almost collapsed with relief. “Oh thank goodness. I knew I raised a good Baptist girl.” She finally picked up her shoulders and straightened in her chair. “In fact, I’m sure it’s one of the qualities Randall likes about you. You’re so pure and innocent,” her mother prattled on. “A man knows the difference between a woman you play with and a woman you marry—especially a political man.”
Isabella went back to feeling like cattle. For the past week she’d tried to convince herself that Randall’s proposal was based on love or at least a serious case of like, but her mother dismissed those notions with the same ease in which she’d told her that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny weren’t real.
Pressing her lips together, Isabella tuned out her mom and went back to pushing her food around her plate. She lost her appetite over an hour ago. Not that her mother would notice.
“Isabella,” Katherine snapped.
“What? Huh?”
Her mother’s fork tumbled from her fingers. “You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said,” she accused.
Isabella started to deny the charge but then decided to come clean. “Sorry. I just...have a lot on my mind,” she offered with a smile. “You know: the wedding and all. What were you saying?”
Katherine still looked put out, but continued in a low voice. “I was talking to you about your honeymoon night.”
Isabella fought all that was holy not to groan and roll her eyes.
“When your father and I—”
“Mom,” Isabella cut her off. Despite being twenty-seven, and being the product of her parents’ coupling, Isabella didn’t want to imagine her parents ever having sex. “I know it’s important for you to have this conversation with me, but I really don’t think I can handle it.”
Katherine looked hurt.
“It’s just...awkward,” Isabella covered. “Maybe I should learn about it like everyone else—from my friends.”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “Please not from that Wakey girl.”
“Waqueisha.”
“Whatever. She’ll probably tell you to charge for it.”
“Mom.”
Katherine waved her hand in the air. “Fine. Talk to your friends. But take my advice: it’s best to lie still and recite the alphabet. It’ll be over before you reach Z.”
“Mother.”
“Alright, alright.” Her mother tossed her hands up in the air. “That’s all I have to say.”
Isabella sincerely hoped so.
“You never caught her name?” Charlie repeated.
“I know. I haven’t crashed and burned that badly since elementary school,” Derrick told his friend at the hotel’s bar while he tried to understand his disappointment every time he thought about the shy, skittish woman.
Charlie gave his buddy a good hearty pound on the back. “Well, don’t beat yourself up about it. We all have one off day every once in a while. Never happened to me, but I’ve heard stories.”
Derrick laughed. “Of course not.”
“Drinks are on me, old man,” Charlie chuckled. “It’s probably all downhill from here. From now on you’re going to have to start prowling for dates at the local bingo halls.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m just saying.”
Derrick let the fact that Charlie was the eldest of the two by ten days slide because today Derrick’s game was indeed off. He took another deep pull from his beer bottle and imagined for the umpteenth time what his little drowned rat would’ve looked like with dry hair and makeup. He hated he couldn’t see what dangerous curves lay beneath her bulky, black trench coat.
But then there was that moment in the cab when their eyes had met. He felt...something. It wasn’t sexual, though there was no question he had been attracted to her. It was...
“It’s not about who has the deepest curves or the thickest backside, but someone who, when you look into her eyes, her soul speaks to you down in here.”
Derrick gulped hard at the sound of Herman’s gravelly voice floating in his head. He looked at the three empty bottles lined on the bar and decided he’d had too much to drink.
“Oh, it’s just as well,” he mumbled. “The last thing I need to do is screw up another woman’s life.”
* * *
Nestled in bed, Isabella pored through her clinical sex books with a growing sense of disappointment. Where was the hot, spicy or even juicy stuff that was going to make her a star in the bedroom? All her life, she’d heard how sex was such a big deal; from the whisperings in high school bathrooms to hormone-charged sorority sisters to every cable show in America.
Sex was a big deal.
True, she wasn’t completely clueless. She knew the logistics, but not what unlocked passion. And passion was what she and Randall desperately needed.
Or at the very least a spark.
Derrick Knight’s dreamy hypnotic eyes blazed to the forefront of her mind and her body tingled in response. Handsome failed to describe a man like that and undoubtedly women were reduced to silly putty beneath his twinkling gaze. She would have been too if it hadn’t been for her complete mortification for toting sex how-to books around town.
The phone rang, snapping Isabella out of her make-believe conversation.
“Hello.”
“Mahogany is on HBO,” Rayne, another close sorority sister sing-songed over the line.
Isabella quickly searched among the books for the TV remote.
“You got it?” Rayne asked.
“Just a sec.” Isabella found the remote and quickly tuned in to the spot where “Do you know where you’re going to?” floated through the speakers.
“I love this movie,” Rayne sighed.
“Yeah. Me, too.” Isabella snuggled farther into the comforter and wished that she had a mug of hot chocolate.
“I heard you were engaged,” Rayne said. “Congratulations.”
Isabella winced. “I’m sorry. I meant to call everyone, but things are a little crazy around here.”
There was a long silence and then, “I’m a little confused,” her girlfriend said softly. “I thought things weren’t that serious between you two. Last I heard you were, uhm—”
“Going to break things off,” Isabella finished.
“Yeah.”
Isabella would have to prepare an answer to this question, something better than the truth.
“What do you mean you can learn to love him? This is the twenty-first century,” Rayne said once Isabella finished her story. “The only reason women should marry is for love.”
Isabella glanced at the TV screen just as Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams were embroiled in a heated argument. “Life isn’t like the movies.”
“Your family is pressuring you to do this, aren’t they?”
“No.”
Silence greeted the lie and Isabella had to backtrack a bit. “Not really.”
Rayne clucked her tongue.
The friends returned their attention to the movie. Out of