had knocked over Lucinda’s glass. She gave the keys a quick shake to dry them and moved toward the front door, very glad to be going. This was becoming a common theme, Isabel wanting to escape her own home along with the visitor inside it.

  “I’ll drive you, love. We can discuss more in the car, and I’ll bring you home after. We’ll have girl time!” Lucinda exclaimed. Isabel recognized the loneliness in her boss’s voice and eyes. “And your place is so peaceful, I wouldn’t mind having a drink out on the back deck at sunset.”

  Although she’d always folded to her mentor’s whims in past, a flash of random fear halted her default response. It was the drive into town and back—with Lucinda at the wheel. The thought shot an icy chill up her spine. The winding cliffside road into Vallarta—more than a hundred feet above the bay—took hold of her mind. But why the hell was she so scared? She hadn’t thought of her own safety in forever. In fact, death had been a very welcome thought after Sebastian, her mother, and the others. But this new worry for her own life? The end isn’t so scary when a person has nothing and no one to live for. So why now was she so terrified? What had changed? What had entered her life that made her so fearful of leaving it?

  “You know what, Lucinda? You stay, I’ll go. Relax on the back deck with another drink and I’ll come back to join you within the hour.”

  “Okay, love…okay. You know, you are the absolute best, Isabel, dear. A true treasure.”

  *

  “I really would love to, man, but a lot has come up, issues with this…priceless… deal I’ve been working on.” Dwelling in self-pity and wallowing in a depressive tailspin over Isabel had been truly time-consuming. “I mean, don’t get me wrong! Hand interviewing strippers is a welcome task by me, any day, but I really don’t have the extra time right now,” Zack said trying to act normal, well, according to his brother, and whatever that meant anymore.

  “Yeah, I get it—but, dude! The bachelor party is the best man’s job. Since the dawn of time, bro!”

  Zack had always given in to Darren’s whim, probably because Zack felt he had to compensate his kid brother for their bastard father’s early exit. “Little brother, listen…I’m absolutely pumped for your wedding…and my role in it!—not that I needed the title since I know that you know I’m the absolute fucking best,” he cracked. “But I bet Wret or John would do such a better job with the bachelor party than I would right now. I’m just going through some shit with this one damn…deal,” he said, catching himself again. Zack wouldn’t burden Darren with Zack’s reality, what with the wedding being so close. He wouldn’t show this unprecedented vulnerability to his kid brother, either.

  No, he would hold back on what was actually eating him alive—that a woman, the all-consuming Isabel, had just evaporated from his world. What did it matter? Wherever she now existed, she despised him. Then to add insult to injury, he had set out on a mission to find her, and having failed up to that point, he was feeling close to insane. Failure was not something Zack James was at all used to.

  “You’re full of shit and you know it! Wret and John? Zack, you’re the ultimate pimp of the entire fucking universe! And you know Vallarta like the back of your hand. Plus, you know me better than I know myself. You fucking raised me, dude! So don’t tell me anyone else but you can plan this thing!”

  He sighed into the phone. “I’ll fucking do it. Yes, I’ll plan your bachelor party, damn it. But I’ll expect Wret and John to handle the logistics the night of!”

  “Yes, absolutely. Definitely! You’re the best, Zack. Seriously! And with your pull, I bet you can get some supermodels or even a celebrity or two!” Darren said, sounding like an excited puppy before his food bowl got set down.

  “Don’t push it, Darren James!” Zack said like a father, one who’d just been designated to get his surrogate son sloshed off his ass then spanked and molested by strippers before his wedding day arrived.

  “Look, brother, you know you can just snap your fingers and get centerfolds from Norway and a flippin’ princess from Spain if you wanted to!”

  “Whoa there, you pushy little shit!” Zack warned. “Yes, you are getting married, the whole man and wife thing, but you’re still my kid brother, the one I beat on as a child.” He laughed into the phone. “Listen, it’ll be a great time, trust me. But you’ll be so knocked-off-your-ass drunk you won’t know your own name, my name, the strippers’ names…or where the hell they come from!”

  Zack could hardly think of putting his attention to a bachelor party in his state, let alone going all-out—making calls, trading favors, or string-pulling with his high-end connections. And, goddamn it, his little brother had always thought things came so easy to him. ‘With a snap of his fingers!’ Zack’s ass, it was that easy. In general, Darren had been too young to know how hard Zack had worked for everything. In fact, Zack made sure Darren had no clue. Protecting Darren had become his top priority since their father left—Darren had just turned eight and Zack had a year to go before he could even vote! And their mother? She’d slipped into an indefinite depression.

  No, nothing was ever as easy as it seemed.

  “I know, Zack. It’ll be all-good. That’s why I asked you. I think I’m just…you know…”

  “What, you nervous?”

  “Yeah, dude! But not, like, about Amy. I mean, I know with her—she is my…one. It’s more like…I won’t let us be like Mom and Dad. This will be it, so, well, I want it to be perfect. Shit, I sound like a fucking bride, don’t I?”

  “Yeah, man”—Zack snickered then cleared his throat—“and you’re fine. Big man’s makin’ the big move. It’s natural…and all good.”

  Darren kept silent for a beat then snorted. “It is good, right? Really good…. Hey, you know something?”

  “What’s that?”

  “When Dad left Mom and us for Sabrina, I remember thinking marriage must be like…like the circus. You know, they go all-out with the big top, the animals, the trapeze setup and all, but then it just picks up and leaves…onto another fucking town. Like, ‘Okay, Dad’s going to live in France now with his new family,’ while we were just the town he’d left behind…you know what I mean?”

  Zack hated talking about their father, especially with Darren. He never wanted Darren affected by the bullshit that came with Bennet James. But he definitely understood Darren and his metaphor completely. And it was right-on, too, except that a circus leaves a dustbowl of a parking lot in its wake, while Bennet James had actually left his sons with a get-out-guilt-free card—a tremendous, multimillion dollar trust fund. Oh, and a note––Sorry, sons…Be good boys, be good men…etc.

  Then the “ring master” of the allegorical circus bailed. Not a word ever after.

  “Isn’t that crazy about Amy’s dad? Zack? Zack! Hey, you still there, bro?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I’m here.”

  “Hey man, you okay? You’re not all here, like, at all. That property deal is really running you for your money, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess so… It’s fine though. I’m just working late hours.” Drinking away his sorrow late into the night for two weeks straight was hitting him hard. But drowning in a liquor-induced coma felt better than doing nothing—and female distractions weren’t even an option. Thinking or looking at a woman who wasn’t Isabel made his stomach rage, so the idea of sleeping with one near killed him. In fact, the only sex he’d had over the past weeks was with himself while fantasizing about Isabel, and that was torture enough.

  “Well, just get focused and be ready to have a blast when we get down there. Like I said, it’s my one wedding, bro, and you are, like, one of the most important parts of it.”

  Zack cleared his throat again. “Just get your whipped ass down here so I can get it whipped for real.” Zack dug up the ability to laugh, trying hard to get into the spirit of things for his brother. “I hear The Inferno has got some great S&M girls. Yo
u should be more careful about what you wish for, little brother.”

  “I’ll be fine, man! No need to worry about me,” Darren defended. “Oh, hey, listen. Even though Amy has the wedding planner handling the airport pickup with limos and all, I want you at the airport too. This shindig has got to start with seeing you first thing, dude! First thing!”

  Zack smiled at his end of the phone. “Yeah, sure, brother. I’ll be at the airport.” A warmth that only Darren could strike in his heart rose up and got caught in the throat. “And by the way, Darren, I’m really happy for you. Really damn happy.”

  “I know it brother…and thanks, for everything.” Two beats of silence followed. “So, see you then?”

  “With fucking garters, titty tassels, and bells on!”

  “Abso-fucking-lutely! Later, Zack.”

  Zack hung up, tossed his phone on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling. His kid brother was getting hitched. A crazy thought. An insane fucking thought.

  And then an even crazier feeling surfaced—unfamiliar, unidentifiable, uncomfortable. It made his shoulders tight and his jaw clench. This nagging emotion had visited him a time or two before, most recently…when? At the condo closing! Yes, that was it. When he’d seen his attorney, Armando, with his son, Juan. Juan was joining the Sanchez firm, and the pride in Armando’s eyes had been undeniable, glowing. Their camaraderie, the mutual respect, it had been obvious and solid. Zack had everything in the world, but he didn’t have that. Not from his own father. And he never would.

  Envy. It was goddamn envy, and it burned.

  And now he envied his little brother, who had found and grabbed the love of his life. Never, ever before had Zack wanted that for himself. But now that he knew of Isabel, his potential match, his missing, floating puzzle piece…that she even existed on Earth was a goddamn miracle.

  He hadn’t felt whole before or since meeting Isabel.

  But Zack couldn’t find her anywhere, and even if he did find her, she wouldn’t want him. She thought he was a total asshole. And he was, or at least he had been! But he’d changed. She had changed him. And he had to find her and show her. His only focus was Isabel.