Finding Isadora(4)

He shook his head ruefully. “Seems like I’ve seen that dress somewhere before. Iz, it looks great but I wish you’d let me buy you something else so you don’t have to wear it all the time. It’s not like you’re a guy and can get away with only one tux.”

“You’re not buying me clothes,” I said calmly. “At least not until we’re married. Even then, I’ll still shop consignment stores and mark-down sales.”

I made decent money, but I was paying off my student loans and Vancouver wasn’t a cheap place to live. But even if I were wealthy, designer clothing wasn’t something I could imagine ever wanting. It was so frivolous in a world rife with serious problems. In some ways, I really was my parents’ daughter.

When Richard had checked my coat he looked me up and down. “Simple but elegant.”

“Elegant?” I brushed a kiss across his cheek. “You’re sweet, but don’t go overboard with the flattery.”

He shrugged. “Short hair, long neck, diamonds. Classy.”

Classy? Me? “Thanks, Richard,” I murmured. “You look great, too.” Although he never made time to exercise, he had a naturally lean build. He looked good in anything, though I liked him far better in jeans than the conventional suits and ties he wore for work. His strong, classic features would only improve as age gave his face more character. Dark brows and lashes accented his hazel eyes, and his fashionable glasses lent a professional look that aged him a few years and was no doubt an asset in his work.

I marveled—not for the first time—at how fate had brought the two of us together. I’d always assumed I’d marry a vet, and Richard’s obvious choice would have been another rising young lawyer. And yet, despite our differences, we had some important things in common.

“Let’s get a drink,” he said.

As we headed toward the shorter of the bar line-ups, I said, “I was thinking about how we met.”

“A little different from this, wasn’t it?”

“We do owe our parents,” I admitted. Richard and I had been seated side by side at a blood donor clinic, and he’d asked how I got started donating. Giving blood was taken for granted in both our families. When I’d mentioned Grace and Jimmy Lee, Richard had commented about me calling my parents by their first names as he did with his father, Gabe DeLuca. The first stories we shared were about our flaky parents. We’d each been delighted to find someone who truly understood, and who shared the drive to make our own lives into something very different from those of our parents.

Richard said he took after his mom. His parents had split up more than a decade ago. His mother Diane had married a comfortably wealthy businessman named Frank Bracken. Richard had liked Frank well enough—or perhaps been annoyed enough with Gabe—that he took Frank’s surname. I found Diane and Frank pleasant, if overly materialistic. I’d never met Gabe DeLuca.

In fact, in the year I’d known Richard, he hadn’t seen his father once. They spoke occasionally on the phone, but that was it. Although they were both lawyers, they were polar opposites. While Richard practiced corporate law on the thirty-fourth floor of a thirty-five floor tinted-glass tower near Vancouver’s harbor, his father had a storefront legal office in the infamous Downtown Eastside. Gabe represented low-income clients, minorities, people with disabilities—people who didn’t easily fit in the money-oriented justice system. He had some admirable qualities, but, from what Richard said, he’d been a rotten father.

My parents were both radical activists like Gabe DeLuca, but they’d always been loving parents. I was so lucky, compared to my fiancé. I hoped he and his dad would reconcile one day. I hated to see Richard carrying around all that bitterness and resentment.

We’d reached the front of the bar line-up. Richard was lost in a world of his own, so I nudged him. “What do you want to drink?”

“Oh, sorry.” He reflected a moment as I ordered a glass of white wine, then said, “Scotch on the rocks.”

“A power drink?” I teased. Normally he drank wine, or occasionally beer.

“Caught me. Got to fit in with the movers and shakers.” We collected our drinks and moved out of the main traffic flow. “God, I hate events like this.”

“That makes two of us.” I tucked my arm through his.

He squeezed my hand. “Thanks for coming, Iz. I feel more confident, knowing you’re here.”

I winked. “You’re definitely going to owe me.”

He laughed, then his eyes narrowed as he focused on someone behind me. “There’s Matt Lexington, the CFO of NewReality Corporation. I should say hello. Want to come and be introduced?”

Want? What I wanted was to go back to the clinic and check on *willow. Second best was surviving the evening without making any major blunders. “Do you need me to?”

He shook his head. “It’s dinner where I’m counting on you. I don’t want to sit at one of those big tables without a date.”

“Then I think I’ll make a quick call to the clinic.”

Glancing around, he said, “Dinner’s at seven. How about I meet you in the silent auction room just before that?”

“Perfect.” I could browse in there without having to chat with strangers. “Want me to bid on anything?”