On the Move (21 page)

The words repeated themselves for a good twenty-four hours. It was just a fight. Their first spat. He would call because he’d realize, as she had, that they’d both been upset over the news. That was all. She didn’t really expect him to marry her. Not really…Okay, maybe a little.

But he didn’t call.

When, a week later, the day came for her to leave North Carolina, she sat in her apartment and stared at the phone—as if she was a soap opera star playing out one last, dramatic scene. How ridiculous was that because she had a cell phone. If he needed to get a hold of her, he could reach her that way.

But he didn’t phone her.

At the airport she hung outside the terminal. Her breath caught every time she spied a red vehicle. And then, when it became obvious he wasn’t going to pull into the airport in a desperate, last-minute attempt to stop her from leaving, she felt like crying.

She fought back tears as she boarded the plane. What a fool she’d been to think he cared for her enough to come after her. She’d made sure he’d known she was leaving. Mrs. Parsons had been asked to relay the news…in a discreet and non-obvious way. So she kept her cell phone on until the very last minute.

But her cell never rang.

She was, miraculously enough, in a row of seats all by herself. It made it easier to cry. Made it easier to hide her pain. And her humiliation. Because Vicky admitted then that she had fallen in love. That, against all better judgment, she’d gotten involved with a man known to have no heart. God help her, she’d thought she’d touched that heart. What a bitter lesson to learn she hadn’t.

It was on the tip of Brandon’s tongue to tell his crew chief to go blow. That his car stunk. That there was no way he’d ever be able to drive such a piece of crap. That’s what he wanted to say.

Instead he jerked off his helmet, all but tossed the removable steering wheel aside and climbed out.

“It won’t turn,” was all he said.

Chad gave him a look that clearly asked, who won’t turn? The car? Or the driver.

Brandon didn’t answer. He
couldn’t
answer, not without letting loose a string of words that would get him into trouble, and more than likely hurt Chad’s feelings, and that he didn’t need. Thank god practice was over. He didn’t think he could take much more of this.

“Brandon, wait up,” Mathew Knight said.

Brandon stopped, tipped his head back and groaned. Just what he needed—a chewing-out from his team owner. Terrific, he thought, tearing open his uniform. Could this day get any worse?

“Tough practice,” Mr. Knight said, his green eyes full of sympathy.

“Yeah,” Brandon said, the man’s kindness causing him to look away.

“Walk with me a moment?” his boss asked.

Brandon didn’t think he really had a choice. They headed toward his hauler. They were in Phoenix, which meant within seconds Brandon had cooled off. He didn’t know why it was always so cold in the desert this time of year. Around two-thirds of the track stretched barren mountains, the plant life so sparse it looked like the surface of Mars. All right, maybe not that sparse. But it was desolate-looking, cactus and low-lying scrub dotting the hillside around them.

“Been tough for you the last couple of weeks,” Mr. Knight said, the man holding up his hand to stave off fans.

“Yes, sir, it has,” Brandon said, wondering why he felt as if he spoke to his father. His boss was about a million years younger than his good-for-nothing dad.

“You have any idea why?”

Vicky. Her name automatically hovered on his lips, but he couldn’t admit to his boss that he was off his game because of a
woman.

“I have an idea,” he said instead.

“My wife thinks she knows why, too.”

“Oh, yeah?” Brandon asked, stopping.

Mathew nodded. “She says you’re brokenhearted.”

“Me, nah,” he brazened out.

But in truth, he was. Kind of ironic, too, because usually he was the one that did the heartbreaking. Not so this time. Vicky hadn’t called him the entire week she’d been packing up. When she’d left town without telling him goodbye, he’d gotten the message loud and clear. Their relationship was over.

“I’ll be back on track soon,” he said, trying to interject as much confidence as he could muster.

But to his surprise, Mr. Knight just stared at him. “You know,” he said, “I was once in your shoes.”

“You drove race cars?”

Mr. Knight huffed. “No,” he said. “Once upon a time, Kristen left me, too.”

“She did?” Brandon asked because he’d have thought it impossible that a man as wealthy as Mr. Knight would ever suffer through a woman leaving him. His boss might not be a driver, but he was every bit as famous as one—perhaps more so.

“I almost lost her, too. Likely would have if not for the interference of a friend.”

Against his better judgment Brandon asked, “What’d you do?”

“Cornered her,” he said. “Told her how I felt. I’m told that if the woman loves you, it’ll work every time.”

If she loved him. That, Brandon admitted, was the million-dollar question.

Would you marry me?
Her words rang in his ears.

At the time he hadn’t known the answer. He loved her, yes. After all these weeks, he knew what he felt was real.

But marriage?

Frankly, it scared the hell out of him.

“We’ll expect you in the Hamptons,” she mimicked.

Of course, she could ignore the summons, but she wouldn’t do that. She hated the silence between her and her parents. Elaina might only be her stepmother, but once upon a time they’d been friends. And her father…Well, he was the only family she had.

So she put on a gauzy, floral-print sundress that hung down to her ankles and that she knew Elaina would approve of, and packed up her car for the drive.

Still, there was no call from Brandon.

But she should have expected that. In the end, athletes were all the same. Women were easy to replace when every weekend you had a half dozen throwing themselves at you.

But it still hurt.

They’d been friends.
Lovers.
The two of them sharing a bond that she’d thought…Well, she supposed it didn’t matter what she thought.

The drive to the Hamptons was beautiful. By the time Vicky arrived at her family’s twenty-acre estate, she should have been relaxed, but she wasn’t. How could she be, she thought, tensing as the iron gates opened wide. Her life was in a shambles. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Scott had welcomed her back with open arms. He’d even given her two more clients to manage. She’d be able to hold her head high when she told her father that she’d managed to succeed
without
the VanCleef family fortune.

“They’re waiting for you in the study,” Rudy, the butler, said as he opened her door.

Vicky slipped out, giving Rudy a brave smile. Did he know she’d been disowned? More than likely. The staff always seemed to know everything.

She took a deep breath and looked around. Around her stood evidence of her family’s vast wealth. The VanCleefs weren’t just well off, they were
old money.
Indeed, her father laughed whenever people bragged that their family lines traced back to the
Mayflower. Mayflower.
Hah. The VanCleefs would never own to being descended from such common stock. Their ancestors were dukes and earls and, on the Dutch side, the royal family. They had been wealthy not just for decades, but for
centuries.

The proof of that power and prestige surrounded her—acres and acres of manicured lawn, oak trees sprouting up whose trunks were at least three feet wide and a hundred years old. A mansion whose facade had been carved from European stone stretched up three stories tall. Original, beveled glass twinkled beneath a clear blue sky. A roof—its patina as green as turquoise—made the manse seem as if it’d sprouted up from the ground. Leading to a massive double door, a stone walkway curved elegantly, the glass in the front doors having been handblown in France.

So different from North Carolina.

So different from Brandon’s home. But she liked that. She didn’t need all this. Who really did?

“Good morning, Miss Victoria,” Jane, their maid-of-all-work, said as she opened the door. Jane had worked for the VanCleefs practically her entire life. Just as Jane’s mother, and Jane’s great-grandmother had worked for Vicky’s grandmother and great-grandmother.

“Is it bad in there?” Vicky asked, motioning toward the study a few doors down, her footfalls echoing off the polished hardwood floor that was cleaned with beeswax imported from Italy.

Jane shook her head and shot her a sympathetic smile. When Vicky had been a child, she’d often asked the same question whenever she suspected she might be in trouble. Late for dinner because she’d lost track of time out in the park. Staying out past her curfew the night of the prom. Jane had been witness to all her youthful transgressions. Now it appeared as if they would continue through her being an adult.

“Is he alone, or is Elaina in there?” Vicky asked.

“Alone, miss,” Jane said.

Well, there was that to be grateful for, she supposed.

“Thank you,” she said, feeling more like a child than a woman as she approached the door.

“Come in,” her father said after Vicky’s light knock.

Still, Vicky paused for a moment outside the door, the brass knob cold in her grasp.

Buck up, Vicky old girl,
she heard in her head—her grandmother’s voice.
It won’t be all bad.

Inside, the study was just as dimly lit as it always was. Lead-paned windows to her left were framed on either side by lush foliage. She’d always thought it should be trimmed back—to allow more light—but her father seemed to like it. This was his domain. He stood, his palms lightly resting on the polished cherrywood desk.

“Hello, Dad,” she said softly.

Her father simply stared, and she grew a little uncomfortable beneath that perusal. Her father—when he chose—could be a commanding figure. Two hundred years ago, he might have been an admiral, one whose portrait might have been painted against a backdrop of warring ships.

“Victoria,” he said at last, slowly sinking into his chair.

She sat, too, the movement setting her heart to pounding. Or maybe that was just nerves.

Time to take the bull by the horns.

“What did you want to talk to me about, Dad?”

“I believe you know very well what,” he said, his fingers a steeple in front of him.

“Dad,” she said quickly, “it’s not as if I’m out dealing drugs or something. It’s a good job. Sure, my boss is a jerk, but I like being an agent. It’s fun, and exciting, and…different.” Far better than being a clerk at her father’s firm, not that
he
had to work. But their long history as lawyers had a great deal to do with the VanCleefs hanging on to the family fortune.

Never be afraid to roll up your sleeves and work.
That’s what her grandfather had always said. It was practically the family creed.

“That’s not what I wish to speak to you about.”

Vicky sat up suddenly.

“I wish to speak to you of another matter.”

“What?” Vicky asked.

“Brandon Burke.”

Her heart stopped.

“Ah…” She coughed to clear her throat. “What about him?”

“He was with you that night you saw Elaina.”

She nodded. “We were…seeing each other.”

“How serious is it between the two of you?” he asked.

So this was why she’d been summoned, she realized. To be chastened for involving herself with Brandon. She should have known. “
Very
serious,” she lied because she would not be dictated to about her choice in men—any more than she would be told what to do with her life.

“I received a letter from him.”

“What?”

“The man has horrid penmanship.”

“Oh, Daddy,” she said softly. “If you only knew.”

She saw his eyes flicker for a second, realized in an instant that she’d used the word
daddy.
She hadn’t called him that in a long, long time.

He cleared his throat, sat up a little taller. “Do you love him?”

“I did,” she admitted, realizing nothing but the truth would do. “I still do, I suppose,” she quickly amended. Something was different about her father this morning, and it wasn’t just the tension between them. “But we, ah, we broke up,” she added, although why she did that, she had no idea.

“So the letter stated,” he said.

Then why was her father questioning her on the matter?

“Why did you two part company?” he asked.

She debated how best to answer. “I was going back to New York,” she finally admitted. “He wanted me to stay with him. I refused.”

“So you left.”

“It was a mutual decision,” she said.

He stared at her for a second longer, eyes the exact same color as her own never blinking. “I see.” He shifted in his chair, gave her his profile. “Do you realize, Victoria, that ever since your mother passed away I’ve worried about you incessantly?” He shook his head. “When you developed the sniffles, I would fret. If you had a fever, I would stay by your bedside until it broke. And god forbid you scrape your knee, or break a bone or otherwise suffer an injury because when you did—” he met her gaze “—I hurt with you.”

Her eyes stung suddenly. She swallowed tears back, nodded her head. “I know.”

“
Do
you know?” he asked quietly. “Do you know how much I love you? Not just me, but Elaina, too? I realize we’re hard on you, Victoria…that
I’m
hard on you. I was the one who insisted on cutting you off. I know you thought Elaina responsible for that, but she wasn’t. I wanted you to realize all that you’d give up by being so…independent. But it didn’t frighten you, did it?”

“No,” she admitted after a long moment of silence.

“You would even give up the man you love if it meant giving up your career.”

Yes, she thought. That’s exactly what she’d done. Only why did that suddenly feel like such a selfish thing? Surely they could have compromised.

“He’s here, you know.”

“Who?”

“Your boyfriend.” Seeing her look of confusion, her father added, “The man who wrote the letter.”

“Here?” she asked in shock.

“He came to ask me for your hand in marriage.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth, her heart suddenly beating so hard she grew light-headed.

“That’s why he wrote to me. He wanted to tell me how he felt about you. How much he loved you. How much he hoped to marry you. To say I was shocked to receive such a missive would be an understatement. So many people fail to understand the importance of the written word. In this day and age it’s all about instant messages or e-mail or texting one another.”

Vicky understood why he’d written. It was a message to her:
I haven’t given up.

Why had she? she wondered.

She clenched the arms of her chair.

He’d asked for her hand in marriage.

Her vision began to blur. She blinked, tried to bring her father into focus.

“I’ll admit, Victoria, that I’ve been hard on you.”

She wiped at her eyes, rested her palms in her lap. Brandon was here.
Here.

“When Elaina told me she’d delivered our ultimatum, I thought I’d won. That you’d capitulate. But a week went by, and then two, and still, you didn’t give in to our demands. It was then that I admitted that I might have lost my daughter. That I’d pushed too hard. Perhaps even driven you away.”

When he faced her, Vicky realized he was crying. Her strong, indomitable dad was crying. Not sobbing. Not bawling. He didn’t need to do that. To her father a single tear was tantamount to a bucket of them.

“I don’t want to lose my daughter,” he said softly.

She got up. She wasn’t sure he’d noticed, especially when she crossed to him and he looked up, wide-eyed. “You haven’t lost me,” she said hoarsely. “I’m right here.”

He inhaled sharply. “Yes, I know…I know—”

She cut off his words with a hug. He was stiff at first, but then he softened, slowly he stood. His suddenly harsh embrace took her breath away, but she didn’t care. He was her father and she was so grateful—so very, very relieved—that their feud was over.

“Now,” he said, drawing back. He looked older, she realized. Somehow, her father had aged without her noticing. “About that young man.”