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 lifestyle. 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
