On the Move (20 page)

“Can I speak to Randolph VanCleef?” she whispered into the phone, careful to keep her voice down lest she wake Brandon. It wasn’t even six yet, but someone already manned the VanCleef & VanCleef phones thanks to their overseas clients. “This is his daughter.”

“One moment please,” the woman said as Vicky sank down on her secondhand couch. Her father would be in his office now—he always was at this hour.

“What is it, Victoria?” he said without even the courtesy of a hello.

Vicky opened her mouth, so many words wanting to tumble out.
I miss you, Dad. I love you, Dad. Can I throttle Elaina, please?

“My stepmother was here last night.” She winced. Her father hated it when she called Elaina her stepmother. Was she trying to blow this thing? she wondered.

The silence on the other end of the phone told her she might already have.

“Dad,” she said, “she wasn’t really serious, was she? You two aren’t really going to cut me off, are you?”

More silence on the other end of the phone.

“I mean,” she added after a dry-throated swallow, “that’s a little extreme, isn’t it?”

“We’re worried about you, Victoria.”

Vicky clutched the cordless phone a little tighter. “I know that. I understand that. But I’m fine. Where I live now is no worse than where I lived during college.”

“That’s exactly the point, Victoria. You knew we despised that…place.”

“It was a sorority house, Dad. A school-subsidized building where dozens of other women lived.”

“We told each other it was a phase,” came her father’s voice. “Something you’d grow out of. We humored you, Victoria, but it’s time you grew up.”

“I
am
grown-up,” she yelled, but then she winced and peered into the bedroom. “I am grown-up,” she repeated a little lower. “That’s the point. I’m an adult now. On my own. I don’t need your help, or the help of my trust fund. You should be proud of that fact.”

“I’m your father, Victoria. I’ll be the judge of when you’re mature enough to manage your life.”

“
Manage
my
life,
” she hissed. “Who says I’m not managing it now?”

“I investigated that firm you work for. SSI, I believe it’s called,” her father said.

Vicky’s breath caught. “What about it?”

“You told me the firm had an excellent reputation.”

So she’d fudged the truth a little. “Look, Dad. I realize a few of the agents there have been known to do unethical things—”

“What
kind
of unethical things?” her father asked immediately.

Poach clients away from other agencies. Sign contracts with exorbitant commission fees. Make it nearly impossible to break contract once the athlete realizes what’s going on. “Oh, this and that,” she fudged. “But it really doesn’t matter. It’s my first job out of college. Better offers will come along once I gain some experience.”

“You can gain that experience here in New York, while living with your mother and I.”

“No.”

“We’ve been very patient. This is your final warning. Come home. Come work for me. Come work for one of our friends’ firms. I don’t care what you do, as long as you come back to New York and use the degree you earned in a more respectable manner.”

“No,” she said again, though it was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do. “Dad, this is what I want to do. I love being an agent. I get to live an exciting life—”

He hung up on her.

“Son of a—”

She shot up from the couch.

“I can’t believe—”

She sank back down.

What the heck was it with her parents? Why couldn’t they be like other parents? The type that supported their child and encouraged their independence. Why did her mom and dad want to control her? It drove her
nuts.

Well, they’d soon learn she couldn’t be bossed around. Not by them. Not by Brandon. Not by anybody.

Brandon.

Just thinking his name made her heart go soft. She turned and padded back into the bedroom. Brandon lay sprawled in bed, the sheets tangled around his legs and torso.

“My, my, my,” she whispered. He was glorious, his blond hair tousled, his chin dotted with razor stubble.

And he was hers.

Yeah, but for how long? Men like him didn’t, as a rule, find women like her attractive. Nor did they stick around. She wasn’t flashy enough. She didn’t have enough
va-voom
to her walk.

Brandon opened his eyes. “Hey, there,” he said softly, and Vicky’s heart turned end over end, especially when he smiled.

“Hey, there,” she said back.

“What you doing?”

“Nothing,” she lied.

“Coming back to bed?” he asked in a low, sexy and very suggestive voice. The look in his eyes sent tingles up her spine.

“Oh, yeah,” she said softly.

His smile grew bigger. “Come on.”

Who needed a trust fund? she thought, sliding in next to him. She’d live on bread and water if it meant daily doses of this.

He pulled her against his hard body. She gasped. Oh, yeah. She’d made the right choice.

And then one day, it did.

Scott called her early one afternoon. “Viiiicky,” he drawled in that singsong voice that drove her nuts. “How’s my girl?”

She only recently become “his girl” and it boded ill—Vicky could just tell. “I’m great, Scott. Everything’s great.”

“Vicky, darlin’, I’m thinking maybe it’s time you came back to New York.”

There it was. The words she’d been expecting to hear for at least a couple weeks now.

“Is that so?” she asked, trying hard to keep her voice even. She’d known this was going to happen, so why’d it feel as if she’d been kicked in the teeth when it finally did.

“Our boy Brandon’s been acting like a saint. Those people at KEM couldn’t be happier. I’m thinking when you come back to New York I’ll hand over a few more clients. I’m telling you, Vicky, you’re doing a great job.”

“Uh, gee. Thanks, Scott. But, um, it’s going to take a few days to pack up.”

“I know. I know. But I figure since your lease is on a month-to-month basis you can take until next week to wrap things up. That way you’re back here before the first of the month. I’ll let you break the news to our boy Brandon. I’m sure he’ll be sorry to see you go, but he has to know you can’t hold on to his hand forever.”

As memory served Vicky, it was Scott who’d wanted her to hold Brandon’s hand. However, she didn’t argue the point. “I’ll tell him,” she said.

“Great!” Scott said. “We’ll see you before the first of next month.”

Vicky hung up the phone without even noticing. How the heck was she going to do this? How was she supposed to deal with a future of living apart from Brandon?

She was supposed to meet him for dinner that night. Brandon was in town filming a commercial, and Vicky found herself leaving for the shoot early. She couldn’t stand to sit around and wait for the inevitable.

The commercial was actually a public-service announcement shot in a studio just outside of Charlotte. Other drivers would be there, too, as would other celebrities. The commercial was for Miracles, a charity organization dedicated to granting the wishes of terminally ill children. KEM was one of Miracles’ main sponsors so she wasn’t surprised to see Mathew Knight standing around the perimeter of the set. She waved, her gaze settling on Brandon. He was in his red uniform and he had to be roasting beneath the giant lights that lit the set. He also probably couldn’t see her thanks to those bulbs. But Vicky could see him—and the woman he stood next to: Jessica James, aka Jessie James, an up-and-coming country music star whose songs everyone loved, including Brandon.

“Okay, everybody. Quiet on the set,” someone said. “Jessie, whenever you’re ready.”

On set, a woman half the men in America were in lust with, draped an arm around
her
man. Vicky’s skin grew cold.

“Hi, I’m Jessie James,” the woman said with a million-dollar smile, her long, blond hair brushing Brandon’s shoulder.

“And I’m Brandon Burke, NASCAR driver.”

“And we’re here to ask
you
to help others,” Jessie said.

There was a camera nearby, one with a tiny screen visible above it. Vicky moved toward it, peering up at the image of Brandon and the blond goddess.

It was Brandon’s turn to talk. “Every day, children around the world wage a battle for their lives.”

“It could be a battle with cancer, or MS or some other incurable disease,” Jessie said.

“Fighting those battles steals the joy from their lives,” Brandon said.

“We’re asking you to help give them some of that joy back,” Jessie said, her arm snaking through Brandon’s. Was she
supposed
to do that? That wasn’t part of the script. Vicky had scanned the damn thing at least ten times. Nowhere had she read that Jessie was supposed to hang all over Brandon.

“Support your local Miracles foundation,” Brandon said.

“Help bring a miracle to a child’s life,” Jessie said.

“Help Miracles,” they both said together, an earnestly imploring look emanating from Jessie’s eyes.

“Cut!” someone yelled. “Okay. That was great. Let’s take a look at what we’ve got. Hang tight.”

“Brandon,” Vicky called, the moment others on set began to talk.

Brandon squinted in her direction.

“That was great,” she heard Jessie say. “I think we finally said the words together.”

“I think you’re right.”

Someone came forward, handed Brandon a little white towel. He wiped his face as he walked forward, still trying to peer through the light. She could tell the moment he spotted her because he straightened suddenly. “Vicky,” he said, the smile he gave her doing a lot to battle back the school-subsidized monster.

“Hey, Brandon,” she said, slipping into his arms. They were long past the point of trying to hide their relationship. “How’s it going?” she asked, resisting the urge to peer in Jessie’s direction.

“Horrible,” Brandon said, and then he lowered his voice. “The director keeps on changing the script around. One minute it says this. The next it says that. Thank God I’ve been working with you for the past few weeks. If not, I’d have been lost.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead, shook his head. “Sorry to vent,” he said, his arm dropping back to his side. “What’s up?”

She meant to break the news slowly, had meant to tell him when they were outside, in private, but watching him with Jessie had done something to her insides, something not particularly nice. “I’m going back to New York,” she said.

The towel slipped from his hands.

“What?”

“I have to pack up this week. Scott called this morning. He said it’s time I stopped holding your hand. That I’m needed back at SSI.”

Maybe Jessie will hold it for you now?

Stop it,
she told herself.

“So you’re going to go?” he asked, his body completely still.

“What do you mean, am I going to go? Of course I am. Working for Scott is my
job.
”

Brandon glanced toward Jessica. Vicky followed his gaze.

“Maybe she can keep you company when I’m gone,” she said.

Had she just said that?

Brandon’s eyes narrowed as he turned on her.

“You know I’m not interested in her.”

No, she didn’t know that. She didn’t know anything. All she knew was that she had to leave and it was tearing her apart. That’s why she was being such a bitch. Damn it. Couldn’t he see that?

“I know,” she said, wiping a hand through her hair. “I’m just…” She shook her head, blinked back a sudden burning in her eyes. “I’m just jealous,” she admitted. “She gets to stay while I have to—”

He pulled her into his arms and, man, it took every ounce of self-control not to burst into tears. She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to live in North Carolina. Wanted things to remain the way they were forever. But that wasn’t going to happen. It’d never been part of the plan.

“You don’t have to go,” Brandon said softly.

“I know,” she said. God help her, she knew. But what kind of hypocrite would she be if she gave up her job after everything she’d been through to convince her parents that this was what she wanted to do with her life? What kind of grown-up, mature thing to do was that? “I have to.”

He drew back. “No, you don’t,” he said, more sternly now.

“Brandon, don’t,” she said. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

“You don’t need your job, Vicky.
I
can support you. I’m making good money now,” he said. “You can move in with me. Decorate the house or something. There’s plenty to keep you busy here.”

“Keep me busy?”
she asked. “I want a
career.
I told you that.”

“Then open a sports agency here.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right. Who’s going to hire me to represent them.”

“I would.”

“That’s not the same.”

He was rubbing her arms now. “Come on, Vicky. At least promise me you’ll think about it.”

“Just like you’ll ‘think’ about having children?”

Good lord, what was wrong with her? Why was she being so confrontational?

“That’s not fair,” he said, glancing around them as if afraid someone had overheard.

“We’re clearing the air here, Brandon. Might as well get all the issues out on the table. If I were to stay, what about us? Would you marry me?”

He glanced over at Jessica.

It was the
wrong
thing to do and she jerked away from him.

“Hey. Wait a second. What’d I do?”

She headed for the door. It was unseasonably warm outside, and the bright sunlight nearly blinded her.

“Vicky, wait.”

But she didn’t slow down. They were in an industrial complex, one of those low-slung buildings right next to identical low-slung buildings, grass and shrubs growing in the front. Her rental car was parked across the asphalt, a sidewalk between her and a busy street.

“Vicky,” he said again, catching her right as she was about to step onto the blacktop. “What the hell are you so mad about?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, still walking. “Maybe the fact that I’ve been asked to go back to New York and instead of trying to comfort me you ask me to give up my career so
your
life can stay status quo and I can stand back and watch you make googly eyes at that woman inside. Come on, Brandon. The blond bombshell has been hanging all over you.”

His expression cleared. And then his eyebrows lifted. “You’re jealous.”

“I am
not
jealous,” she lied. “I’m stressed that I have to leave.”

Suddenly, she just wanted to cry. She had to fight not to sit down on the edge of the walkway and do exactly that. She’d known this was coming. They’d both known one day soon she’d have to go back home. And yet they never really talked about it.

“Look,” he said gently, his hand moving to her shoulder, “I know you’re upset. But there’s no reason to be jealous.”

But you haven’t answered my question,
she wanted to yell. Would
you marry me?

“Jessica was just doing what the director told her to do. It didn’t mean anything.”

Yes, but do I mean anything to
you?

“And it’s a little early to be talking marriage, don’t you think? We’ve only known each other for, what? A few weeks?”

Five weeks, three days and seventeen hours. But who was counting? she thought.

“You’re right,” she said softly. “It
is
too early. Too early for me to give up my job to come live with you.”

He didn’t say anything. For some reason, that hurt even more.

“I’m going back to New York,” she said. “I’ve given up a lot to get to where I am today. I’m not going to walk away from it now.”

He crossed his arms in front of him. “So it’s back to daddy.”

She wanted to kill him, she really did. At the very least, she wanted to throttle him. “Goodbye, Brandon,” she said. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

Damn it, she thought, turning away. This wasn’t how she wanted to end it.

Was it over?

It sure felt like it. She tensed as she headed toward her rented vehicle, waiting for him to call her back. To say he was sorry. To say anything.

He didn’t.

When she reached her car’s door, she paused for a moment, ostensibly to sort out her keys. He still didn’t say anything. Her hands shook as she slipped inside. When she started the engine, she peered at him through her rearview mirror. He stood by the building’s door, watching her.

And still, she waited.

But then he turned, gripped the door and went inside. Vicky rested her head on her steering wheel and cried.