Finding Isadora(19)

He beamed at me. “That would be great. He could probably use a healthy female influence too.”

“Don’t be too quick to judge his mother. You don’t know her circumstances.”

He shrugged, but I could see he wasn’t predisposed to be generous with a woman who neglected her child.

“I definitely don’t want to discourage you, but Richard, this seems kind of sudden. Why now? You’re busy with work and we’ve talked about getting married later this year. You’ve already got a lot on your plate.”

He freed his hand, took a drink of wine, then began twisting the stem of his glass between his fingers. To the right, to the left, to the right again. He was watching the glass, not looking at me. “It’s been in the back of my mind for a while. I was going to talk to you but wasn’t sure what I felt. And then…” He lifted his head, shoved up his glasses and scowled. “Damn it, Gabe got to me with that speech last night.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing exactly what he meant. “You shouldn’t let him guilt you into anything,” I said firmly, as much to myself as to Richard.

“It’s not that. I do believe people should make a contribution to society. Gabe just reminded me. And here’s this situation I’ve been noticing, where maybe I can make a difference if I get off my butt. It’s only a small thing, but—”

“No,” I broke in. “It’s not small. I think you should do it. Your dad would be proud.”

He snorted. “No way. He wouldn’t be proud of me unless—” He broke off to reflect. “Unless I opened my own storefront legal clinic, I suppose. And there’s no way I’m doing that.”

“Nor should you. Do the work you love, and make your contribution to society in other ways. If Gabriel’s not proud of you, he’s a fool.”

“Uh, thanks.” Richard flushed, then picked up his fork and determinedly attacked his pasta.

After a minute I went back to my pizza, but my appetite had deserted me. Not because of Richard and Eric, but because Gabriel was back on my mind. I forced myself to take a bite, and smiled across the table. “How long before I can start stripping your clothes off?”

“Think you can wait until we get back to your apartment?”

“I’ll try.”

We joked back and forth, but I was only going through the motions, trying to psych myself into the right mood. I sensed the same was true of Richard.

Later, when we were alone at my apartment and I did get him naked, we managed to shove everything else away and concentrate fully on each other and our mutual pleasure. Afterward, when we curled up together, I sighed contentedly. “I’m glad you can stay the night, Richard.”

He kissed my temple. “Me too. You know, I was thinking…”

“Mmm?”

“I know we decided we wouldn’t set a wedding date until we’ve been engaged for at least six months, but I wonder if we should think about moving in together?”

I jerked upright. “Moving in?”

“We’d see each other more. We both work a lot of nights, you see your parents and friends, I have Mom and Frank, now maybe Eric. At least we’d always see each other in bed at night.”

The idea made sense, so why did I feel panicky? “We talked about this before,” I said slowly, “and agreed not to live together until we got married and bought our house.” Our house. I’d been dreaming of it so long that I couldn’t quite imagine having Richard move into my cozy little queendom.

“I wanted to do things the old-fashioned way,” he said.

I had to chuckle. I reached under the covers to tickle his naked body. “Is this the old-fashioned way?”

He wriggled to evade my hand. “No guy’s that old-fashioned.”

“What’s changed, Richard?”

“If I start seeing Eric, it’s going to be even harder to arrange dinners and weekend time.”

“So if we lived together, we’d both go our own ways and lead our busy lives, but meet in bed?”

“It doesn’t sound so romantic when you put it that way.”

I shook my head. “But we’re not noted for being romantic, are we? We’re the practical ones.” I heard the touch of bitterness in my voice and it surprised me. Until last night, I’d been happy to be sensible and organized. Now I remembered the silent auction and my fantasy about a weekend away, with ice wine and chocolate truffles. Yes, we valued practicality, but did that mean we had to give up all spontaneity, excitement, fun? “Richard, why don’t we take a weekend away? Maybe go over to Victoria.”

“That’s a great idea, Iz.”

I smiled with delight. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? “How about this coming weekend?” For once, I had both Saturday and Sunday off.

He sighed. “There’s an important merger in the works. I’ll probably have to be at the office. How about the weekend after?”

“I have to work.”

“Damn.” He shook his head. “The story of our lives.”

“So maybe you’re right and we should move in together.”

“It’d be nice to hold you every night, to talk like this rather than over the phone.”

“It would.” Besides, if Richard was beside me in bed, I wasn’t likely to torment myself over his father. “Okay, let’s think seriously about it.”