Before I Do Amazon (16 page)

"No, I don't. Carlotta wanted me to write to him, and I refused. That was the end of our relationship. His family always felt like I didn't do enough to keep him happy, as if it were my fault that he drank too much. I think they were in as much denial as he was."

"They must have been, because Dad's drinking was not your fault. You were an incredible mother to me. You worked two jobs to give me a good life. I need you to know that I know that. Whatever Dad's family had to say means nothing, because I was there. I saw what you did for me."

Her mother's eyes filled with moisture. "It's what mothers do for their children. My jobs sometimes got in the way of us being close, but I felt it was important to give you a stable home. I didn't want you to lack for anything because your parents were no longer married. Thankfully, Rhea picked up the slack. You two had so many interests in common. Sometimes I felt a little jealous, but mostly I was relieved to have the help."

"I was lucky to have both you and Aunt Rhea. I am going to Argentina, because I promised Nick that I would, and he's doing a lot for me in return. I don't know if I'm going to look Dad up or not. At this point, I doubt it, but to be completely honest, I probably won't decide until I get there."

"You're an adult now. You can do what you want. Just promise me one thing…"

"What's that?"

"If you do see him, don't let your father try to rewrite history with his charming smile. You always like to think the best of people, even when they don't deserve it."

"I like to give people a chance to be good, but I'm not a fool. I know what's true and what's not."

"I hope so. You have a big heart. That makes me proud but also makes me worry."

"Well, right now all you have to worry about is feeding me. Time for lasagna?"

"Absolutely," her mom said, getting to her feet, relief in her eyes that their painful discussion was now over.

"Great. I missed lunch, so I'm starving." She followed her mom into the kitchen.

"While we're eating, you can tell me what else is new. Did I hear something about you trying out for a new musical?"

She groaned. "Rhea has a big mouth."

Her mother laughed. "Of course she does. So are you thinking of going back on the stage?"

"Maybe, but if you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it tonight."

"That's fine. In that case you can tell me what is really going on between you and Nicholas Hunter," her mother said with a knowing gleam in her eye.

"I told you. We're dancing the tango together."

"Is that
all
you're doing together?"

"Not exactly," she admitted. "There is something between us, but it can't go anywhere."

"Why not?" her mom asked as she pulled the lasagna out of the oven and set it on the stove.

"We're very different people, and we don't want the same things in life."

"Wanting different things from life is okay as long as you also want each other. Maybe you could complement each other."

"Or we could drive each other crazy," she said with a laugh. "Nick is very complicated. He's hard to get to know and he's carrying some baggage from the past that I don't completely understand. But I know there are family issues."

"You can relate to family issues."

She nodded. "True. Nick's parents didn't divorce, but I think they were unhappy for a while. Nick's mom died when he was about eighteen, and he doesn't seem to have much of a relationship with his father, although I may learn more about that tomorrow night.

"What's tomorrow night?"

"Nick is taking me to his dad's birthday party."

Her mother raised an eyebrow. "Nick is introducing you to his father?"

"Don't get too excited. He basically said he'd like me to be a buffer between him and his dad."

"Oh, honey," her mom said with a laugh. "You're lying to yourself if you think all you are is a buffer. The man likes you and you like him. The real question is—what are you going to do about it?"

"That is the question," she agreed. "I just wish I had an answer."

Chapter Thirteen

Nick felt remarkably tense as he double-parked in front of Isabella's apartment building just before seven on Wednesday night. It wasn't just his father's upcoming birthday party that bothered him; it was also Isabella. He couldn't seem to stop thinking about her. He'd never felt so distracted or unfocused.

After his mother died, he'd always had goals, things he needed to achieve for her and for himself. He'd had a plan, a purpose, and he'd gone full steam ahead toward that purpose every day of his life until the past week.

Now, he found himself humming Latin tunes, subconsciously tapping out steps in the elevator, thinking about kissing Isabella, running his fingers through her hair, taking off her clothes, seeing every naked inch of her beautiful, graceful, athletic body.

Damn! He shifted in his seat as his thoughts made him once again uncomfortable.

What the hell was wrong with him? He didn't get this worked up about a woman. Or if he did get worked up, he worked it out in bed fairly quickly. But that wasn't an option with Isabella, at least not right now. He needed to get her to Argentina, dance the tango, and then decide whether or not he could risk screwing things up with probably the most fantastic sex he would ever have.

Isabella opened the car door and gave him the smile that jump-started his heart every single time.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," she said. "As you've probably guessed by now, I tend to run a little late. I'm always trying to squeeze in one more thing."

"It's fine. I'm not in a hurry to get to my father's place." In fact, he didn't know why he'd given in to his father's demand that he show up for his birthday. It wasn't like they had any kind of a real father-son relationship, so why even pretend they did? But he knew the answer why—because his father liked his friends to think he'd done well as a father and a family man, not just as a businessman. It wouldn't look good if his son didn't show up for his birthday.

"Tell me about your dad," Isabella said as they headed across town.

"What do you want to know?"

"What's he like?"

He tried to think of the right words to describe his father. "He's tall."

"That's it?" she asked. "Come on, Nick, you can do better than that."

"He is really tall—six foot six. He's always used his height to intimidate people."

"Okay, he's tall," she said with a little laugh. "What else?"

"He can be charming, smooth. Women usually like him. He loves golf. He makes more deals on the golf course than he does in the office."

"Do you play?"

"Once in a while. It's not really my game."

"Because it's your father's game?"

Isabella was very perceptive, something that he both liked and disliked, because she seemed to read him better than most people. "That's part of it," he admitted. "But mostly it's because it's slow. I'd rather play basketball or bike."

"Do you bike in the gym or outside?"

"Both." He shot her a quick look. "Do you like to ride?"

"I did a lot of spin classes when I was rehabbing my leg, but I didn't ride outside. Too much traffic in the city."

"There are some great rides outside of the city and down the coast."

"That would be more fun. I don't like having to worry about cars. I get distracted very easily by pretty scenery," she added with a self-deprecating smile.

And if he biked behind her, there was no doubt he'd be watching her instead of the road. "You should probably stay away from city streets then."

"Exactly."

"Your dad lives here?" she asked as he turned into an underground parking garage for a very tall building near downtown.

"Forty-eighth floor, which is the top floor—the penthouse. My father likes to be on top of everything that he does."

She eyed him with a speculative frown. "What is between you two? I know you didn't want to work for him and that you blame him for some of the problems in your parents' relationship, especially his inability to take your mom where she really wanted to go, but there's more, right?"

"A lot more, years of bad conversations and misunderstandings." He shrugged, not sure what else to say. He couldn't explain a lifetime with his father in a few minutes.

"And what?" she pressed.

"Have you ever had anyone in your life who made it their goal to take you down, to try to make you feel like a lesser person?"

"Carter did that, and I let him do it for too long, almost a year. I didn't realize it at the time. He claimed he was giving me helpful tips and constructive criticism. But I finally figured out that he just didn't like it when I came off better than him. Is that the problem with your dad?"

"Yes. He's been putting me down my entire life. Whatever I do is not good enough. As his son, I'm a reflection of him, and he wants to make me into what he considers to be his perfect mirror image. But I'm not him. I don't want to be him. And at this point in my life, I don't really care if we ever have a relationship."

"You must care somewhat or we wouldn't be going to this party."

She had a point. "It's more that I'm just tired of fighting."

She gave him a doubtful look. "That doesn't sound like you, Nick. You'll fight forever for what you want."

"Well, then maybe I just want to call a truce. I don't want to hate him. I don't want to work against him. I just want there to be nothing between us, not even anger."

"So you are trying to make some sort of peace with this appearance. I think that's good. Anger eats away at your soul. It's not good for you."

"I agree. It's just not that easy to get rid of, especially when the anger goes back a long time."

"Maybe getting the property your mom wanted, fulfilling her dream, will make it easier to let go of the resentment you have towards him."

"It feels like it should help, but I don't know." He pulled into a parking space designated for visitors and shut off the car. "It's not just that he didn't take her on the trip, Isabella. That disappointment for her just symbolizes all the other times he let her down and let me down. It's not like I can't understand that that particular trip didn't work out for many different reasons."

"It was just the last straw."

"Yes," he said, meeting her sympathetic gaze. "If you want to know the real reason I'm going to this party, I'll tell you."

"Well, good, finally!"

"My father is my Achilles heel. Having any sort of emotion towards him or about that relationship weakens me. I don't like having any point of vulnerability. I need to cut the ties of anger, resentment, dislike and think of him as a stranger who means nothing to me."

"That's not going to work, Nick."

"I think it will."

"You're always going to have an emotional tie to your father. I have a tie to my dad, and I haven't seen him since I was thirteen years old. He didn't try to make me over or make me feel less of a person; he didn't care enough to even think about me."

"I'd prefer it if my father were absent from my life."

"That's easier to say when it's not true. But it's not just the part in your statement about your father that bothers me; it's that you consider caring about someone to be a weakness. You can't go through life like a robot. Business isn't everything. You could be the richest man in the world. You could have a thousand hotels, but it wouldn't change the fact that you need to love well as much as you need to live well."

Her passionate words made him want to love her, but love was weakening. It was painful and sometimes crippling, and he'd seen too many people falter in their careers and in their lives because they cared too much about what the wrong person thought.

Maybe if it were the right person…maybe then love would make a difference.

"Let's go to the party," he said abruptly. He got out of the car and waited for her to do the same.

She slammed the door as she exited. "I didn't think our conversation was over," she said with annoyance.

"For now it is."

"Just for the record, Nick, I don't like it when people tell me I'm done talking. Carter used to cut me off all the time. When he decided he'd had enough of a subject, we were done. That doesn't work for me."

He nodded, seeing the seriousness in her eyes. "Got it. And just for the record, Isabella, I heard everything you had to say. I just need to think about it."

His words dimmed the anger in her eyes.

"Okay, good."

He smiled. "Are we good, because there are going to be enough people at this party who don't like me. I'd prefer that the woman I'm with doesn't feel the same."

She sighed and gave him a frustrated smile. "I wish I didn't like you. That would make it easier."

He knew exactly what she meant.

* * *

Nick's father was tall; he hadn't lied about that. Isabella looked at the dark-haired, blue-eyed man who stood out in the crowded living room, not just because of his height, but also because of his manner, his charisma. Maybe the attention was centered on him because it was his birthday, but it was more likely it was because of the kind of man he was.

"That's him. That's Thomas Hunter," Nick said.

"I figured. You have similar features." She saw the tense lines around his eyes and mouth, and she impulsively took his hand in hers.

For a moment, he looked startled. She thought he might pull away, and then his fingers closed around hers.

"I've got your back," she said softly.

His gaze darkened. "I don't think anyone has ever said that to me before."

In that moment, she realized another truth about Nick. He'd grown up lonely, without a strong team behind him. No wonder he'd had to build such a strong wall around his heart and his emotions. He saw caring as a weakness because he'd felt weak as a child, wanting his parents' attention and love. But his mom and dad had apparently been too caught up in their own battles to see that their child needed more than he was getting.

She was very lucky that her mother had put her first even though it had made her life a lot more difficult. And while she hadn't been as close to her mother because of her many jobs, she'd always known that her mother was working to make her life better. She suspected that Nick felt his father had only worked to make his own life better.