What the Single Dad Wants... by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online

can’t say I like that part of it. Nope, not at all,” he declared with a shake of his head. “That’s the agony part of this whole gig I’m in. It’s pretty much like—well, like sitting down at the computer, opening up a vein and just bleeding.”
    When he put it that way, it seemed positively awful. “Doesn’t sound like something anyone would want to do willingly,” Isabelle observed.
    He nodded his agreement. “Glad you see my side of it. So, can I come along?” he asked.
    He was actually asking her to “tag” along. Boyishly and charmingly asking her. As if he thought there was a chance in hell that she would possibly consider telling him no.
    Was he kidding?
    What woman in her right mind would say no to him? Especially when he looked so damn appealing asking the question.
    â€œAre you sure your mother won’t mind being left alone like this?” she asked.
    â€œShe’s not alone,” he corrected her. “Victoria’s here.”
    He was referring to his daughter. She’d always liked that name. It sounded so regal, so cultured. Unlike her own name which struck her as just being sturdy. Isabelles were the workers of the world. Victorias, on the other hand, were the princesses.
    Isabella was the queen who gave Columbus money, and he discovered a brand new world, remember? she reminded herself. Without Queen Isabella you wouldn’t be standing where you are.
    It made no difference.
    â€œYour daughter,” Isabelle said with a nod.
    â€œYou’ve met Victoria?” he asked, surprised. Funny, Victoria hadn’t said anything, and up until now, his daughter told him everything. He was going to miss that when she hit her teens and became a card-carrying stranger for the next x-number of years.
    â€œYes, she came in just at the tail end of my evaluation of your mother’s condition. She looked more poised than she did in that photograph I saw of her in People Magazine.”
    It took him a second to remember the article the therapist was apparently referring to. “Oh, right. The four-page spread last year,” he recalled, nodding. “That was written just as And Death Do Us Part came out,” he recalled. “Victoria was eleven when it was written, and as she likes pointing out, she’s ‘matured’ since then.”
    And was in oh such a hurry to grow up, he thoughtas a sadness tugged on his heart. He knew he couldn’t keep Victoria a little girl forever, but he’d secretly been hoping that he was going to find a way to slow time down. No such luck.
    He smiled at the very thought of his daughter. He’d fallen in love with her the first moment he saw her—and could never understand how Jean, his ex, could have walked out on her. But that was Jean’s loss, he thought. Right from the beginning, he’d made sure that Victoria would never feel as if she’d been abandoned—the way he had been. His ex-wife’s cavalier behavior had left a scar on his heart, but from that first moment, he was determined that it would do no such thing to their daughter. He liked to believe he had succeeded.
    â€œShe keeps me on my toes,” he confided. “And her grandmother on hers. I’d say that of the three of us, Victoria’s easily the oldest one.” He laughed, shaking his head. “I don’t know if that speaks well of us or not, but it makes my mother happy. She has no use for numbers unless they apply to box office takes or residuals from previous airings. Definitely not when they apply to something as ‘mundane’—her word—as age.”
    As Isabelle listened to him talk, she had to struggle not to get lost in the sound of his resonant voice.
    Emerging from her semi-euphoric fog, she suddenly realized that, if he accompanied her, the writer would, perforce, wind up seeing her apartment. That instantly sobered her.
    The idea of having someone like