Page 26 of Dating His Brother

“Oh, no. It’s for Isabella. You know her, right? The woman I was with when I saw you at the opening.”

I raised my brows in surprise, but bit back any reply. What I wanted to say was—Oh, I know her alright. I know her a lot better now after last night, and I have a painting back at my place that you might find very interesting…

But I truly was baffled that Richard would go to such great lengths to impress and win over any woman. Maybe he just liked the challenge and the competition. He had always been the one being pursued, never the one in pursuit.

“I’ve never seen you care so much about one woman before,” I commented. “Buying her a painting and everything? What are your intentions with Izzy anyway?”

“You call her Izzy?” he teased, looking a little annoyed and jealous. “Just how close are you two?”

“We’re not really,” I lied. But apparently we really weren’t, judging by Izzy’s behavior the morning before.

“Ah. Well. My intentions with her are to give her what she wants. A picture-perfect husband to add to her image. More millions to add to her bank. I wouldn’t expect you to understand a woman like that, but it’s all fairly transactionary.”

I nodded my head, twisting my lips as I looked down at the floor. “And what makes you so sure that’s what she wants? What if she wants the real thing?”

“Real what?” his brow furrowed.

“Love.”

Richard burst into laughter. “No woman like that does. Which is perfect. I have no interest in it either. But it’s proven that married men are more successful. Clients trust them more.”

He turned to the gallery worker casually, as if we had just been discussing something as serious as stopping by the store for milk on the way home. “You can have this delivered directly to my place? I’d like to present it to her in person.”

Then he looked back at me. “Thanks for making something that caught her eye, Daws. She seemed to be really taken with it at the show.”

And finally, he looked back to the painting just before it was packed up by the workers. “Though I can’t really understand why. Ah, you know I don’t know much about this art crap.”

Or women. Or love. Or anything else, I thought. Richard patted my shoulder and strutted out of the gallery.

14

Isabella

The only benefit to having a film crew follow me around on dates was that it made things slightly more entertaining as I endured the dullness of Michael Waters. He was a well known accountant who only handled the biggest clients. I always imagined accountants and their work to be mind-numbingly boring. And Michael was proving that theory to be correct.

I tried to suppress a yawn over our subpar, overpriced Italian dinner, while he rambled on about spreadsheets and “how fascinating they really were once you understood them.” I shifted my elbows as they rested on the table and accidentally bumped into one of the camera stands to my left. The guy behind it scrambled to catch it in time, which at least made me laugh a little.

Finally, the waiter returned Michael’s card and the check for him to sign, which meant I was almost free.

“So…” He smiled up at me. “What next? I know of a great place we can go for drinks and dancing.”

I yawned again. “I would love to, but I’m suddenly so tired. I think I have to call it a night. Maybe next time.”

He looked disappointed as he helped me back into my coat and walked me out to my car, waiting for me out front. I had learned to keep a car on call for a speedy getaway for situations just like this.

It couldn’t have been easy on guys like Michael. When the date was an obvious fail, they had hundreds of thousands of people on the internet watching it go down—mocking the poor guys over their bowls of popcorn and glasses of wine. On the other hand, it was great for me because it felt like I had crowds of people commiserating with me. Though I made a point to never look at the comments on the online episodes. Jada assured me people were very encouraging and sympathetic with me.

When I got back home, I kicked off my heels and stared at the calendar on the wall. I had a very busy schedule with dates lined up back to back. Every night it was dinner and drinks with some new guy they had picked out for me, in addition to all of my other social obligations.

I was trying to keep my head up and throw myself into it all full force. At least it kept me busy, a welcomed distraction from any lingering thoughts about Dawson.

I liked to think of our little encounter as a bit of fun that served the purpose of getting it out of my system. I figured going ahead and sleeping with him would take away some of that alluring mystery and make it easier for me to put him out of my head. And being so busy meant I didn’t have time to figure out if my plan had worked or not. I was blissfully unaware and going non-stop from one thing to another.

The next morning, I had just gotten off a call with Jada, who was revealing the final selection of bachelors to me. She was hopeful one of the ten men would be “the one,” and Richard Hayes made it to the final cut. I had gotten used to just smiling and nodding to everything she said. If I didn’t have a choice in the matter, it was better to just go along with it all and hope for the best.

I had plenty of money, after all. It was impossible to make a wrong choice because I could jet off to anywhere in the world when I got bored with the guy and needed a break, which really wasn’t so different from how my own parents’ marriage functioned. And they were happy enough, as far as I could tell.

But no sooner than Jada and I hung up, the phone rang again. I winced at the sight of Dawson's name scrolling across the screen. Yet I couldn’t stop myself from picking up.

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