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More than any other woman I had ever met. Letting her go had been a terrible mistake that I now wanted to make right.
Letting her go? Admit it, Carter. You didn't let her go. Youchased her awayand didn't give her a chance toexplain herself. Don is right. If Isabella had only been after money, she would havebehaved very differently after you threw her out.
Threw her out.
I had to get Isabella back. She wasn't just any woman. She was something special. My life in the past few weeks had been stale, boring, and empty without her. I had terrorized my surroundings with my terrible mood and had thrown myself into work.
And now I suddenly realized what a terrible mistake I had made. I saw Isabella in front of me, sitting in her car during the accident, both fascinated and frightened, looking at me. I saw her approaching me in the hotel and kissing me. Yes, I almost believed I could feel the touch of her lips on mine and her body under my hands...
She had drawn me more and more under her spell with each encounter, which was both wonderful and somehow eerie. I had hired her as my "fiancée" and felt completely normal when I entered my parents' house with her by my side.
Yet I had never brought a woman home before.
Wait, that wasn't entirely true. Abigail had of course been a guest at my parents'. But with her, it had felt rather artificial and forced. Like something I had to do and not something I wanted to do. With Isabella, it had been exactly the opposite: it had felt completely natural. Like something I wanted to do, even though it was actually something I had to do on my grandmother's orders.
In the end, it's the right person that makes the difference.
"What are you thinking about?" Don wanted to know.
"Oh... nothing." I couldn't think of a better excuse on the spot.
"So, about Isabella," Don replied dryly.
"NO!" My voice sounded vehement. Just because I could admit to myself how much I missed Isabella didn't mean I was ready to reveal myself to others.
Don glanced at me from the side. He had known me long enough to know that at this exact moment, it was better not to ask any further questions.
"What's the deal between you and Cameron anyway?" he changed the subject. "I've only known you two as enemies, and that's been forever. Did you fight in kindergarten? Or push each other off the changing table?"
Don once again managed to elicit a grin from me. "No, not quite." My thoughts wandered to the past. "Well, you couldn't know that, Don. After all, we only met in college, even if it feels like we've known each other forever."
"Me too," Don confirmed my perception.
"To me, you're much more my brother than Cameron." In the dark car, I gave Don a light nudge in the side.
"And you're the brother I never had," Don replied. "But what drove you so far apart from your biological brother? You two fight on all levels. Private, professional, with money, in sports."
"It all started in high school," I said thoughtfully. "Before that, we got along well. Cameron is a year older than me and used to help me a lot. But then..." I fell silent as the memory overtook me.
After a moment of silence, Don said, "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."
"In high school, I had a girlfriend named Maria. Daughter of Italian immigrants." My thoughts wandered to the past. "I was really in love for the first time, head over heels. Maria's parents were very strict. We weren't allowed to meet very often, and when we did, it was only under supervision. It was really exciting every time." I grinned at the memory.
"And what does that have to do with Cameron?" Don had been listening to me but was visibly at a loss as to how to make sense of the whole thing.
"One day I came home and... in my room, in my bed, I heard unmistakable sounds. Maria had snuck out of her parents' house to meet me. Cameron found out she was waiting for me and seduced her according to all the rules of the art. When I caught them in the act having sex, he winked at me and afterwards congratulated me on my good choice. She was really the best woman he'd ever had."
Don fell silent.
"I never saw Maria again," I said tonelessly.
"I never would have thought that of Cameron." Don was stunned.
"For everyone else since then, I was the one who stole Cameron's girlfriends... Abigail... and a few others before her. But I never felt like I had finally paid him back."
"Why? You stole way more women from him than he did from you." Don's objection was justified.
"They meant nothing to him..." I replied thoughtfully. "Maria meant the world to me. But all the women I stole from Cameron were just... episodes for him. He wasn't attached to them anyway. Abigail was an exception."