When I opened the door, though, it wasn’t friends of Angelica or a delivery person. It was Izzi.
She wore a lovely light blue dress, her blonde hair done up in thick curls that tumbled around her face and shoulders. Fuck. She was far too pretty for me to handle.
Izzi held up a couple bags of takeout. “I brought sushi!”
“Uh…” I found myself at a loss for words. Real smooth there, champ.
“You didn’t have time at work to grab lunch and I completely understand,” Izzi assured me. “But I still wanted to thank you, so I figured I could bring something on the weekend.”
Well, we weren’t doing anything so there was no reason not to let her in. But I tried to keep a bit of physical distance from her as I stepped out of the way for her to enter, and then closed the door behind her. She was far too gorgeous for my own good. I’d hoped that my dismissiveness at work would help her to stay away—that she would think I was too busy for her attention and she would direct her focus onto others who could help her with her transition.
Unfortunately, it seemed our history of knowing each other just meant she was going to keep being friendly. And she had no idea that I was lusting after her like an idiot teenager in heat. Fuck.
“We’re just hanging out,” I told her, trying to keep some distance from her as Izzi went to the kitchen island to start laying out food.
Oh, wow, she’d brought sushi. My mouth watered. Sushi was a favorite of mine, but I didn’t have it often since Angelica had always been opposed to trying it. I knew that I indulged her a bit too much in some ways while growing up but hey, it was hard to say no to that cute face and I never spoiled her about anything that really mattered.
“Where’s Angelica?” Izzi asked, looking around hopefully.
It warmed my heart to know that she wanted to see Angelica as well. Izzi was twenty-one now, an adult who could easily only want to converse with me, the other adult in the place, but instead she clearly wanted to see Angelica, too. I was glad. Angelica had always admired Izzi as a cool older sister.
“She’s swimming out back. This way.”
I knew that Izzi knew her way around the house, at least generally, but I still showed her the way out back. It had been years since she’d last been here. Since whatever last party dinner I’d had that she’d attended while she was still in high school, damn, that had been at least five years ago. Probably even longer. I didn’t often have people over. That was more Garrett’s thing.
Izzi stepped out onto the back porch. “John, you liar!” she said loudly. “You told me Angelica was back here! I don’t see that kid anywhere! There is this lovely young lady in the pool, though, what’s your name?”
Angelica shrieked when she saw who it was. “Izzi!”
She leapt up out of the pool and rushed over to her, leaping into Izzi’s arms despite my yell to be careful.
Izzi caught Angelica, apparently uncaring that it got her all wet, and the two hugged each other.
“You’re so grown up, what the hell?” Izzi set her down and put her hand flat against Angelica’s temple to check how tall she was. “I distinctly remember telling you that you weren’t allowed to get any bigger.”
Angelica giggled. “You can’t stop me!”
“Unfortunately.” Izzi winked at her. “Your dad hasn’t told me anything about what’s going on with you, I want to hear all about it! C’mon I brought lunch.”
“What kind of lunch?”
“Sushi.”
Angelica pulled a face, but Izzi just laughed. “Sushi is the ‘cool’ thing, trust me, everyone your age is going to be eating it soon so that they feel all cool and fancy and modern. You just try a few pieces, okay?”
“Just a few pieces?”
“Just a few.”
We all settled down to eat and Angelica did in fact try a few pieces. She seemed to like it more than she’d expected—but she was far too busy talking Izzi’s head off to eat much.
I was tempted to warn Angelica not to overwhelm Izzi, but this was the most animated I’d seen my daughter in months. And Izzi didn’t seem to mind. She ate her sushi quietly while nodding along and grinning at Angelica’s stories. Occasionally she’d ask questions—and then Angelica started asking questions and Izzi answered every single one with humor and patience.
“What are you gonna do now that you’re out of college?” Angelica asked.
“I’m actually working with your dad,” Izzi explained. “I’m helping to make his company better.” She lowered her voice and leaned in conspiratorially. “Somebody’s gotta keep him in line over there.”
“He keeps everybody else in line,” Angelica grumbled, and I winced, covering it up with a bite of sushi. “He’s the boss.”
“Oh, man, you don’t know your dad, then.” Izzi shook her head. “The trouble he gets into! I’m spending all my time keeping him from his crazy antics. He’s giving me gray hairs!”
Izzi flipped her hair dramatically and Angelica laughed. My mouth went dry and I grabbed some water. Izzi’s hair was thick and gorgeous, and certainly didn’t have any gray in it.
And I had to admit, as horrible as this sounded, it was kind of turning me on to see how good she was with Angelica. While I had never seriously considered any woman to be my new wife, sometimes I had fielded questions from others about dating again—Garrett’s wife Charlotte had been one of those people, always worrying that I was lonely. I’d always told her, and others, that I couldn’t even consider someone as a partner if they weren’t good with my daughter. Angelica was my first priority and having her like a person was paramount.
To see my daughter coming out of her shell and eagerly, voluntarily sharing information about her life made my heart ache. I was glad that Izzi could bring that out in her, but I was also still worried that she wasn’t sharing that kind of thing with me. Perhaps I could talk with Izzi about it later in private, see what we could do together to help encourage Angelica to talk with me? Figure out what I was doing that wasn’t working? She seemed to have a natural touch with my daughter, after all.
“Um, hello. Didn’t expect anyone else to be visiting.”
We all turned, and I saw that my friend Penny was standing in the doorway. I smiled. Penny Bridges was my closest friend besides Garrett. She was a lovely person, highly intelligent, and sometimes Charlotte had hinted to me that Penny was far from bad-looking with her dark blonde hair and hazel eyes. But I’d only ever thought of Penny as my friend. I just looked at her and saw someone who was like a sister to me, someone who I could trust and rely on, but I simply couldn’t see her as someone that I could kiss or make love with.
It was nothing against Penny. She was a great woman, and I was sure she’d make the right man happy. I just didn’t feel anything in that corner.
Penny stared at Izzi, apparently confused. I’d given Penny a key to my place ages ago, so she must’ve let herself in. I tried to be careful with things like that. I trusted Penny and wanted her to be able to come and go since I sometimes needed her help with things (Garrett also had a key, and I had a key to his place) but I didn’t want to give her the wrong impression. Over the last few years Penny had started to… hint things.
I could’ve been wrong. Wouldn’t have been the first time I completely misunderstood a person. But it felt like now that Angelica was older and Penny was in her forties she was starting to drop hints to me about our relationship, and the nature of it, and how that nature could… change.
Yeah. I wasn’t into it, but I didn’t want to ruin our friendship by being too harsh with her, or by being wrong about the entire thing and embarrassing us both. So, I just kept ignoring or avoiding her hints (or what I thought were her hints) and hoped that, if that was what she was doing, she’d take the hint.
“Penny, this is Isadora. I’m sure you remember her, she’s Garrett’s kid.”
“Oh!” Penny smiled. “Of course. Little Izzi.”
Izzi blinked in surprise at the treatment. I could admit to
myself that I wasn’t a fan of Penny’s attitude. Izzi wasn’t a child. She was younger than we were, to be sure, but she was still twenty-one. She was an adult and deserved to be treated like one.
“It’s nice to see you again, Miss Bridges,” Izzi replied.
“Just Penny’s fine.” Penny directed her attention back to me. “Is she babysitting Angelica?”
“Izzi was just hired by our company,” I said, grinning over at Izzi, who blushed with pride. “We’re very proud of her.”
Angelica nodded enthusiastically.
Penny’s face went a little stiff, which was odd. “That’s great. I was hoping I could talk to you about your trip at the end of the month. Maybe we could leave the kids to eat lunch and the grownups can go talk in the kitchen?”
I stood up. “Be right back, guys,” I promised, and then followed Penny back into the kitchen.
“Izzi’s not a kid,” I pointed out, keeping my voice low so that I wouldn’t be overheard by the girls outside and make this awkward. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk about her like that.”
Penny raised an eyebrow at me. “She is a kid. She’s two decades younger than us.”
“I’m aware that she’s much younger, but she’s not a child anymore, and I know if I were in her shoes, I’d want people to treat me like an adult and acknowledge my proper age.” I didn’t want to fight about this, truly, so I moved on. “So, what is it about the trip?”
“I cleared my schedule!” Penny grinned at me, switching tacks so quickly it gave me a bit of whiplash. “I can take Angelica for the long weekend.”
“That’s great, thanks Penny. I really appreciate it.”
At the end of the month, I was going to Los Angeles for a convention, and I’d thought it would be the perfect opportunity for Angelica to get some important girl time in. Penny had been the natural choice, and I just hoped that Penny would be able to help Angelica with the things that I couldn’t.
Although, I wasn’t sure why Penny couldn’t have just texted or called about this. It didn’t seem to warrant her coming over in person.
“Tell me, why is Izzi here?” Penny asked. “You mentioned she was hired by the company, but I don’t see…”
“She brought lunch over as a thank-you for the hire,” I explained. “Her dad was against it, so I stepped in and went up to bat for her. She appreciates it. She cares a lot about her dad and the company and wants to help it continue to succeed.”
“Hmm.” Penny frowned, staring out the window to the back patio. “You might want to watch your step, or you could risk giving off the wrong impression.”
“What/ What’s that supposed to mean?”
Penny looked back at me. “Well, how would Garrett feel if anyone thought anything was going on between you and Izzi? It happens, John. She’s a lovely woman, she’s fresh out of college, you helped her to get the job—tongues will wag.”
“She’s also the daughter of the man who owns half the company, I think tongues are a little busy wagging about that,” I pointed out. “And Izzi’s got much better things to do than to get with an older man like me.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, John,” Penny replied. She gave me a look that I suspected was meant to be flirtatious. “You’re still wildly handsome. Any woman would count herself lucky to have you. I just think you should make sure that woman is your own age.”
Penny was three years younger than I was, but in your forties, small age differences like that didn’t really matter anymore. For the first time, I was certain that my instincts were right, and she was trying to hint at a possible romantic relationship between the two of us.
“I appreciate your friendship,” I told her. “And your support. It means a lot to me. And I know that you’re coming from a place of care and concern. But I’m going to keep things professional between Izzi and me. Don’t worry.”
Penny didn’t look as satisfied as I’d hoped she would, but she nodded. Fuck. Only two seconds of seeing us together and my friend could probably tell how much I was lusting after Izzi. I was going to have to be extra careful to keep my distance, or I’d be screwed.
6
Izzi
It had been a couple of weeks and I was ready to scream into a pillow. I couldn’t get close to John, no matter what I did. I enjoyed hanging out at his house with Angelica, but since then, he seemed to be avoiding me like I had the plague. What gave? What had I done wrong?
Work wasn’t going super well, either. I’d been trying to introduce my ideas to Ben and Evelyn, but they didn’t seem all that interested in what I had to say. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was new, or younger, or because I was the daughter of one half of the CEO team, but they just didn’t seem to care what my ideas were. It was beyond frustrating on its own, but on top of the John thing…
This wasn’t at all what I’d hoped for when I’d imagined myself working here. I wanted to make a positive difference and take care of this company my dad had put everything into, and I wanted to get John to notice me, damn it!
At least one thing I could work on, though. I asked Dad if we could grab lunch together one day, and then I pumped him—subtly—for the inside scoop on the new product launch. That way I could figure out just the right angle for the launch campaign. Not only would that help the company, but being successful would land me John’s attention again.
I wasn’t planning to ask after John at the lunch, either, since I didn’t want to make Dad suspicious. He was going to be appalled when he found out about John and me, I just knew it, and so I wanted to delay that until things were really set in stone and I could figure out just the right way to ease him into it.
But Dad happened to bring up the subject himself.
“John mentioned you stopped by his place the other day,” he said. “Said you were great with Angelica.”
“I mean, who wouldn’t be great with Angelica? She’s a great kid, always has been.”
“Not according to John. He’s been having trouble connecting with her lately. He worries it’s a girl-boy thing, that he can’t be as close to her now that she’s older and needs more advice from women.”
I was close with Mom and I could remember being a young teenager and coming to her for help with things, from boys to fashion to my menstrual cycle. I wouldn’t have been comfortable going to Dad with most of that, as much as I loved him.
“That’s tough,” I acknowledged. “I’m glad then that I could help in some way. It’s a hard age, no matter what your gender, but not having a mom she can talk to must be especially difficult for her. Poor thing.” I paused. “But don’t let her know I called her that, she’ll kill me.”
Dad laughed, and I smoothly transitioned the subject over to the product launch. I couldn’t dwell on John for too long or Dad would get suspicious and want to know why I was asking all of these questions.
I was able to come away from the lunch with a few ideas that I worked on late into the night to turn into proposals. I was sure that I could impress the marketing team with this. The proposals needed a couple more days of polishing to get them just right, and then, I was ready to present them.
“Eliza?” I knocked on her open office door. “Hi, sorry to bother you, but I was hoping that I could present some proposals to you for a new marketing strategy with the product launch?”
Eliza looked up at me slowly, like she was reluctantly dragging herself away from a riveting television show. I swallowed down my irritation. Eliza and Ben had both been friendly to me when I had my first day, but since then I had gotten the impression that they really didn’t want me to do anything. They just wanted me to squirrel away in my office and be forgotten about. They had their rapport, and that was all they needed.
Eliza stared at me for a moment, and I took that as all the permission I was ever going to get. I entered the office and launched into my presentation. “John and Garrett are, of course, visionaries with their product, but they’ve let that carry them for far too long. The GoodGreene name a
lone isn’t going to be enough to carry a new product.”
I went on, trying to pull out all the stops without seeming too… showman-like. I wanted to impress her but show that my things still had substance, that it wasn’t just going to be all flash and sparkly shiny surface-level advertising. I wanted us to really impress the technological world with this.
When I finished, I waited to see what Eliza’s response would be. She stared at me for a moment, as if she wasn’t sure what to do with me. “Well. It’s very cute,” she said at last.
Cute? What the fuck?
I tried not to let my frustration show on my face, keeping a neutral expression.
“But we’re going to go in another direction,” Eliza concluded. “Glad to see you have such drive and proactiveness, but we’ve already got our ideas in mind. Ben’s working on our marketing campaign.”
It was pretty fucking clear that Eliza wasn’t even going to give my designs a chance. To say it took the wind out of my sails would be an understatement. What was the point of my being at this company if nobody was going to give me a chance to be a part of the team?
“Okay,” I said, working to keep my voice calm. “Thanks for listening to my pitch.”
Eliza turned dismissively towards her computer, and I held in the urge to scream. Was this because my dad was in charge? Or would she have behaved this way towards anyone who tried this? Had I made a mistake in working here instead of going to a different company where I wasn’t connected with the CEO?
I was at the copy machine doing drudge work and trying not to take my frustrations out on the machine by kicking it when Andrew walked up.
“Hey, just checking in and—you okay?” he asked, switching direction on his sentence as he saw my face.
“That obvious, huh?” I asked.
Andrew shrugged. “You get good at reading people when you’re in my position.” He gave a warm smile. “You all good?”
“It’s fine.” I shrugged. “Just had an idea shot down.”
Daddy's Best Friend (Forbidden Temptations) Page 4