Romance: The Billionaire's Choice - Contemporary Romance (Romance, Contemporary Romance Book 1) (8 page)

“Well, I didn’t think that I would see you again anytime soon, Isabel. I am glad that I did though. You look absolutely gorgeous,” he said.

She blushed. “Thank you,” she replied. 

“I have never seen a dress like that before,” he said. “It’s truly breathtaking. You were the first woman that I noticed in the room.”

“You are too much,” she said. ‘But thanks.”

“I am being serious. That dress is fantastic. I can only assume that you designed it yourself,” he said.

“Indeed, I did,” she replied. “In fact, I even sewed it. Somewhat successfully.”

He smiled. “Is there anything that you can’t do?” he asked.

Isabel laughed. She smiled as she saw Cara approaching them. “This is the one who actually finished it for me,” she said. “I may know a thing or two about designing but Cara is truly the master of execution.”

Cara bowed and giggled. “What can I say? I am pretty amazing at it,” she said.

They laughed.

“Well, Mr. Jenaeu,” Cara said as she looked over at him. “It’s a pleasure to see my favorite media manager out on the town.”

He smiled. “Please, call me Marc,” he said. “It’s good to see you too. It’s been ages. Your friend here went on a couple of dates with me then fell off of the face of the earth. I didn’t expect to see either of you.”

Cara laughed. “She is a fickle one, isn’t see?” she asked. “But don’t blame her. I have had her tied up in the design studio. She only gets to leave once a month.”

“And that’s only if I am lucky,” Isabel added.

Marc laughed. “Well, I am definitely glad that you could make it out tonight,” he said. “This is actually a really great event. I normally hate having to go to these kinds of things but I’ve been having a really great time here. Even more so now, of course.”

Cara smiled. “Me too,” she said. “We have been having a great time.”

“What brings you two here anyway?” he asked. “I would avoid these things altogether if my work didn’t send me. They are always looking for good publicity.”

Cara and Isabel were silent for a moment.

“The host is an old friend of my family. He started doing charity work a while back so we decided to come out and support him,” Isabel said.

“Well, that is nice of you,” he said.

“It’s hardly a favor,” Isabel said. “We have been having a great time as well.”

“And now maybe you’ll be able to find a night where you can come out and spend some time with me again,” he said.

Isabel smiled and shrugged. “Well,” she began slowly. “I will definitely see what I can do. It has been really-”

“She will definitely make some time to see you,” Cara interrupted.

Isabel laughed and shook her head. “She is the boss of me, I suppose,” she said.

Cara’s face fell flat.

“I’m joking,” Isabel said.

Cara didn’t respond.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

She stared past Isabel in silence.

“Cara,” she repeated.

Cara looked over at Isabel suddenly as if she had just woken up from a dream. “Yeah, sorry, what?” she asked.

“What’s up?” Isabel asked.

Cara opened her mouth and was about to speak when Isabel felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Andrew,” Cara said softly as Isabel turned around.

Isabel’s heart skipped a beat the second that she laid eyes on him. Her head felt cloudy and she couldn’t focus on anything. She felt her champagne glass begin to slip. Her mind came back to the room for a moment. 
I don’t need a repeat of that morning at the cafe,
she thought. She looked down at her glass then gripped it tighter.

She heard Cara talking behind her but she couldn’t focus on anything that she was saying. She looked up at Andrew. He looked stunning. His strong jaw and chiseled cheekbones seemed to glow under the lights. He looked like he could have been a movie star or a president in his flawless black tuxedo. Isabel opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. She could feel herself getting weak in the knees as they stared into each other eyes.

Cara and Marc exchanged a puzzled glance with each other. She adjusted the hem of her dress awkwardly as she waited for someone to say something. Marc cleared his throat. Cara stared at the back of Isabel’s head in frustration as she waited for her to turn around or acknowledge that they were still there.

“So, Marc, this is our host,” Cara said as she looked over at Marc. “Have you met him before?”

“Ah, well, no,” Marc stuttered. “I guess I haven’t. Andrew, is it?”

Andrew didn’t acknowledge either of them. He continued staring forward at Isabel. Another moment passed as they all stood in silence.

“Yes,” Andrew finally said without taking his eyes off of Isabel. “My name is Andrew.”

“Right,” Marc said. “Well, hello, Andrew.”

Marc extended his arm to shake Andrew’s hand. Andrew finally broke his eye contact with Isabel.

“Hello, Marc,” Andrew said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thanks for coming out to the event. I really appreciate it. Are you enjoying yourself?

Cara laughed. It was as if a stript had just fallen in front of Andrew and he was reading from it.

“Yeah, I am. Thanks,” Marc said. “I have actually been having a great time. This is sincerely the best charity event that I have been to all year. You really outdid yourself.”

“Thank you. That really does mean a lot to me,” Andrew said. “I’m glad you are having a good time.”

Marc nodded. “And this is spectacular champagne,” he said as he raised his glass to take another sip.

“Well, there is more where that came from,” Andrew said.

Marc smiled.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” Andrew said as he turned back to Isabel.

Isabel smiled. He took ahold of her hand and looked into her eyes. He squeezed her hand tightly and began walking toward the dance floor. She followed behind him silently. She felt tingles flow down her entire body as he took ahold of her other hand and they began to dance. She looked up at him and opened her mouth. He took his finger and placed it over her lips.

“Shhh,” he murmured as he stared forward into her eyes. “Shhh.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. Their bodies moved effortlessly together. One song moved into the next as they danced together without a word.

Andrew smiled as he felt Isabel’s head resting on his shoulder. It seemed like they had been on the dance floor for hours. It was as if they were the only two people there. The rest of the room blurred around him. He could feel every inch of Isabel pressed up against him. He could smell her sweet, familiar perfume. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He slowly danced with her. It all felt like a dream. He kept his eyes closed to stay in the moment for as long as possible. He could feel her chest moving slowly closer and further from him as she took deep breaths beside him.

He inhaled again deeply and could smell her fruity shampoo. It was the exact same shampoo that she had been wearing since they were in high school. Every time he caught a whiff of the timeless aroma, it took him back 15 years. It took him back to a time when things were simple between him and Isabel.

Andrew closed his eyes and pushed his head closer to hers. He thought about all of the years that they had spent together. He thought back to the first time that he had seen her. He remembered the teacher in their class announcing that there was a new student who had just been transferred in. He remembered seeing her standing at the front of the room full of kids. It was the middle of the school year and there weren’t any other new students. She had blushed while she was standing there in front of the chalkboard with everyone’s eyes on her.

Even back then, when Andrew was only 15 years old, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. She was the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen. She’d had perfect peaches and cream skin. Her hair was long and strawberry blonde. Her eyes were as green as emeralds. The teacher said that her family had just moved from Arizona. He had never been to Arizona but he imagined that it was full of the world’s most beautiful girls.

He could tell right away that she wasn’t like the other girls at their school. She had seemed so fashionable and cultured. It was like she had been let in on a secret that most girls didn’t know until after they went off to university. Andrew had been so incredibly smitten. He used to think about her every single day after school. He could just sit at his homework desk and daydream for hours. He even went out to the mall once and spent an entire Saturday afternoon getting clothes that he thought might impress her.

Slowly but surely they had become friends. After a while, they were spending nearly every weekend together during their high school years. They told each other all of their secrets. They even had inside jokes. But Andrew could never get as close as he really wanted to be with her. She always had one crush after the next. He knew that she had just thought of him like a brother to her. Every Thursday night he would sit in bed and swear to himself that he would kiss her that weekend. He was always on the verge of telling her how he felt but it just never happened. The timing never quite seemed right. Every Sunday night, he would be kicking himself for not confessing his crush.

It was the same for years until they finally reached college. He had moved on to an ivy league school while she was at an art school in the city. He had still been in love with her but their worlds were just getting farther apart. She had always known him better than anyone else. She could make him laugh like no one else could. Despite his big secret, he had always felt incredibly close to her.

Andrew tried to date other women in college but they never really compared to Isabel. He had met a lot of funny, smart and interesting women in his 20s but none of them could even hold a candle to her. There was just a light inside of her that shone. If anyone were unique, it was here.

He had always been almost ready to tell Isabel how he felt. He was nearly certain that she was the right person for him. Even though they didn’t always connect on the shallower issues of day-to-day life, they had a deeper bond that was unbreakable.

He wanted to tell her that he was in love with her but was never quite ready no matter how many years passed. He was terrified at the idea of losing her. He knew that if she didn’t feel the same way about him, he might very lose her forever and that idea was just too much for him to bear.

He had been toying with the idea on and off for years. Then the 25 year anniversary of his parents’ death came and it look over his life. It hit him like a ton of bricks. It reminded him that he wasn’t a child anymore. His aunt had given up on all of her dreams to take care of him. He had inherited all of the money that he could have possibly needed for his lifetime but what did he have to show for it? He felt like a complete failure.

For months, Andrew fell into a deep depression that only seemed to get worse with time. He berated himself for being a spoiled little child who had never grown up. He felt like his life had amounted to nothing. He was living in a fog. He stopped leaving the house. He just sat on the couch in his old, worn our pajamas day after day. He was lost and had no idea what to do. Who had really been in such a situation before? Isabel was still his best friend but she couldn’t really relate to what he was going though.

Finally, it came to him. Andrew realized that he simply needed to grow up. He needed to become a man. He understood that while he had gotten older, he had never really matured. He wanted to be someone who his parents could have really been proud of. He knew that he needed to focus on reality. He needed to focus on his career. He needed to build a life that was worth something more.

Andrew was determined to shed all of his old habits. He needed to stop dating women who he would never get serious about. He needed to forget about his crush on Isabel. He needed to find a direction for his life. It all came together when he finally had a revelation.

He realized that he needed to help children that weren’t as fortunate as he had been. He had every connection and every cent that he could possibly need. It was hard to forgive himself for the countless opportunities that he had squandered but he decided that he needed to focus on the future. He couldn’t just live the rest of his life obsessing over the past and all of the things that could have been. He became painfully aware that he needed to always keep looking forward.

Everything came crashing down around him on the day that Isabel had finally kissed him. He had gone through such a struggle to get to where he was. He had spent so many hours and days and months and years obsessing over her. He couldn’t go back there. He had promised himself, and his parents, that he would focus on higher goals. As much as he loved her, he just wasn’t ready. He needed to process it all. After all that he had worked though to accept the fact that he would never be with Isabel, he just didn’t know what to do with himself when she finally kissed her.

He knew that it was a kneejerk reason to just run away from Isabel. He was angry with himself for not reacting better. The thought of hurting her feelings had been killing him but he hadn’t known what to do. At the time it was impossible to imagine him being his old self in love with Isabel while also pursuing his new goals. It was just too much for him to take in.

Andrew snapped back into the present. He opened his eyes and looked over down at Isabel. She still had her head on his chest. He took a deep breath and smiled. His life had never felt so perfect as it did at that moment.

He knew that he needed to make things work with Isabel. He realized that he had just been using his relationship with Katy as an escape from reality. He resolved to end things were her immediately and start getting serious about his future with Isabel.