LITMIR.BIZ

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Victoria as an excuse to leave. This way, she can slip into bed without damaging her reputation as the queen of the all-nighters. If you go with her, she’ll be forced to stay up and pretend that she could have gone on all night—when she couldn’t.”

      “That’s pretty convoluted.” But, she supposed, in an odd sort of way, that did make sense.

      “So’s my mother,” he pointed out. “Trust me, it’s better this way. Besides, she’s just a little tired, it’s not like she’s going to need a blood transfusion once she’s home. There’s no real reason for you to go with her.” It occurred to Brandon, as he made the case for her to stay, that there could be another reason why Isabelle might be trying to leave. “Unless you don’t want to stay.”

      “Not want to stay?” she echoed. How could he even think such a thing? Maybe this was old hat to Brandon but not to her. “I’m feeling a little like Cinderella at the ball. I don’t get to go to many parties in my line of work,” she told him, silently adding that, counting this one, it brought the grand total up to one—if she didn’t count the one that Zoe’d thrown to celebrate their fifth year in business last month.

      “Then I’m not making you remain against your will,” he concluded. “Good. Feeling adventurous?” he asked completely out of the blue. There was amusement in his sky blue eyes.

      Isabelle could feel her heart suddenly hitching in her throat even though there was no logical reason why it should.

      “Okay,” she replied tentatively, stretching the word out.

      He grinned. “Can I interest you in sampling some appetizers with me?” He indicated the center of the buffet table against the far wall.

      He, Isabelle thought, could interest her in sampling chocolate-covered worms. The idea didn’t even make her cringe. Since she’d taken on the famous screen icon’s case, it had all seemed like one giant adventure to her, and she secretly hoped it would never end, even though she knew it had to.

      There were less than three weeks left before the tour for Anastasia’s play, A Little Night Music, was to begin. That was the deadline she’d been given to get the actress into “top dancing condition.”

      Which meant that there were less than three weeks for her to be part of this world that seemed like a fairy tale come true to her.

      She realized that she hadn’t answered Brandon and he was still waiting. “Sure, why not?” she said gamely.

      The three large platters of artfully arranged appetizers formed an exotic array. They each took five different ones, giving them a total of ten to sample.

      “Oh, wow, you have to try this one,” Brandon enthused, after taking a small bite of an appetizer that, in Isabelle’s estimation, apparently tasted far better than it looked.

      Rather than have her go back to the table to get one of her own, Brandon held out the second half of the one he’d sampled and fed it to her.

      She hardly tasted it.

      All of her senses were otherwise occupied as the intimate moment—despite the people milling all around them—registered all the way into the deep recesses of her soul.

      For just that one precious moment, there was nothing and no one else but the two of them and a canapé that involved marinated chicken, guacamole and some unknown, sweet ingredient that seemed to explode on her tongue into a wild spectrum of flavors.

      Not the smallest of which was desire.

      Breathe! Breathe, damn it, or you’re going to pass out right here at his feet, dummy, she chided herself as she realized that she’d literally stopped exhaling for more than just a beat.

      “Good?” he asked, peering closely at her face.

      Exquisite. Beyond anything I’ve ever felt. Isabelle nodded her response, not trusting her voice to come out in anything except an unintelligible squeak.

      He took another two canapés and slipped them onto his plate, intent on sharing each with her. “I don’t know who the caterer is, but I’m having them do my Christmas party this year,” he declared. “By the way, you’re invited.”

      It was an offhanded invitation that she was certain he forgot the moment he offered it. Surely he’d forget by the time the season rolled around.

      But she never would.

      They wound up staying until the very end. Brandon, the epitome of energy, gave every indication of going on forever. And when the reception finally did wind down and then break up, Brandon looked almost sorry that the party was over.

      As he said his goodbyes to the bookstore owner, a heavyset man who pumped his hand and thanked him twice over for coming, Brandon turned toward Isabelle. All sorts of ideas were forming in his head.

      She was even more beautiful right now than she’d been at the beginning of the evening—and it wasn’t the wine talking because he hadn’t had any for the past hour and a half. He hadn’t had much before then, either. He liked having a clear head.

      Isabelle was fumbling with her shawl, and he slipped it around her shoulders for her, his fingers brushing against her arm’s bare skin.

      The contact was electrifying. He wondered if she’d felt it, too.

      “I don’t feel like going home just yet,” he told her. “You up for a walk on the beach?”

      She resisted the urge to tell him that if he wanted to run off to the circus, she was up for that, too. Instead, she said, “That sounds very nice. Count me in,” and left it at that.

      The sound of the ocean, its waves sliding in to flirt with the shore before coquettishly withdrawing, promised to have a very soothing effect. She welcomed the thought. Right now she felt as if she was still fully charged and about to go off like a misfired rocket at any moment.

      The beach, as it turned out, was located not that far from the bookstore. They gained access to it by taking a path that started directly behind the store and cut across an alley between two summer homes before it finally brought them straight down to the beach.

      There was a full moon out, casting its light onto the waters.

      Just for us, she thought, watching the moonbeams glimmer along the dark waters.

      “There’s a full moon out tonight,” she commented.

      “Like it?” Brandon asked, weaving his fingers through her hand as he deadpanned, “I ordered ahead for it.”

      She looked at him for a long moment. The man was heart-stoppingly gorgeous, she thought, not for the first time. “I guess you can get pretty much anything you want,” she speculated, only half tongue in cheek.

      “Tell you the truth, I have pretty much everything I want.” And then, as if to prove it, he enumerated. “I’ve got the career I’ve always wanted. A really terrific daughter I sometimes feel I don’t deserve and then, of course, there’s Mother.”

      A fond smile curved his generous mouth as a slightly distant look came into his eyes. “She’s a hoot and I can’t say she’s even remotely typical, but life with her was an education from the very first moment. I don’t think I’d be where I am if I’d had a typical mother.”

      He was forgetting about his determination, about his drive. “I think you might be,” she told him.

      “Oh?” he asked, curious. “And why’s that?”

      It was hard for her to think, to complete a thought, when he held her hand like that.

      “Because we all carry the seeds inside of us of what we are and what we have the potential to become.” She warmed to her subject. “You take two people with the same set of circumstances in their background. One grows up to be a success, the other becomes a bitter, complaining failure, blaming everyone else for the fact that he never got anywhere in life instead of putting the blame where it

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