Tangled Destinies

Apparently the executives of the auto parts and transmission specialists corporation had been very picky, because ten girls had been turned down before they had approached her agency about the layout. Gaby had been picked immediately. This was the first of a series of commercials she was shooting for them, and it might involve some travel if the commercials caught on.

A thin, dark-looking man had been watching the photographer shoot the stills, and now he came closer. He had dark hair and eyes, and he looked oddly nervous. Gaby frowned, wiping her perspiration away with a towel as she relaxed away from the brilliant lamps she’d been bathed in for the session. He looked so familiar...hadn’t she seen him before?

“You’re Gaby,” the man said in a pleasant voice. His manner was hesitant, rather shy. She smiled because she liked that shyness. It was an unusual quality, making him seem very different from most of the men she’d known.

“Gaby Bennett,” she agreed pleasantly. “Excuse me, but do I know you?” she asked. “I’m sure that sounds like a line, but you look familiar somehow.”

“We’ve met, but it was a long time ago.” He looked at her hesitantly, as if not sure whether or not to go on. “I’m Joe Stephano,” he said, finally introducing himself. “I, uh, I’m the executive vice president of Motocraft, Inc.”

Gaby felt the blood draining from her face. No wonder he’d seemed familiar. She remembered him all too well, a shy, younger version of his big brother Marcus. Joe had always been nervous around her. They hadn’t seen too much of each other during that brief period of her life, but she remembered him. He brought back memories that were unbearable nine years later, memories of his brother.

She hadn’t connected Motocraft, Inc., with the Stephanos because the account had come through a Mr. Smith, an executive of the company. She hadn’t realized that Marc had achieved such fame and fortune. So he was Motocraft, Inc. Suddenly she realized why she’d been given the account. Was he trying to make amends? Well, it was years too late!

“It’s nice to see you again,” she said, forcing herself to keep smiling and extending her hand. After all, what had happened wasn’t Joe’s fault. “Do I thank your brother for this job?” she asked bluntly.

He flushed. His hand felt a little limp in hers, and he quickly removed it. “Uh, actually, you can thank me. Marc didn’t find out until it was too late. That is, he sort of wanted a blonde....”

“You don’t have to apologize, I’m just grateful for the work,” she said gently. So Marc hadn’t wanted her here. No doubt he wanted to forget her completely, since betraying her had gotten him so far in the world. Maybe his conscience still hurt him. She hoped it did.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled shyly. “I hope you won’t hold the past against me,” he began. “Marc and I never got along real well, even back then. I’m sorry things didn’t work out between you, but that was a long time ago.”

The memories engulfed her all at once, and despite her twenty-six years and all of her acquired sophistication, she went beet red.

Her gaze held his, cool, quiet, green glades of solitude. “How is your brother?” She didn’t want to ask, but she had to know.

He shrugged. “Marc’s okay, I guess,” he said, as if he disliked discussing his older brother. “The business is his life.”

She let her gaze drop to his collar, noticing a tiny spot on it, like ketchup, and she almost smiled. He was boyish, and she liked his apparent lack of sophistication. She glanced back up again, studying him. “Marc isn’t married?”

“They try,” Joe offered, “but he always escapes the noose. Slippery fish, my brother.” He cocked his head. “You married?”

“I can’t stand men,” she volunteered, and grinned.

He burst out laughing. “Hey, that’s good. I like that.” His warm, dark eyes slid over her slender, well-proportioned body. “You sure look good,” he blurted out, and quickly cleared his throat before she could speak. “Uh, you thirsty?” he asked after a moment’s hesitation.

She smiled. “I feel like I’ve been in the desert for a month! These lights are hot!”

“Would you... I could buy you a soda or a martini or something,” he volunteered.

“Sure,” she said easily. “Give me a minute to get dressed.”

He took a deep breath. “Okay!”

She laughed as she went to get her clothes back on. He was a nice boy, she thought. A brotherly type, if ever there was one. So she owed the account to him. That was surprising. But he’d always seemed attracted to her, even in the days when she was dating Marc. She’d liked him the first time she ever saw him, in the apartment he shared with his older brother. He was a nice, unassuming boy with a reserve that she’d taken for coldness until she saw the lack of confidence it camouflaged. Then she began to talk to him. Like most people, he responded to her smiling cheerfulness and opened up. He’d been a lot of fun. Apparently the shyness hadn’t abated in all those years, but she wondered if he was still the mischievous boy underneath. Or had a lifetime of living in Marc’s shadow left him without joy?

Marc. She closed her eyes as she donned a pair of white slacks and a multicolored silk blouse. She’d deliberately kept busy so that she wouldn’t have to think about him, to remember. And now Joe was here and bringing it all back. But despite her pain and the years of wounded pride, she couldn’t resist the hunger for bits of information about him. Was he well, how did he look, was he happy, was there a special woman...so many questions that she shouldn’t have wanted to ask. But her heart would feast on just such tidbits. And she was like a puppet on a string. She had to know. She had to hear that he was satisfied with what he had, that giving her up had been worth the profit it had gained him.

Joe took her to an elegant little restaurant less than a block away and persuaded her to have lunch as well as something to drink.

“You must be hungry,” he coaxed, smiling. “Come on, have a salad at least. That won’t put weight on you.”

“All right.” She gave in gracefully, smiling across the white linen tablecloth at him. “But if I gain one pound, my agent gets to park his car on your spine for an hour. Deal?”

He laughed, then folded his arms on the table and shook his head. “You’re a funny lady. I remembered your sense of humor best of all. You used to make me feel really comfortable.” He looked down at his hands, slender and tanned, sensitive hands. “I don’t mix with people very well.”

“Most of us don’t, if you want the truth,” she confided. “We learn to bluff. Put on a big smile and leap in with both feet. By the time people realize you’re not a live-wire personality, you’re talking to them and you forget how shy you are.”

“Come on,” he chided. “You’re not shy.”

“I certainly am!” she replied. She tucked a long strand of shimmering auburn hair behind one dainty ear. “I’ve been shy all my life. But I learned to act like an extrovert. Now everyone thinks I am one.”

“Yeah, well that doesn’t work for me,” he said. He studied her face. “Are you always as happy as you look in those product ads you do?”

She looked down at the silverware, touching her knife gently with a long, red-polished fingernail. “Is anybody happy all the time? I have my problems and I get lonely. But I suppose I’ve learned to like my own company. At least, I’ve had to until this past year. My mother died of a heart attack, and I’ve moved back in with my father, to keep him company.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I guess it’s hard to lose a mother.”

She sighed. “Yes, I suppose it was. We never got along very well, but I cared about her. So did my father. God bless him, he went crazy when she died. Just went all to pieces. She was the guiding force, you see. Mother made the rules and he followed them. This is the first time in his life that he’s had the freedom to do what he likes, and now he doesn’t quite know what to do with it,” she said, smiling tolerantly. “He’s a character, my dad. A dreamer. If he hadn’t inherited money, and had Mother show him how to make more, I suppose he’d been running an antique store and giving away his profits.”

“Do you look like him?”

“Not really. I have his awful auburn hair and green eyes,” she admitted. “But I have my mother’s facial features.” She studied him. “You look a lot like...like your brother.”

“Yeah, most of the men in the Stephano family kind of look alike. Why, we have an uncle who looks like he could be Marc’s and my father.”

“Uncle Michael,” she said suddenly, remembering Marc’s deep, gravelly voice telling her about his uncle, a slightly shady character if she remembered correctly.

“That’s right. Hey, girl, you’ve got a good memory.”

“Too good, sometimes,” she said with a wistful look in her eyes.

He started to speak, but the waiter came, and they paused to order. He took out a cigarette and glanced at her.

“It’s okay,” she said, “I’m used to people who smoke.”

“I’m not quite as bad as Marc,” he said, laughing. “He smokes like a furnace these days.”

“Has he changed a lot?” she asked, and her eyes were wide and softer than she realized.

He leaned back in his chair and studied her carefully. “Oh, he’s changed, all right. So much that I finally had to move out on my own. Well, not quite. I don’t like my own company that much, I have a roommate. Nice guy. He sells real estate.”

“Have you been out on your own long?”

“Three years,” he confessed. “Marc lives in an apartment on the East Side, overlooking the river. He’s got a great view. Mine’s a little closer in, and it faces another building. Not much to look at unless you look up, but it’s a place to sleep.”

“I guess Marc travels a lot,” she persisted.

“Not too much.”