Stand-In Bride
Stand-In Bride
Barbara Boswell
They called him America's most eligible bachelor, but high-powered executive Michael Fortune didn't want a wife. So he offered his faithful secretary, Julia Chandler, a surprising proposition: become his pretend bride–for a price.Then the world would think he was married, and he could get back to business. Michael never questioned why unassuming Julia agreed to his outlandish charade. Or what would happen once their convenient engagement became a passion-filled affair…producing an unexpected heir to the Fortune dynasty.
Kate Fortune’s Journal Entry
My faithful friend Sterling has informed me that someone is secretly buying up large blocks of shares of Fortune stock. It seems as if the stage is being set for a hostile takeover. I’m desperately afraid that we’re going to lose everything!
But at least we’ll always be a family, money or not. My only wish is that each of my children and grandchildren finds love and happiness. Something my grandson Michael has finally discovered. He’d always been mistrustful of women and love. I left him the ruby ring my dearly departed husband, Ben, gave to me as a symbol of true love. And now he’s given the heirloom to his new fiancée. I couldn’t be more pleased.
Though I worry about the hastiness of this engagement. I do hope he knows what he’s doing….
A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR
Dear Reader,
I found the FORTUNE’S CHILDREN series intriguing because it contained many elements that interest me. I love stories about families whose members are quite different from each other, who may or may not like and trust each other all the time but will rally together when threatened by outsiders.
A series with several generations and different branches of the family interacting with each other makes for an even more interesting read. I was happy to be given the opportunity to write such a story. There are lots of books about parent/child and sister/brother relationships, but in the FORTUNE’S CHILDREN series there are also aunts and uncles and cousins. Writing about those relationships added an extra dimension for me because I’ve seldom written about an entire extended family. It was territory I enjoyed exploring!
This series has the feel of a soap opera, with the many characters and situations interconnecting with each other. This was great fun for me, as I am an avid “soap” fan. I started watching the lineup of fifteen-minute shows with my grandmother way back when, and have been hooked ever since. I love the concept of continuing characters, with different ones taking turns on the “front burner” while the others make appearances or are referred to. I also enjoyed fitting Michael and Julia, my characters in Stand-in Bride, into the ongoing story while creating a specific one just for them.
I hope you will enjoy reading the FORTUNE’S CHILDREN series as much as I enjoyed my participation in it.
Stand-in Bride
Barbara Boswell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
BARBARA BOSWELL
loves writing about families. “I guess family has been a big influence on my writing,” she says. “I particularly enjoy writing about how my characters’ family relationships affect them.”
When Barbara isn’t writing and reading, she’s spending time with her own family—her husband, three daughters and three cats, whom she concedes are the true bosses of their home! She has lived in Europe, but now makes her home in Pennsylvania. She collects miniatures and holiday ornaments, tries to avoid exercise and has somehow found the time to write over 20 category romances.
Meet the Fortunes—three generations of a family with a legacy of wealth, influence and power. As they unite to face an unknown enemy, shocking family secrets are revealed…and passionate new romances are ignited.
MICHAEL FORTUNE: The Fortune Company executive doesn’t want to settle down, but he needs help warding off his female admirers. So he proposes a no-strings-attached engagement to his faithful assistant….
JULIA CHANDLER: She can’t believe it when her boss asks her to be his pretend fiancée! But what starts as a charade produces an unexpected Fortune heir….
MONICA MALONE: The glamorous movie star has ties to the Fortune clan that go way back. She’s a woman scorned who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
KATE FORTUNE: She has to find out who is out to sabotage her company…and destroy her family.
RACHEL “ROCKY” FORTUNE: Identical twin to beautiful Allie, Rocky is a tomboy whose adventurous spirit and inheritance from her grandmother will lead her to the wilderness of Wyoming….
LIZ JONES— CELEBRITY GOSSIP
Michael Fortune, named one of the “Ten Most Eligible Bachelors in the U.S.A.” by Fame magazine, is engaged!
But I have my doubts about this pair. Who is Julia Chandler, anyway? She’s not from any well-known society family that I ever heard of. She’s just a plain-Jane mousy assistant who’s probably a gold digger. But what I can’t figure out is how she hoodwinked the savvy Michael Fortune.
My good friend Faith Carlisle from Channel 3 News interviewed the hastily engaged couple and told me that Michael was quite protective of his soon-to-be bride. She also claimed there was a strong attraction between the two.
But is this really a love match? Perhaps the conniving secretary is pregnant from an illicit after-hours encounter and is blackmailing him? Again, how could a woman like that ever hook the biggest catch in the U.S.?
My prediction: this marriage won’t last long—if it ever really takes place.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
One
It wasn’t unusual for Kristina Fortune to make an impromptu visit to her half brother Michael’s office, and Julia Chandler, Michael’s executive assistant, greeted her with a warm smile. Julia occupied the smaller office adjoining Michael’s luxurious corner suite.
“Julia, look at this!” Kristina stopped directly in front of Julia’s desk and dropped a copy of Fame onto her desktop.
Julia glanced at the magazine cover. Bold block letters promised IN THIS ISSUE: THE TOP TEN MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELORS IN THE U.S.A.
“This is an advance copy. The issues don’t officially hit the stands until tomorrow. Turn to page 15, Julia,” Kristina ordered with an eager glee that immediately put Julia on guard. Kristina, a rising star in the advertising department, sometimes displayed enthusiasm for concepts and notions that caused headaches here in the product-development department.
“The predictable choices, I see,” Julia remarked as she scanned the top-ten list, which began on page 15. She was somewhat relieved; predictability seldom caused departmental headaches. The bachelors included a former president’s son, a millionaire talk-show host, a billionaire music-business mogul, a recently divorced United States senator, an actor who last year had been dubbed “the sexiest man alive” by the same magazine, a bestselling writer of legal thrillers, a superstar basketball player and…
“Michael Fortune!” Julia read number eight’s name aloud and gasped.
“After the magazine hits the stands tomorrow, women all over the country will be lusting after my big brother. Mike will be a genuine sex object!” Kristina was exultant.
Julia felt an ominous stirring within her that kept growing stronger. She’d worked for Michael Fortune, the vice president of the Fortune Corporation’s product-development department for fourteen months, plenty of time to know that he would absolutely hate his new status. It was the Fortune family business that was the abiding focus of Michael’s life, not popularity with the opposite sex—though he was certainly sought after by women here in Minneapolis. After this magazine article hit the stands, Julia guessed he would be the object of a nationwide romantic pursuit.
“What do you think Mike will think of this?” Kristina asked, grinning.
Julia decided it would be prudent to keep her true opinion to herself. Who knew what part, if any, Kristina had played in this surefire fiasco? When it came to dealing with the Fortunes, Julia was always cautious. “This list isn’t going to, um, thrill him,” she hedged. To put it mildly! “I think he would’ve preferred to be named one of the top-ten most effective businessmen in the U.S.A.,” she added carefully.
“Business! Business! That’s all that Mike seems to care about!” Kristina suddenly grew agitated and began to stalk from Julia’s desk to the windowless wall and then back again.
Another pacer, just like her brother Michael, Julia noted. All the Fortunes she’d met possessed a boundless, vital energy that seemed to require constant motion. She guessed their family get-togethers must be exhausting—all that high-spirited verve and drive and strong will emanating from each and every member of the clan. To a quiet, retiring person such as herself even imagining the scene was daunting.
“Mike is like Corporate RoboMan or something!” Kristina ranted. “He’s a workaholic, he has no feelings, he has no life! I swear, if you opened up his head, you’d find microchips. Nothing touches him, nobody can reach him.”
She turned and pinned Julia with a laser stare. “Can you remember the last time you saw him react with even a shred of genuine human emotion?”
“Well, there was the time Anne Campell in the research lab brought her twins to Take-your-daughter-to-work Day and the kids decided to conduct their very own experiment with the latest test samples.” The memory still made Julia chuckle, though she’d been careful to suppress her amusement after Michael had made it clear that he failed to see the humor in the situation. “Too bad their addition to the face powder turned skin a creepy, corpselike blue. Michael was livid about it. Doesn’t that qualify as genuine human emotion?”
“But that’s related to business so it doesn’t count.” Kristina dismissed the incident and turned her attention back to the magazine. “This is a good picture of Mike, isn’t it, Julia? Even though he is my brother, I have to admit he looks really, really hot!”
Julia studied the picture of Michael in the magazine. It was a candid shot of him in well-worn blue jeans and a white cotton polo shirt bearing the Fortune company logo. The photo showed a compellingly virile man, whose muscular body would catch the eye of any female with a pulse. The strong features of his face—the well-defined jaw and square chin, the sharp blade of a nose and deep-set blue eyes arched by startlingly black brows, the hard sensual shape of his mouth—guaranteed him a second glance from any appreciative male-watchers.
And even reluctant ones. Julia was aware of her boss’s masculine good looks, though she had never—nor would she ever!—let him know that she considered him an attractive man.
She well remembered her first meeting with Michael Fortune, on the day he’d hired her fourteen months ago after a brief interview. The sight of him had had a physical effect on her that she’d found unsettling. For the first several weeks of her employment, his presence had sent a rush of adrenaline surging through her. Her heart would race and her skin would feel flushed. She was acutely aware of his every gesture, his every move.
Fortunately, she had been successful in hiding her renegade responses from Michael and everyone else in the company. Friends she’d made on the job told her all about his previous assistants, who had fallen hopelessly in love with Michael Fortune and ended up either quitting or getting fired because they were unable to cope with his personal disinterest and his exacting professional demands.
Julia had no intention of joining that hapless number. She’d read countless articles on the futility of office romances and wasn’t about to risk her job by indulging in a silly and hopeless infatuation with her boss.
Gradually, as the weeks wore on, her heart had stopped pounding when she saw Michael. In time, her body temperature was affected by the thermal conditions of the office rather than his presence.
She’d decided she was safely immune from his appeal. She was too sensible, too practical for such schoolgirl nonsense as having a crush on her boss, Julia assured herself.
An infatuation with Michael would’ve been as stupid as it was futile, for she knew he viewed her as something akin to office equipment. She was useful and efficient, like a fax machine, and more reliable than their copier, which was forever breaking down. His attitude toward her hardly fueled romantic fantasies, and Julia gratefully pronounced herself free of any.
“So how does it feel, working for one of the most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A., Julia?” Kristina demanded playfully. “You’re single, and working with him day in and day out puts you on the inside track. Ever think of going after him?”
Julia laughed at that preposterous notion. She was under no illusions as to her status. Though the Julia Chandlers and the Michael Fortunes of the world might occupy the same space for a certain number of hours each day, they basically existed in parallel universes, never to converge outside the office. Julia was wise enough to accept that.
“Don’t worry. Michael is safe from any advances from me.”
“I wasn’t worried, I—” Kristina began, but she was interrupted by the appearance of Michael Fortune himself.
He’d opened the connecting door between his office and Julia’s and paused on the threshold. His blue eyes, alert and piercing, skimmed past Julia and fastened on his younger sister.
“Kristina, I thought I heard you raising your usual ruckus out here.” He arched his dark brows, his voice a laconic drawl. “Let me guess—you’re here to line up allies for another one of your outrageous ad campaigns? Scouting our advertising executives who, even as we speak, are reaching for their bottles of antacid, anticipating the upcoming battle?”
Kristina grinned. “I do have a fairly wild idea germinating, but I’m still working out the details. When I’m ready to present it, you’ll be one of the first to know, because you agree with me that our ad execs are—”
“You were about to say cautious and conservative?” Michael interrupted.
“I was about to say retro and stodgy,” Kristina countered. “How could they be anything else? They’ve been around since the Nixon administration. Their idea of something innovative is disco bingo.”
“Spoken in the hyperbolic, back-stabbing style of a true ad executive. You fit right in that shark pool, Kristina. And I mean that in the most complimentary way.” Michael’s lips twitched. For him that passed as a smile.
Julia watched the byplay between the two, struck as always by the differences between the siblings, something that went far beyond the six-year gap in their ages and their respective sexes.
Kristina was as open and outspoken as Michael was cool, closed and controlled. Though his family found him remote and enigmatic, over the past year Julia had come to regard him as an intensely private person, someone who did not feel the need to express his every thought or share his innermost feelings with one and all. An introvert herself, she thought she recognized some of the same qualities in Michael.
Not that he was quiet and shy, like she was. The notion of a shy, hesitant Michael Fortune was unfathomable. He exuded a confidence and sure sense of conviction that often bordered on arrogance.
He could be incredibly stubborn, too. Julia had seen him refuse to yield on an issue or stand, no matter how great the pressure—or who applied it. And though his gregarious family complained that he was aloof to the point of being a recluse, they’d never succeeded in converting him to their own exuberant brand of sociability.
“Actually, Julia and I were drooling over the hunks in this magazine.” Laughing, Kristina grabbed the copy of Fame and thrust it into Michael’s hands.
Before looking at the issue, Michael glanced quizzically at Julia. Color suffused her cheeks, and she quickly looked away when his eyes met hers.
Michael felt a stirring of sympathy for her. Clearly, Kristina was joking around and had incorporated poor Julia into the silliness, mortifying her.
He instantly exonerated his assistant, because he simply couldn’t imagine Julia Chandler drooling over pictures of the pretty boys that Kristina would consider hunks.
Julia was always proper, circumspect and competent, qualities he especially valued because they’d been sorely lacking in the parade of assistants who had preceded her. He still held grim memories of the time before Julia had come to work for him.
He’d had to endure all those snide remarks and jokes about the “revolving door” on his assistant’s office. There was gossip that he was impossible to work for and would never be able to keep an assistant longer than a few months. The people in the human-resources department were forever whining that his policy of changing personnel, which sometimes seemed to happen from week to week, made their record-keeping impossibly difficult.
His uncle Jake, the corporation’s CEO, had actually suggested that Michael take a sensitivity-training workshop to put him in touch with the tender feelings of those hapless employees who couldn’t live up to his workaholic standards.
Michael had been outraged. He didn’t want an assistant who couldn’t meet his demands, and he certainly didn’t want to be in touch with their feelings! “I’ll sign up for that workshop when you do, Jake,” he’d said to his uncle, whom he knew did a wicked parody of a sensitivity-training-session leader.
It had been a considerable relief when Julia Chandler—reliable, bright and efficient—arrived and put an end to the parade. That they worked so well together was still something of a wonder to him, when he paused to consider it.
Julia was quiet and unassuming, not the flashy type who sought male attention, and for that, Michael was profoundly grateful. Too many of his past assistants had imagined themselves in love with him and had dressed and acted provocatively to catch his attention, their minds focused on landing the boss instead of on their work. They’d never lasted more than a few weeks. A frazzled Michael, unable to get any productive work from them, had inevitably sent them on their way.
His eyes narrowed as he continued his thoughtful perusal of Julia Chandler. Her simple gray suit and her hairstyle were modest and professional. She had a smooth, ivory complexion that contrasted nicely with the darker color of her nut brown hair. And though Julia wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense, her high cheekbones, firm little chin and large, intelligent gray eyes held an appeal all their own.
Not for him, of course, Michael was quick to assure himself. He was not interested in pursuing a relationship with the best and longest-lasting assistant he’d ever had. He wasn’t interested in pursuing a relationship with any woman that extended beyond short-term safe sex with absolutely no strings attached. His work was the primary driving force in his life and he couldn’t imagine anyone taking precedence over it.
“Go on, look at the magazine, Mike,” Kristina ordered, jarring him from his reverie.
Michael frowned. “Why would I have any interest in looking at the well-oiled Neanderthals you’ve been drooling over?”
“Well-oiled Neanderthals, huh?” Kristina snickered. “Oh, I think you’ll be very interested in seeing these guys, Mike. One in particular.”
Julia tensed. It was like watching someone about to step in front of a speeding bus. She wanted to call out a warning, but her voice seemed to be frozen in her throat. She stood stock-still, watching as Michael cast a disdainful glance at the article.
She saw him gape in disbelief as he read the list of top-ten most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A., one of whom was him!
The magazine slipped from his fingers, and Julia knew it was a sign of how upset Michael really was. She’d never seen him drop so much as a pencil before. But the magazine hit the floor, its pages fluttering like the wings of a frantic bird.
“Who is responsible for this?”
Michael’s voice was low, every syllable precise, his blue eyes like twin chips of ice. Though his expression remained impassive, Julia instantly recognized the signs of his fury. Her boss was the most controlled person she had ever met, never given to dramatic displays of temper, but she knew he was quite capable of rage.
She’d witnessed his wrath when something went awry within the Fortune Corporation, had seen his dark blue eyes turn cold with anger and had heard his sharp tone of voice, as unnerving as any blustery barrage.
Kristina, however, either didn’t recognize or else chose to ignore his symptoms of anger. “It’s so cool, isn’t it, Mike? You’ll be a household name along with—”
“I am insulted and infuriated at this atrocious invasion of privacy!” Michael’s voice was low and deep. “Did you do it, Kristina? Is this another inappropriate idea of yours, one confusing advertising with publicity? Did you contact this magazine and—”
“I did not!” Kristina was offended.
“Then how did they get my name? And my picture?” demanded Michael. “Why would they put me on this stupid list unless somebody—you—engineered it?”
“The magazine editors picked you. I had nothing to do with it,” Kristina exclaimed defensively. “It’s your own fault you’re one of the chosen, brother.”
“I know that it’s fashionable to blame the victim these days, but do you mind explaining why I am responsible for this—this…” Words failed him.
Julia was worried. She had never seen Michael driven to speechlessness in the entire time she’d known him.
“Just consider the facts, Mike,” Kristina retorted, undaunted by her brother’s fury. “You’re twenty-nine years old and you’re single, good-looking and rich. You’re a member of a prominent family and you already hold an important position in the company. Plus, you’re actually good at what you do, so you’re probably going to succeed Uncle Jake as CEO sometime in the future. That makes you supereligible, and that’s how you made the list.”
Michael wasn’t buying it. “What about that picture of me?” he demanded coldly. “Next you’ll accuse me of sending it in myself.”
“I don’t know how they got your picture,” Kristina said with a huff. “Maybe your mother sent it in, hoping that some heiress would hop a plane to Minneapolis and marry you, giving Mommie Dearest yet another crack at even more wealth. I certainly wouldn’t put it past her. Your mother would do anything for money!”
Michael seemed to turn to stone, every muscle in his body tight, his eyes burning with dark fire. At six foot one, he towered over both women, and Julia shrank back, feeling suddenly, inordinately intimidated by his size and presence. Kristina, who was glowering at her brother, clearly did not.
When Michael spoke, his voice was eerily calm, his face a composed, expressionless mask. “I can’t waste any more time on this nonsense—I have work to do. Julia, will you please escort my sister out of here?”
He turned and went inside his own office, closing the door behind him with careful, quiet finality.
Silence descended like a shroud for a few long moments. Finally, Kristina heaved an exasperated sigh. “Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have accused his mother. But to be perfectly honest, his mother is a greedy, vindictive witch! You’ve met Sheila, haven’t you, Julia?”
Julia nodded reluctantly. Oh yes, she’d met Sheila, Nate Fortune’s scheming, narcissistic first wife, the mother of Michael and his brother Kyle and sister Jane.
Nate, the younger brother of CEO Jake, was the lawyer in charge of contracts, patents, suits and other legal matters for the Fortune Corporation. Kristina was the product of Nate’s second marriage to warm, down-to-earth Barbara, the polar opposite of Sheila.
Julia didn’t care for Sheila Fortune, who had been sharp and condescending whenever she swept into the office. But being Michael’s employee, Julia certainly wasn’t about to join in trashing his mother.
Kristina didn’t expect her to. She was perfectly content to trash her father’s first wife on her own. “Truly, I don’t know how my sister and brothers stood living with Sheila when they were growing up, even part of the time. My dad said Sheila deliberately got pregnant with Mike and Kyle and Jane to insure herself eternal child support, not to mention a cushy lifetime of alimony that—”
To Julia’s immense relief, the telephone rang, cutting Kristina off in midtirade. While Julia answered the call, Kristina grabbed the magazine and left the office with a quick wave.
The rest of the morning was exceptionally busy, and Julia was in the midst of compiling copies of several targeted marketing surveys conducted by the company when Lynn, Margaret and Diana, assistants to other Fortune executives, arrived in her office.
“Time for lunch,” Lynn announced. “We’re debating between the Loon Café, where we can watch the yuppies eat while they talk on their cellular phones, or the mall. What’s your pleasure?”
Julia visibly started. “I had no idea it was this late!”
“No wonder. You’re buried under a ton of paperwork,” Diana observed. “But even slaves have to eat, so climb out from under it and come with us.”
The women made a point of lunching together at least once or twice a week, and Julia was always included. She hated to forgo their lunch date today, but these surveys were so time-consuming….
Michael chose that moment to enter her office. His expression could be interpreted as either questioning or accusing.
Julia chose to interpret it as questioning. “I was just thinking about going to lunch,” she explained.
“Lunch?” Michael echoed, as if the concept were unfamiliar to him.
Julia saw her friends exchange glances. “I’ll finish these surveys when I get back,” she said, her decision made. She was not a slave and intended to prove it.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to wait until after you get back to ask you to download these files.” Michael placed a stack of diskettes on her desk. Without another word, he turned and went back into his office.
“Brr! The temperature always drops at least twenty-five degrees when he’s in a room.” Margaret pretended to shiver. “The man is an emotional refrigerator.”
“Think of the career he could have in the frozen-food industry!” Diana said with a chuckle.
“He’s sort of in a bad mood today.” Julia came to Michael’s defense. Having seen that eligible-bachelor list and guessing the uproar it was going to generate, she figured he was entitled to one. “He has a lot on his mind.”
The four women left the office and started down the corridor toward the elevators.
“How do you tell his bad moods from his good ones?” Lynn queried. “Have you ever actually seen the man smile?”
“He is very reserved,” Julia explained. “But when you get to know him well, he is really a nice guy.” She was certain that was true, though she had yet to get to know him well.
“If you say so,” Margaret said doubtfully. “Hey, I’m casting my vote for the mall. There’s a fifty-percent-off sale at Lindstroms’ starting today….”
It wasn’t until later, when Julia was on her way home at the end of the day, that she had time to think about Kristina’s uncensored comments on Sheila Fortune, the woman who’d married and bitterly divorced Michael’s father.
Julia rode the bus to and from work because her job status did not include a parking place in the Fortune Building and the cost of all-day parking in town was prohibitive. But she didn’t mind the bus rides. If she didn’t have a book to read, she sat and gazed out the window, absorbed in thought. Today she did have a book—a thriller about a crime-solving coroner—but she laid it on her lap and let her mind drift to Michael Fortune.
Hearing those few basic facts about Sheila and Nate Fortune’s rancorous marriage and divorce did explain Michael’s uncompromising view of marriage, Julia mused.
He was adamantly against it. Julia had never heard anybody express such strong antimarriage views. And he certainly hadn’t altered his perspective this past year, during which three members of his family had decided to marry.
He had distanced himself as much as possible from the events. Each time—when his cousin Caroline married Nick Valkov, when his brother Kyle married Samantha Rawlings and when Caroline’s sister Allison married Rafe Stone—Michael had sent Julia to select a wedding gift.
“Buy whatever you think is appropriate. I certainly have no ideas and no interest in anything pertaining to marriage,” he’d said, giving her carte blanche with his credit cards. He did not want to see or hear about what she’d bought for the happy couples.
Julia had hoped her selections were acceptable. The nice thank-you notes written to Michael by the brides had given her a warm glow. She sincerely hoped that all three couples would live the proverbial “happily ever after.”
Michael did not share her optimism. Each time, before signing his name to the wedding cards she’d purchased with the gifts, he’d made a sound that was something between a sarcastic laugh and a growl.
“I guess if this is what they really want to do…” he’d said all three times, his tone disapproving. Julia had once heard someone make a similar statement in a similar tone when commenting on a family of acrobats who insisted on working without a safety net.
“Personally, I’d rather be dead than married,” Michael had added all three times, while handing the cards back to her.
“Do you really believe it’s better to be dead than wed?” Julia had paraphrased wryly the third time he’d expressed the sentiment.
“Better dead than wed,” Michael repeated glibly. “Hmm, not bad. I think it has potential as a slogan. Maybe I’ll run it by my cousin Caroline in marketing.”
“Caroline would rather be wed,” Julia murmured. “You bought her a pair of lovely, antique silver candlesticks and signed a wedding card for her a few months ago, remember?”
“I remember signing the card. I have no knowledge of the candlesticks, nor do I care to.”
“Well, Caroline said that she loves them.”
“Good. Since you’re in sync with her tastes, I’ll put you in charge of buying Baby Valkov its welcome-to-the-world gift when the time comes.”
“I’d heard that Caroline was expecting a baby,” Julia murmured.
Everyone in the company knew, because Caroline Fortune Valkov was visibly pregnant. From what Julia heard through the company grapevine, Fortune’s vice president of marketing and her research-chemist husband were as blissfully happy as the card Michael had signed wished them to be.
“That seems to be the way it goes.” Michael looked grim. “Get married and then have a kid, for all the wrong reasons. Of course, some people do it backward—get pregnant and then get married—but the part about the kid being conceived for all the wrong reasons still applies. Doubly so in the shotgun-wedding cases.”
Julia was nonplussed. They’d never had a discussion like this one. And while she had been uncomfortable discussing his family members, she was even more unsettled by his starkly pessimistic views regarding their future. “You don’t believe your cousin and her husband are having a child because they love each other and want to create a family together?”
He’d given her an almost pitying glance, as if she’d just confessed that, as a twenty-six-year-old, she still firmly believed in the existence of Santa Claus.
“Love has nothing to do with it, Julia. The kid could be an accident, the result of a night of too much wine and an overload of hormones. Or if the pregnancy was actually planned, maybe Caroline believes a child will give Nick more incentive to stay with her—and the Fortune Corporation, of course. He is a valuable asset to the company, and Caroline is too good a businesswoman not to realize it. As for Nick, perhaps he sees a child as a way for him to stake a permanent claim on the Fortune money.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Julia said rather boldly. She’d seen the couple together, and their love for each other was obvious, even to an outsider like herself.
Michael shrugged. “Couples have been using children to serve their own agendas from time immemorial, Julia.”
“It’s not always that way. Don’t you think anybody has a baby for the right reasons?” Julia had been unable to keep herself from asking.
Michael had given that cynical laugh-growl and turned his attention back to the papers on his desk, not bothering to dignify such a naive question with an answer.
Having heard about Sheila Fortune, who according to Kristina had produced three children for monetary gain, Julia better understood Michael’s scornful pessimism.
Understood, but did not accept. Julia believed in love and marriage and the children who resulted from such a union. She’d been one herself, and she intended someday to have a loving union like the one her parents had shared. To have children who were loved and wanted by two parents who cherished each other.
She thought back to those wonderful days when her family had been together—Mom and Dad, she and her younger sister, Joanna. A lump lodged in Julia’s throat, and she blinked away the tears that suddenly filled her eyes.
The Chandler family’s time together had been brief, making the happy memories particularly poignant and bittersweet. Her father’s unexpected death from the complications of appendicitis had occurred when she was seventeen. Tragedy had struck again three years ago when a car accident claimed her mother’s life and grievously injured poor Joanna.
Thinking of her younger sister rallied Julia, and she forcefully shook off the aura of gloom threatening to envelop her. Joanna was twenty years old now and in a superior rehabilitation center, working hard to overcome the effects of her devastating injuries from the crash.
Julia was filled with a quiet pride as she visualized her little sister fighting to overcome the odds stacked against her. With the help of a program tailored specifically for her recovery, consisting of grueling regimes of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, music therapy and recreational therapy, Joanna never wasted time feeling sorry for herself.
And until Joanna was well again and able to live an independent life, Julia had put her own hopes and dreams on hold. Her job at the Fortune Corporation was all-important because her generous salary enabled her to pay Joanna’s considerable expenses at the rehab center. Julia didn’t protest about the long hours that workaholic Michael Fortune demanded because there was nothing and no one in her life as important as Joanna and their daily phone calls and weekend visits.
A happy marriage to a man who loved her as much as she loved him, and their much-wanted, much-loved children, had to wait. But when the time was finally right, Julia was certain she would find him. Or maybe he would find her.
Two
“Another bag of mail for the eligible bachelor!” Denny, the clerk from the mail room, sang out, heaving an industrial-size plastic sack into Julia’s office. Three other sacks just like it took up most of the floor space. “There’s more coming in. We had to clear this out to make room.”
“Mr. Fortune will be thrilled to hear it,” Julia murmured wryly.
“Not!” Denny chuckled, pleased with his own joke. “We heard he’s furious about all this. But me and my buddies sure don’t know why. If I had hundreds and hundreds of letters from hot babes craving my bod, you can believe I’d be in paradise!”
Julia glanced at the short, perspiring overweight young man, who was somewhere in his twenties and looked ten years older. There would never be hundreds of letters from hot babes craving his body. Maybe not even one.
“Mr. Fortune doesn’t like the attention the magazine article has brought him,” Julia explained tactfully.
For the past five days, ever since the magazine had hit the stands listing Michael Fortune as one of the top-ten most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A., she’d had versions of this same conversation with Denny whenever he arrived with another sack of mail.
Usually the mail clerk shuffled out immediately afterward, but this morning he seemed to be in a chatty mood. He lingered by her desk.
“We had to bring two more people into the mail room to handle all this extra stuff.” Denny stared at the bulging sacks with a proprietary air. “I was put in charge of them, since I’ve been in the department for five years. We call ourselves the ‘Fortune bachelor team.’”
“Ah,” said Julia. Were congratulations in order? She wasn’t quite sure.
“Yep, we open every letter addressed to Mr. Fortune that don’t have the special company code on it.”
She nodded. To distinguish Michael’s usual business correspondence from the mountain of letters inspired by the eligible-bachelor list, Julia had notified all his colleagues and associates nationally and worldwide to use a special code.
“We even open the letters marked Personal. Mr. Fortune said to especially open those ones.” Denny leaned forward and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Those are usually the ones with the really good stuff in ’em.”
Julia winced.
“You wouldn’t believe what we’ve been finding, Miss Chandler!” Denny exclaimed exuberantly. “Women send Mr. Fortune panties with their phone numbers written on them! And we’re not talking plain old underpants, either. These panties—”
“I hope you’re donating any suitable items of clothing to charity,” Julia interjected, before he could go into detail.
“Miss Chandler, no respectable charity would want them panties, I can tell you that,” Denny said with alacrity. “And then there’s the pictures being sent in! Wow!” His face reddened and he began to breathe heavily. “Mr. Fortune said we could have whatever is in the envelopes, so we divide up the pictures. Sometimes we trade ’em. Chuck actually bought one off of Jonesy for ten bucks! He offered me twenty for a really great one I got, but no way I’m selling!”
Julia’s forced smile became even harder to maintain. She glanced at her watch, a time-honored cue of dismissal. “Uh-oh, I’m running late and have to—”
“But my favorites are the videos the women send in!” Denny did not pick up on her cue. He was not interested in being dismissed. “Picture this, Miss Chandler. Women wearing these real sexy getups or else lying naked on rugs or on beds with candles lighted and music playing while they tell Mr. Fortune how and what they’re going to—”
“I really have to—to get this document to Mr. Fortune for his signature.” Julia jumped to her feet, almost knocking over her desk chair. “It’s extremely urgent.”
“Well, tell Mr. Fortune we followed his orders. There are only letters in the bags. We took care of the other stuff for him.” Smirking, Denny lumbered from the office.
The other stuff. Julia imagined Denny and his cronies slavering over their newfound panty, photo and video collections, and shuddered.
The door to Michael’s office opened, and he stood on the threshold, grim faced. His dark blue eyes focused immediately on the latest sack of mail. “Oh, Lord, not more!”
“Denny wanted me to assure you that he and his crew have removed, uh, any accompanying paraphernalia, and that these sacks contain only letters.”
“Only letters!” Michael echoed tightly. Exasperated, he ran his hand through his dark, thick hair, tousling it. “Do you have any idea of the content of those letters?”
“A fairly good idea,” Julia admitted. She felt a totally unexpected, strange and disconcerting impulse to smooth his hair back into place, and she clasped her hands in her lap, as if to physically prevent herself from acting upon it. “From Denny. He’s extremely enthusiastic about your bachelor-list mail.”
Michael groaned. “This is a nightmare!”
He entered her office and began to pace. It wasn’t easy, since the big mail sacks took up most of the room. Nevertheless, Michael wound restlessly among them.
“Ever since that damnable magazine hit the stands, I haven’t had a moment’s peace. I’m hounded unmercifully day and night by women. I’ve had to get an unlisted phone number. I have to sneak out of my apartment at odd hours and go skulking in and out of the building like a criminal on the run. I don’t dare go to a restaurant or a store or—or anywhere. Women come up to me and tell me the most incredibly intimate things, like their bra size or what they’ll do if I—”
He broke off abruptly, a dark red flush staining his neck. Julia was both amazed and amused. Was Michael Fortune blushing?
“I guess it’s a good thing Denny and his pals have taken custody of the pictures and videos your, er, fans have sent,” she murmured. “According to Denny, who’s become something of an expert in the field, they’re way beyond an R rating.”
“Don’t be flippant, Julia!” Michael reprimanded sternly. “You have only to think about what has happened in the last five days to recognize what an upheaval that list has caused, not only to me personally but to the company!”
“There was definitely an upheaval when the company’s entire computer system had a seizure because all the voice-mail boxes were overloaded with messages for you,” Julia agreed.
“The whole system was down for hours on three separate days!” Michael was beside himself. “How can we possibly conduct business under those conditions? It’s a catastrophe!”
“It certainly isn’t business as usual,” Julia affirmed mildly.
Michael’s eyes glowed like blue flames. “When I told Kristina that having my name on that list constituted an atrocious invasion of privacy, I had no idea how bad it would actually be. The phones and fax machines are jammed with messages from women demanding to meet me. Every radio and TV station in Minneapolis and St. Paul calls at least once a day to schedule an interview with me. The newspapers—both in and out of state—want pictures and interviews, and those syndicated TV tabloid shows have actually sent people to try to get me to consent to appear on their programs. And then there are the talk shows who want to get the ten of us from that wretched list into their studios with an entire audience comprised of single women!”
“That could get ugly,” Julia said dryly. “I have visions of the ten of you being torn limb from limb by your overly enthusiastic prospective brides.”
“It’s not a far-fetched scene. After living through this, I can well believe that there are hundreds of women out there crazy enough to do anything to snare a man!”
“If it’s any consolation, I’m sure the other nine eligible bachelors are being harassed, too.”
“It isn’t any consolation at all!” Michael growled. “The situation is intolerable. I can’t live this way. Bad enough that I can hardly focus on my work with all the distractions and interruptions, but the entire company has been disrupted by this—this army of zealous women who—” Abruptly, he stopped talking, stopped walking and turned to face her. “I just don’t get it, Julia. Why are they doing this?”
“The magazine said the ten eligible-bachelor picks were the ‘Prince Charmings of the ’90s’,” Julia said thoughtfully. “I guess they tapped into all the fairy-tale magic that surrounds—”
“Fairy-tale magic!” Michael gave a derisive snort. “Prince Charming! Give me a break! What woman in her right mind wants to be a sniveling simp like Cinderella?”
“I agree the Prince Charming concept is outdated, and I’ve always thought Cinderella was passive to the point of being dysfunctional.” Julia grinned. “But these letter writers aren’t passive, they’re assertive, and they probably find the prospect of being Mrs. Michael Fortune—”
“There is never going to be a Mrs. Michael Fortune,” Michael promised fiercely. “But even if I did have the slightest inclination to marry, I would never choose a wife by drawing a letter out of a sack. What sane man would? So why do these women bombard us with mail?”
“Hope springs eternal, I guess.”
“There is hope and there is delusion, Julia. These letters fall firmly into the latter category.”
“Well, all those women who wrote in can’t be delusional, so maybe it’s, uh, ambition that is motivating them,” Julia suggested gamely.
“I’m quite familiar with that particular ambition.” Michael’s lips twisted in a cynical grimace. “This entire debacle simply proves what I’ve always known—that women are obsessed with money and will do just about anything to get it.”
“That’s a very depressing point of view, not to mention a vast over-generalization,” Julia said, in defense of every member of the female sex who was not a money-grubbing fortune hunter. Or Fortune hunter.
“Sure.” He laughed coldly. “Whatever, Julia.”
He leaned against the wall and folded his arms in front of his chest. “Did you hear that my mother was the one who sent in that picture of me? She admitted it and didn’t even apologize for doing it. The magazine contacted her, told her about the article, and she express-mailed the photo the next day. Charged the mailing expenses to my dad, of course.”
Julia nodded. She’d heard. She also knew that Nate Fortune had refused to pay and had sent the bill back to Sheila, prompting a visit by her to company headquarters.
Julia knew all about it because Sheila and Nate Fortune had had a screaming match in the corridor of the legal department. Everybody who worked there had heard every word, and news of the scene quickly spread throughout the company.
“Kristina was also right about my mother’s reason for sending my picture into the magazine.” Michael stared broodingly at the floor. “Mother actually said she hoped that the daughter of a ‘sinfully rich billionaire’ would become aware of my existence and contact me.”
His piercing blue eyes met Julia’s, and she shifted uneasily under his gaze. He seemed to be waiting for her to comment.
“I don’t know very much about the daughters of sinfully rich billionaires.” She chose her words carefully, determined to be tactful. “But I don’t think choosing a husband from a magazine list is, uh, quite their style.”
“As if that would deter Mother! She also delivered her standard lecture on the importance of acquiring one’s own immense personal fortune, by whatever means possible. I’ve been hearing that one since I was in kindergarten.” He gave Julia a hard stare. “Did your mother talk to you like that?”
“When I was in kindergarten, my mother and I talked about my dolls and the Easter Bunny and things like that. I can’t remember any advice about financial planning for the future.”
“What? No counsel on how to land a rich husband? No advice on ways to hold out against a prenuptial agreement or on the number of carats requisite in the diamond engagement ring to be purchased by the sucker on the hook? I thought all mothers indoctrinated their daughters about the necessity of marrying into wealth, from the time they were in the cradle.”
“Did your mother have discussions like that with your sister?” Julia asked curiously.
“Of course. For all the good it did. Poor idealistic Janie! She was determined to find true love without money and only succeeded in getting abandoned by the father of her child when he learned she was pregnant. I don’t know what upset our mother more—the fact that Jane slept with a man who wasn’t wealthy enough to be sued for a seven-figure child-support settlement or the fact that Sheila was going to be a grandmother. She still finds it difficult to admit her grandmother status.”
“But Cody is such an adorable little boy,” Julia murmured. She’d seen pictures of Jane’s six-year-old son.
“And my brother Kyle’s little girl, Caitlyn, is an adorable child, too. That doesn’t mean Mother wants to be Cody’s and Caitlyn’s—or anybody’s—grandmother.”
“Sheila Fortune isn’t exactly my idea of a grandmother,” Julia admitted quietly.
“She isn’t anyone’s idea of a grandmother, hers included. However, she does believe in carrying out what she calls her ‘maternal duty,’ and that included sending a picture of me to the magazine. Naturally, there is always an element of self-interest in Sheila’s maternal actions. For example, if that list happened to net me an heiress, I’m certain Mother would arrive at my door, demanding her cut.”
Julia’s lips quirked. “Sort of a finder’s fee.”
“Exactly.” Michael actually smiled—for a split second or two. Then he sighed heavily. “I just want all of this to be over. I’m sick and tired of feeling trapped. I want my privacy back. I want my life back!”
“The magazine comes out weekly, and a new issue will be on the stands in a couple of days,” Julia commented, her voice soothing. “I think you can expect the level of interest to drop then.”
“I hope you’re right,” Michael muttered, stepping deftly around a bulging sack. “Call maintainence and have them dispose of all these bags immediately. And instruct the mail room to stop using this office as a dumping ground. From now on, any superfluous correspondence addressed to me is to be taken directly to the garbage.” He retreated into his office, slamming the door behind him.
He’d begun slamming doors three days ago. Julia sank back in her chair, oddly unsettled by the long personal conversation she’d had with her boss.
It was apparent that this bachelors-list business was really taking its toll on him. The door-slamming, the personal revelations, even the brief flashes of dark humor—all were cracks in Michael’s previously impenetrable armor of control.
She thought of Denny and his cronies in the mail room, enjoying a vicarious thrill at the overwhelming attention that Michael found repugnant. A psychologist could have a field day analyzing the situation.
Maybe someday when she was a psychologist—Julia always thought when, never if—she would write a paper entitled “One Man’s Curse, Another Man’s Blessing,” exploring the topic in detail.
Someday. Julia allowed herself to daydream about the future for just a few moments—a future in which Joanna would be completely recovered. Though the doctors at the rehab center were cautious about Joanna’s prospective ability to attend college, Julia liked to picture her sister as a future student at the University of Minnesota, right here in town at the Twin Cities campus. Julia had earned her own undergraduate degree in psychology there and…had completed one year of graduate school, the first steps toward her goal of becoming a clinical psychologist and working with troubled children and adolescents. A goal Julia intended to achieve. Someday.
But she never lingered very long in the fantasy world of the future. She’d learned that it was far safer to live in the present than to dream of tomorrow. As a survivor of sudden devastating losses, she was well aware that everything could change in an instant, painfully and irrevocably altering one’s life in the most profound and unimaginable ways.
Her thoughts swung back to the past, and she silently thanked her mother for insisting that she take some courses at the local business school during her summer breaks from college. It had been hard at the time, working a forty-hour week to earn her next year’s tuition money while taking business courses. But it had been Julia’s office skills, not her degree in psychology, that had enabled her to land well-paying jobs, first at the Olson, Anderson & Lake Consulting Firm and now here at the Fortune Corporation.
The telephone rang, and Julia quickly answered it. Somehow an enterprising reporter had managed to slip through the receptionist’s call-screening and reach the desk of Michael Fortune’s executive assistant. She asked some intrusive and highly intimate questions about Michael’s sex life and responded to Julia’s terse “no comment” with snickers and not-so-sly innuendos.
Julia’s cheeks turned a ruby shade of red. “I repeat, no comment!” she said sternly and slammed down the phone. The action was oddly satisfying. No wonder Michael had taken to slamming doors.
Julia shared an apartment with three other young women— Jen, Debby and Kia, all students at the West Bank segment of the University of Minnesota, just west of the Mississippi River.
Kia, a graduate student in social work, shared a room with Julia; they’d lived together for the past two years. Jen and Debby, both drama majors in their senior year, had moved into the apartment in August and occupied the other bedroom. All four used the common areas—kitchen and living room.
Lamentably, there was only one bathroom. During her rare flights of fancy, Julia visualized having a bathroom that was hers alone. It seemed like the ultimate luxury.
The apartment was no worse and a lot better than many of the rental units available to upper-level students who didn’t live in university-owned dorms. The building wasn’t too old and the rent wasn’t too high. Split four ways, it was downright cheap for Julia, which was exactly what she wanted.
And needed. Almost all of her salary went to pay Joanna’s expenses at the rehabilitation center. Though Medicaid had paid for Joanna’s eleven-month hospitalization, coverage stopped when she was discharged from the hospital.
Had Joanna gone to a nursing home, the government would have picked up the tab, but Julia didn’t consider it, not even for a moment. She’d spent the long months after her sister’s accident researching facilities, and the rehabilitation hospital on the outskirts of town was superior in every way. There Joanna could receive the intensive specialized therapy she required to eventually lead an independent, productive life.
The alternative—the nursing home—provided custodial care only. Julia viewed placing Joanna there as giving up hope, of resigning her little sister to a life of institutional dependency.
So Julia had sold the Chandler family’s house, used the money to fund Joanna at the rehab center and had moved back into cheaper living quarters in the university section of the city.
Though she was only twenty-six, sometimes she felt decades older than her student neighbors. “Greek Week,” when the fraternities and sororities took over the neighborhood, had certainly lost its charm for her, especially when drunken serenades and contests went on till dawn and she had to get up for work by six.
But both the apartment and the neighborhood were quiet when Julia arrived home a few minutes before eight-thirty. She didn’t know where her roommates were. The four seldom socialized together, although Julia and Kia occasionally ran or biked together in the evenings or on weekends when their schedules coincided. There were a number of suitable trails and paths around the many lakes and criss-crossing parks throughout the city.
Julia gazed longingly out the window into the darkness, wishing Kia were around now. Julia could use a brisk run to work off the frustrations of the long day.
For a few minutes, she stood by the window and debated whether or not to go out alone. The weather was warm for early October, perfect for an evening run, but the darkness concerned her. What woman anywhere wasn’t aware of the dangers of being out alone at night?
But tonight she felt confined and resented the restrictions. Tonight she wanted to be free of both risks and precautions. Two years ago she’d taken a self-defense class at the Y, and the neighborhood was considered safe, she rationalized. There were people around at all hours, especially since she lived so near the theater district, home of an incredible number of productions staged by the university drama department.
Julia vaguely recalled Jen and Debby mentioning a play they were both working in, Jen as an actress and Debby as a “techie” behind the scenes. A light satire, they’d said, and it sounded entertaining. Julia made a mental note to ask them about the dates and times of the show.
She would go see it, if she ever got out of the office in time to make the first act. The way things were going now, she had her doubts. Just thinking about the long and dreadful day at work stressed her all over again.
The events played through her mind like a tape in a VCR. She only wished she could fast-forward certain nerve-jangling scenes. Like when the voice-mail system had crashed again due to an overload of lovelorn messages to Michael Fortune. The mishap had been followed by an angry visit from Jake Fortune himself.
Unfortunately, Michael had been in a meeting and unavailable, so Julia had been the hapless recipient of Jake’s fury. In a steely, formidable tone, Fortune’s boss-of-bosses had ordered her to pass along his vituperative message to Michael, even making her repeat it back to him word for word, to prove she’d gotten it right!
Her palms had been sweating after that encounter. It was bad enough to get chewed out by the CEO of the entire corporation, but to be expected to spread the vitriol to her boss was ulcer inducing. Julia had not delivered Jake’s message to Michael, and she’d spent the rest of the day worrying that her crime of omission would be detected by Jake Fortune. To her great relief, he hadn’t checked back to find out if she had or hadn’t followed his orders.
The day hadn’t improved as morning dragged into afternoon. The voice-mail system took longer than usual to fix, and by the time it was running smoothly, and an exasperated group of buyers from department stores around the country were able to contact the Fortune Corporation about new orders, everybody’s tempers were frayed.
Next came word that a vital shipment of ingredients from overseas had been delayed at the docks in New York, which meant an even longer wait on the production line. That meant dealing with frustrated supervisors in production who were not pleased with the ensuing delays, as well as relaying the bad news to stores that would not be receiving their Fortune products when expected.
Julia had placed the calls for Michael and received a number of tongue-lashings in true shoot-the-messenger fashion. She could only imagine the wrath they would have expended on Michael.
Finally, Kristina had arrived to complain about her latest fight with the head honchos in advertising, whom she claimed lacked vision and guts and were hopeless prudes in the bargain. Julia had ushered her into Michael’s office and hadn’t been privy to Kristina’s latest campaign to “definitively capture the youth market,” but from the raised voices radiating from Michael’s office and Kristina’s stormy exit, she’d guessed the meeting had not gone well.
Neither had the flurry of calls Julia then had to place to the advertising department. Cast in the hapless-messenger role once again, she had been snarled and snapped at by world-class snappers and snarlers.
And, of course, she could say nothing back to any of them. That wasn’t in her job description. She had to grit her teeth and swallow any retort, however appropriate. Her jaws ached from all that gritting.
Julia decided she definitely was going to run. She was wired and edgy, filled with tension that needed to be discharged. In the mood she was in, God help any potential attacker if he dared to attack her!
Shedding her prim office wear, she pulled on a pair of bright gold running shorts and a purple-and-gold University of Minnesota T-shirt, laced up her running shoes and stepped out into the balmy October night. A slight breeze rustled through the branches of the trees. She ran along the sidewalk, moving to the street whenever she encountered pedestrians. Fallen leaves, the first of many more to come, crackled under her feet. Their brilliant red, orange and yellow hues were already beginning to fade as they lay drying on the ground.
She had run a full mile before the tensions of the day began to slowly drain from her. She turned onto a well-lit path that followed the river and glanced at the dark, swiftly-flowing waters.
Julia found herself wondering if Michael was unwinding right now and if so, where and how. She knew he sometimes used the gym in the downtown City Club, and he’d been known to enjoy beating his brother Kyle at racquetball.
But Kyle wasn’t living in Minneapolis anymore, he was at his ranch in Wyoming with his wife and daughter, so there would be no more friendly games on the racquetball court to help alleviate Michael’s stress. And the City Club gym closed at eight o’clock.
Of course, there were other ways to alleviate tension, other kinds of physical activity that didn’t involve leaving the bedroom. Julia felt heat suffuse her skin and knew it wasn’t completely due to the exertion of running.
She didn’t want to think of Michael and sex, but it was hard not to, considering the fact that hundreds of women had been innundating him with offers of sex all week long.
And he had spurned them all.
It wasn’t that he was bent on leading a life of celibacy. Julia knew very well that her boss had women companions from time to time. She ought to know; she was the one who made the dinner and theater reservations in the city and the travel arrangements when the couple took the occasional getaway weekend. She was the one who ordered the flowers to be sent—always roses; Michael was not cheap when it came to florist bills. She was also the one who either put through or refused to put through calls from his lady friend of the moment, depending on the instructions of Michael Fortune himself.
During her tenure as his faithful assistant, Julia had learned quite a bit about the ABC’s of courtship, Michael Fortune style:
A. Michael favored what he called “serial monogamy.” He dated only one woman at a time and expected his chosen candidate to limit herself strictly to him during that period.
B. None of his relationships seemed to last very long. Julia attributed that to his strong antimarriage bias. An involvement with no chance of becoming permanent, or even serious, was doomed to be self-limiting and short-term.
C. Once Michael decided to end the relationship, it was truly over, no matter how his current partner might feel about the matter. If the woman happened to be the one to call it quits, he accepted her decision without ever trying to change her mind. He just didn’t care enough to bother.
Once, one of his exes, bitter over “being dumped just before I was going to dump him,” had given Julia an earful. “Michael Fortune has to be the one in control,” the woman had griped, while Julia maintained a discreet silence. “He demands that the power he holds as an executive in his office be extended to his personal life, and that makes him a lousy candidate for a romance. I’m sure it’s better to work for him than to be in love with him.”
Julia wholeheartedly agreed. Michael was a considerate, even thoughtful boss, but as a lover… She didn’t pursue that line of thought, steering clear of the dangers of an impossible romantic fantasy.
All those eager women in hot pursuit of Michael should’ve done the same, but they couldn’t have known that being placed on the magazine’s “most eligible” list would render him totally ineligible to them. Michael would never consent to being sought after. He had to be the one in charge of a relationship, which meant beginning it himself. He was the proud hunter, not the hunted.
As she ran, Julia passed a number of other joggers and several strolling couples as well. A great many people had opted for outdoor exercise tonight. When she saw a tall, very familiar masculine form running along the path toward her, she blinked in astonishment.
It couldn’t be! Her imagination was playing tricks on her.
She’d spent so many hours working with him and so many of her off-duty hours thinking about him that now she was conjuring up images of Michael Fortune.
Except that the dark-haired man in the blue running shorts and white T-shirt who was approaching her was no figment of her imagination.
It was Michael Fortune himself, and he looked as startled to see Julia as she was to see him.
Three
“Julia?” Michael stared at her as they met on the path.
He could hardly believe his eyes. This young woman, whose face was glowing with perspiration and whose clothes were damp with sweat, seemed the antithesis of the always impeccable, unruffled Julia Chandler whom he worked with day in and day out.
He had never seen the office Julia with a hair out of place, but right now strands of her brown hair were escaping from the confines of her usually tight French braid. She quickly, self-consciously, brushed them back with her hand.
His eyes followed her gesture, and he was suddenly struck by the sight of her small, perfectly shaped ears. Earrings in the shape of small golden balls pierced the dainty flesh of her earlobes.
Michael stared, more than a little disconcerted by his inability to tear his eyes away from her. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d never seen her ears before. Julia wore her hair in that braided style almost every day. But he had never noticed the pink, shell-shaped perfection of her ears. And if asked, he wouldn’t have known whether or not her lobes were pierced or if she ever wore earrings.
Nor did he have any prior recollection of how slender and graceful the curve of her neck was. Now, suddenly, he couldn’t stop looking at it.
Julia touched the side of her neck in a decidedly nervous gesture.
Michael frowned. Her anxiety was understandable; he was staring at her with the avidity of a hungry vampire! What on earth was the matter with him tonight?
He decided to blame that cursed list. Lately he blamed everything on the stresses of being hounded by all those avaricious Mrs. Mike Fortune wanna-bes.
“Hello, Michael.” Julia smiled uncertainly. Her pulse rate, accelerated by her running, continued to beat just as rapidly though she was standing still.
She recognized the encounter as a singularly odd and awkward one. Until now, she and her boss had never seen each other anywhere but their workplace. The protocol there was familiar and well-defined, but it didn’t seem to apply out here on the moonlit trail.
Their apparel tonight was stunningly different from their office clothes, too. In the fourteen months they’d worked together, she had never seen Michael in such decidedly brief attire.
The short sleeves of his T-shirt emphasized bare muscled arms that had always been concealed by his crisply starched shirts and custom-tailored suit jackets. Her eyes darted to a pair of hard, muscular thighs that had never been revealed beneath the trousers of his conservative suits.
Julia quickly averted her gaze. Her mouth felt dry. She wished she had brought along her portable water bottle, but until this very moment, she hadn’t given a thought to being thirsty.
“You’re out here running?” Michael said at last, as the silence stretched uncomfortably between them. He instantly mocked himself for his inanely obvious observation. No, she wasn’t out here running, on the running trail in running clothes, sweating from the exertion of running. She was waiting for a bus!
He felt like a fool, and it was not a pleasant sensation for a man who seldom made a mistake in any area. He wouldn’t blame Julia if she zinged him with a caustic response. Kristina would undoubtedly look at him, roll her eyes and say, “Duh!”
Being Julia, his diplomatic assistant, she merely smiled that pleasant, detached smile of hers and replied politely, “Yes. After today, I felt like I really needed the exercise to unwind.”
“Believe me, I know exactly how you feel!” Michael said, his relief heartfelt. The ice was broken. Julia’s remark had placed them back in their familiar Fortune Corporation roles.
By tacit agreement, they resumed their run, side by side and at a more leisurely pace. They discussed the horrors of the day, even managed a bit of gallows humor about the misfortunes at Fortune.
Julia actually found herself confessing that Jake Fortune had visited her office to vent his frustration about the voice-mail mess, though she refrained from repeating his irate message or even mentioning the fury he’d expressed toward his nephew and toward herself.
But Michael guessed. “Poor Julia. You got caught in the blitzkrieg meant for me, didn’t you? I hope you didn’t take it personally.”
“Oh no,” Julia assured him. “I would never take being called an idiotic sycophant personally.”
“He called you that?” Michael felt anger flare through him. “No matter how angry Jake was at me, there was no reason for him to verbally abuse you.”
“He was upset. I understood,” Julia said quickly.
She was on shaky ground here, discussing the CEO with her boss! The last place she wanted to be was in the crossfire of a Fortune-to-Fortune battle. She never should’ve mentioned Jake Fortune at all, but running with Michael under the relative cover of darkness had provided the illusion of confidentiality and companionability. Somehow the words had slipped out, as if she were talking to a friend from work instead of Michael Fortune, her employer.
She strove to rectify the situation. “In fact, until now, I’d forgotten all about that conversation with Mr. Fortune.”
“Now why don’t I believe you?” Michael arched his dark brows. “I know from experience that my uncle’s verbal jabs have a way of searing your brain like a brand, at least for a while. And if Jake called you an idiotic sycophant simply because you work for me, I can imagine the choice words he had to say about me. Are you going to tell me?”
She shook her head. “You don’t want to hear.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Michael stared ahead at the starry expanse of the sky. “I’m not condoning his actions, but Uncle Jake has been under a tremendous amount of pressure since my grandmother’s death. Not only does he have to deal with losing his mother, but as you know, the reorganization at the company has caused stock values to fall. Jake feels responsible, and unfortunately, my father is more than willing to let him shoulder the blame alone.”
Julia nodded her understanding. Everybody who worked for the company knew that Nate Fortune was fiercely competitive with his older brother, Jake, and that the brothers’ relationship had long been strained as a result. Sadly, their mother’s death had driven them further apart, rather than bringing them closer in mourning.
The sudden death of Kate Fortune, the seventy-one-year-old matriarch, had impacted sharply on everybody connected to either the Fortune family or the company. In the public arena, Kate’s unexpected death and the subsequent reorganization of the company had caused stock prices to tip alarmingly, and privately, the Fortunes were devastated by their loss.
Julia had learned some of the details from newspapers, some from employee gossip and a few from the various Fortunes who passed through her office on their way to Michael’s.
She knew that Kate had been flying one of the family planes solo in Brazil when it crashed and burned in the rain forest. The charred remains of the wreckage had yielded one body, naturally presumed to be the pilot, Kate Fortune.
As someone intimately acquainted with the stunning grief resulting from sudden death, Julia understood exactly how the members of the Fortune family must’ve felt upon hearing that terrible news. How they still must be feeling as they struggled to reconcile themselves to life without Kate.
“I had the pleasure of meeting your grandmother several times when she came to your office,” Julia said quietly. “She was a delightful person, so warm and witty and dynamic. And what a memory she had! I think she knew the names of everybody who worked for the company, and she always had time to say something nice to us.”
“That was my grandmother, all right.” Michael smiled in reminiscence. “I, uh, I got the card you sent right after she…was lost. I appreciated the note you wrote, but I don’t think I ever thanked you for it.”
“I didn’t expect you to, I just wanted to tell you how much I admired her,” Julia murmured. “You must miss her terribly.”
“I don’t let myself dwell on it,” Michael said curtly, uncomfortable at the turn their conversation had taken. “Keeping busy is the best antidote for…” He cleared his throat and shrugged. “For…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
“Grief.” Julia supplied it for him. Her heart swelled with sympathy. “Yes, work does help.”
She wasn’t about to add that talking about the lost loved one helped even more. Obviously, Michael’s style of mourning forbade such an open display of emotion. “I guess working has helped everybody in your family cope,” she added softly.
“That’s true. But unfortunately for my uncle Jake, he is currently facing another crisis that has nothing to do with losing Grandmother.”
Though Michael was rarely this forthcoming, it was a relief to talk about things that had been roiling in his mind for weeks. He felt secure in confiding in Julia. She had a proven track record of loyalty to the company and to the Fortunes.
“I’ve heard from my cousins that Jake’s marriage to Erica is on shaky ground. Their girls, Caroline and Natalie and the twins, are worried sick about their parents. Apparently, Jake’s schedule and his demands are finally taking their toll on Erica, and to make matters worse, she is suffering from a major case of the empty-nest syndrome.”
“Many women have a difficult time adjusting when their children grow up and leave home,” Julia said sympathetically.
“Not my mother. She was only too happy to have her nest all to herself. But Erica is feeling her years without them. Plus she’s spouting all this midlife-crisis stuff about not fulfilling her career ambitions, blaming Uncle Jake for her decision to drop out of college to marry him and stay home to raise children. Like he put a loaded gun to her head and made her do it!” Michael’s disparaging laugh made it very clear whose side he was on in this particular Fortune war.
“Has your aunt Erica ever considered going back to college?” Julia’s psychologist leanings made it impossible for her not to offer help. “Lots of people return to complete their education these days. I’ve read about grandparents in their seventies going for their degrees.”
“Maybe you should give Erica this pep talk,” Michael suggested drolly. “She’s fifty-two, old and fading by her standards, but still full of zest by yours.”
Julia visualized Erica Fortune, who’d always struck her as the quintessential expensively kept, country-club-executive wife. Erica was an elegant blond beauty whose classic looks were ageless. She was married to one of the wealthiest men in the state. She was a mother and grandmother, with strong and healthy progeny.
“It’s hard to imagine a woman with so much not being happy,” Julia murmured.
Michael’s lips curved into a sardonic smile. “Surely you’ve heard the famous maxim, ‘money doesn’t buy happiness’? Not to mention that other old chesnut, ‘there’s more to life than money.’ Of course, all that is heresy to my mother, who staunchly holds the opposing view.”
“There are maxims and chesnuts for that viewpoint, too. How about ‘money isn’t everything, but it sure is far ahead of whatever is in second place’?” Julia cast him a quick, bright smile.
Michael felt queerly disoriented, as if he’d been cast out of time, out of place. For one dizzying moment, he scarcely recognized the young woman at his side. He was accustomed to the calmly bland, impassive mask Julia wore at the office. But when her face was alight and lively, as it was now, she was stunningly pretty!
As if of their own volition, his eyes traveled over her, taking in the sight of her small, firmly rounded breasts bobbing softly as she ran. He realized for the first time that her office clothes were not only loose fitting, they were a downright disguise, hiding a very shapely figure. Nor did those modest, below-the-knee skirts and sensible shoes she wore to work encourage anyone to glance at her legs.
Tonight, Michael’s gaze fixated on them, as if making up for lost time. She was only of average height, about five foot four, but her legs were long and sleek and very well shaped. He stared at the bare smooth skin of her thighs and heat flooded him.
Sweat beaded his forehead and his pulses pounded. He fell several paces behind her, but that tactical retreat only gave him a clear view of the shapely curves of her buttocks. Gulping for air, he began to conjugate Spanish verbs in his head as a very necessary diversion.
When Julia realized he’d stopped running, she paused and turned, looking back at him. By that time, Michael had his unexpected and thoroughly unwelcome lusty impulses under control.
“Leg cramp,” he explained briskly, catching up to her. Well, it wasn’t too far off.
For a while, they ran side by side in a not uncomfortable silence.
Then he said, “Julia?”
“Yes?”
“I apologize for what my uncle said to you today. After Uncle Jake lets off steam, he puts the incident behind him. I hope you can forget it, too.”
“I won’t give it another thought,” Julia promised. “You seem to get along with your uncle most of the time,” she added hesitantly. She hoped she didn’t seem presumptuous, making observations about Fortune family dynamics.
“I’ve always gotten along okay with Uncle Jake, even though he blows up at me from time to time.” Michael shrugged. “He can be demanding and controlling, but I know where he’s coming from.” He smiled wryly. “I think I’m coming from the same place.”
His flash of self-awareness surprised Julia. She tried and failed to suppress a grin.
Michael noticed. “So you agree that Jake and I are cut from the same cloth, hmm?”
“Let’s just say it doesn’t stretch the bounds of reality to imagine you using the term ‘idiotic sycophant,’” she dared to say.
“I’d never use it to describe you.”
“But it just might fit one of Jake’s assistants?” Julia suggested, sliding him a wry, sidelong glance.
“You know, it just might.”
They both laughed. She had a nice laugh, Michael noted. Warm and real. Not one of those phony shrieks or high-pitched trills. He’d always liked her laugh, though they didn’t do much laughing at the office. Lately, even smiles were scarce.
“Uh-oh,” Julia exclaimed.
She saw the group of young women heading toward them at the same time Michael did. The girls were in their late teens or very early twenties and were staggeringly drunk. They were singing and laughing loudly as they careened along the path…and then they spied Michael.
He tensed as one of them shrieked, “Oh, my God, it’s him! One of the top-ten bachelors, the one that lives right here in Minneapolis!”
The girl’s companions joined in the squealing. The scene stirred memories of the newsreels Julia had seen of the Beatles’ arrival in New York back in 1964. She glanced at Michael, who was staring at his admirers, utterly appalled.
Her protective instincts were instantly roused. Perhaps some self-preservatory instincts, too. She didn’t want to be caught in the midst of a wild and amatory throng.
She’d read that highly effective people were supposed to be proactive instead of waiting around to react. Well, here was a chance to prove how effective she could be. Julia walked right up to the girls in what she hoped was a highly proactive manner.
“Do you really think he looks like that guy in the magazine?” she asked the girl who’d first identified Michael. Before she could answer, Julia turned quickly to Michael and called out, “Denny, they think you look like Michael Fortune! Can you believe it?”
Michael stared in confusion.
“That’s my brother Denny,” Julia went on blithely. “He works in the mail room at the Fortune Corporation.”
“The mail room?” one of the girls repeated, her voice ringing with disappointment. “He’s not the Mike Fortune?”
Julia laughed. “He delivers the Mike Fortune’s mail. Is that close enough?”
“I don’t think he looks anything like Mike Fortune,” another girl declared with a disdainful sniff. “Mike Fortune looks like a millionaire. This guy—” she nodded disparagingly in Michael’s direction “—looks like he works in a mail room. You can tell.”
“Denny’s job pays benefits, health and dental,” Julia said. “And he’s eligible, too. He doesn’t have a girlfriend.” She gave them a hopeful look, inviting one of them to volunteer for the position.
That was all it took. The girls weren’t drunk enough not to realize that a guy whose sister was on the prowl for a girlfriend for him did not meet their standards.
“Tell your brother to take out an ad in the personals,” one of them said, as they giggled among themselves. “Maybe he’ll luck out there.”
“We’re holding out for Mike Fortune,” said another. “Or a Mike Fortune type.”
“I think he really does kind of look like Mike Fortune,” Julia called after them, as they hurried on their way. She’d managed to sound credibly forlorn, as the sister of a perennially dateless Denny might.
“He only looks like Mike Fortune if you’re drunk out of your mind, like Wendy is,” one of the girls shouted back.
“Wendy also thought the pizza-delivery guy looks like Tom Cruise,” exclaimed another, and they all laughed raucously.
The girls disappeared around a bend, leaving Julia and Michael alone.
“Denny?” Michael tried to look stern, but he couldn’t quite pull it off.
“It was the first name that popped into my head,” Julia confessed. “And then, somehow you became Denny.” She dissolved in laughter. “You had that glazed look in your eye and your mouth was hanging open. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you started babbling about getting your jollies from opening mail from all of Mike Fortune’s female admirers.”
“My jollies?” he repeated incredulously. Suddenly, he couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled within him.
They were both too breathless from laughing to run, so they walked along the path, making bad jokes. “I know Mike Fortune, Mike Fortune is a boss of mine and you are no Mike Fortune,” Julia paraphrased. “You are a faux Denny.”
“I think I’d rather be a faux Denny than an idiotic sycophant,” countered Michael. “Although if Uncle Jake were to see us carrying on like this, he’d write us both off as giddy nitwits.”
“No one could ever accuse you of being either giddy or a nitwit,” Julia assured him.
“I suppose not.” Michael frowned thoughtfully, turning serious once more. “I can’t even be accused of smiling, according to my stepmother, Barbara. She told me to lighten up, that lately she could count on one hand the number of times I’ve smiled.”
“There hasn’t been much to smile about at the Fortune Corporation this past year,” Julia murmured.
“No, there hasn’t. We’ve had a series of incidents ranging from calamitous to catastrophic.” A grim and somber Michael proceeded to list them. “There was that fire set in the laboratory by an intruder who was never caught, and Grandmother Kate’s plane crash. Then my cousin Allison was stalked by some nut.”
“At least that calamity had a happy ending,” Julia replied. “Allison married her bodyguard, Rafe.”
“Marriage. A happy ending.” Michael arched his brows in that superior, sardonic way of his. “I suppose you would view it that way.”
Julia refrained from pointing out that according to his “better dead than wed” sentiments, his view of a happy ending was a permanent trip to the cemetery.
“Meanwhile, the company’s stock values keep dropping.” Michael heaved a worried sigh. “And of course, there’s that latest mysterious break-in at the lab. Whoever was responsible caused some deliberate destruction that’s resulted in further setbacks in the development of the special youth formula.”
Julia nodded knowingly. She was aware that the company had been working on the youth formula for years, and that Kate Fortune had made her fatal flight to Brazil to procure a rare vital ingredient for it. All told, it was beginning to look as though the Fortune family, blessed for so long with the very best life had to offer, had somehow become cursed instead.
“And on top of everything else,” Michael continued, “I was named one of the top-ten most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A., prompting an avalanche of unwanted attention.”
“And the unprecedented abuse of the voice-mail system,” Julia added.
She sounded serious and sympathetic, but Michael caught the gleam in her gray eyes. “I can tell you don’t think the bachelor list belongs in my account of family troubles, but it’s been a severe inconvenience, Julia,” he said defensively.
“Oh, I know. I’ve been fending off your eager admirers by phone and by fax, too.”
He had the uncomfortable feeling that she was patronizing him. “Tonight, right here on this path, I was almost mobbed,” Michael reminded her. He was determined that Julia understand the full extent of his plight. “If those girls hadn’t been drinking, they never would’ve bought your Denny ruse.”
“Probably not.”
“I’m getting desperate, Julia. I can’t take this continual harassment. I came out here to run tonight because I felt like a hostage trapped in my own apartment. I couldn’t face the stack of mail there—oh yes, I get mail at home as well as at work, and at home I don’t have Denny and his gang to dispose of it for me.”
He started to run again, and Julia picked up her pace to keep up with him.
“There were women hanging around the lobby of my apartment building when I left,” he continued grimly. “I had to sneak out wearing a jumpsuit and cap I borrowed from Al’s Auto Parts. Al and his sons have been servicing the company cars for years and were very understanding when I explained my need for a disguise.”
“A mechanic’s jumpsuit and hat is a good disguise. Do you have a fake mustache and glasses to go with it?”
Her expression was so demure and her tone so sincere that he couldn’t tell if she was teasing him or not. Since he didn’t view Julia as the teasing type, he decided to answer her seriously. “Believe me, I’ve considered buying them. If this mayhem keeps up, I may have to.”
“Maybe you should consider buying a wig, too. How about a long, blond, California-beach-boy style, like Kato Kaelin? Nobody would know you then.”
“Now I know you’re being glib.” Michael studied her intently. “You’re very good at subtext, Julia—saying one thing while conveying something else altogether. I never knew that until tonight. Have you been mocking me for the past year while I remained oblivious?”
“Of course not! We idiotic sycophants are too stupid and too smarmy for subtext.”
Michael laughed. He was enjoying himself, he realized with some surprise. It had been so long, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like.
They reached a lighted parking lot. “My car is here,” Michael said, pointing to his vintage, candy-apple red Corvette. “I was on my way back to it when I met you. I insist on driving you home.”
She accepted his offer with a polite, “Thank you.”
“I’ll refrain from delivering a lecture about the dangers to a woman out alone at night,” he said lightly.
The words were no sooner out of his mouth when Michael realized that he wanted to deliver that lecture. The idea of Julia falling prey to some criminal on the prowl sickened him. “But you really shouldn’t go out alone after dark, Julia. You took a foolish risk in doing so tonight.”
“I took a self-defense class a couple years ago,” she explained. “I don’t like having to curtail my freedom, so I decided to make sure I can protect myself.”
“Isn’t the first principle of self-defense to avoid placing yourself in a dangerous situation?” Michael frowned. “Your class has given you a false sense of confidence, Julia. Promise that you won’t go running alone at night again.”
“Mmm,” Julia murmured noncommittally, putting her hand in back of her and crossing her fingers, undoing her vague promise even as she gave it. After all, it wasn’t Michael’s business where she spent her off-work hours.
They were standing under the light, and he gazed down at her flushed cheeks, at the brown hair that had escaped from its braid to frame her face. She looked small and soft and very feminine.
He cleared his throat. “Would you like to go somewhere for a drink or something to eat?” he asked impulsively, surprising himself. He rarely acted on impulse.
“Looking like this?” Julia glanced down at her sweaty clothes and ran her hand through her tousled hair. “I’d scare away the other customers.”
“You wouldn’t, but I certainly might. Why don’t we make use of the drive-through window at one of the places along the boulevard? That way we wouldn’t have to leave the car. We could sit in the parking lot and have a sandwich and a cup of coffee or a soda or something.”
Julia understood that he was going through the motions of being polite, but there was really no need. “It’s kind of you to offer, but I have to get home.” She glanced at her watch, startled by the time. “In fact, I have to go right away.”
It was almost time for her nightly telephone call to Joanna. And tonight it was important that she call a bit early, because Joanna watched a program on television in the lounge with a group of other young patients. The weekly program had become a regular social event, with popcorn, soft drinks and candy shared among them.
Julia was thrilled that her little sister had gained the interest and the ability to socialize. And to be able to comprehend and concentrate on a plot was a major accomplishment for Joanna. For a year and a half after the accident, the girl’s attention span had been as short as a toddler’s. She’d barely been able to follow the fast-paced, visually stimulating programs designed for preschoolers.
But now… A small smile curved Julia’s lips. Joanna had a circle of friends and enjoyed age-appropriate shows. She was showing improvement every single day.
“You’ll have to give me directions to your place,” Michael said as he walked her to his car. He wondered why she had to rush home—or if the real reason for her hasty departure was because she was eager to escape from his presence.
Michael Fortune, currently being pursued by hundreds of women who claimed to be willing to do just about anything with him or for him, could not even persuade Julia Chandler to drink a soda with him in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant. The irony was not lost on him.
His lips twisted in a grim smile. Wasn’t there a verse about a prophet not being valued in his own land? Or words to that effect. It seemed that the same principle applied to the appeal of an eligible bachelor boss in his assistant’s eyes. Julia spent hours in his company at work. Who could blame her for wanting to steer clear of him in her off hours?
Still, the notion rankled, and the fact that it did bothered him even more. Withdrawing into a moody silence, Michael steered his car through the steady stream of traffic, turning on the radio to a station broadcasting a Minnesota Twins baseball game. The game was meaningless, since neither team had a chance of making it to the play-offs this year, and the Twins and their opponent were merely filling time with lackluster performances.
Neither Julia nor Michael spoke, except when she told him where to turn. When he pulled up in front of her three-story frame apartment building, she opened the car door before he had braked to a full stop.
“Thanks for the ride,” she called, jumping out and slamming the door behind her.
Her abrupt departure was jarring. Irritating, too. Michael watched her dash into the building. He wondered which apartment she lived in. It occurred to him that he didn’t know if she lived alone or with someone…or if that someone was a man. Julia never talked about her personal life at work, at least not with him. He’d never bothered to ask her anything about her life outside the office, and she had never volunteered any information.
Michael drove to his own apartment, a penthouse in a futuristic new building downtown, not far from the Fortune Building. His jumpsuit disguise was in the back seat, and he groaned at the thought of having to put it on again. Luckily, his admirers had given up for the night, and the entrance to the building was clear.
He hurried inside, punching in the code to disengage the security system of the private elevator, then riding it to the top of the building. The elevator doors opened onto a small vestibule directly in front of the door to the penthouse. To the left stood a wall of windows that provided a spectacular view of the Twin Cities skyline.
Michael didn’t pause to glance at it.
Four
The new issue of Fame finally hit the stands, and the top-ten most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A. were last week’s news. The syndicated TV tabloids and talk shows stopped calling, as did the out-of-state newspapers. The number of letters began to drop off. Denny informed Julia that one of the new hires on the “Fortune bachelor team” had been let go, but the other had been asked to stay on in the mail room, as he’d proven himself to be both efficient and accurate on the job.
Though the national media had lost interest, locally Michael was still very much a celebrity in demand. Since his new home phone number was unlisted and he used an answering machine to screen his calls, he was safe from the telephone overtures of his admirers, at least while in his apartment. He continued to be plagued by amorous phone calls at work, but fortunately, the voice-mail system was able to handle the reduced number of them.
However, the Twin Cities media kept up their requests for interviews. They were well aware of local interest in the area’s own homegrown bachelor and knew that information about him would capture the attention of the all-important 18-to-34-year-old female market share.
“Just one interview with Mike and we’ll back off,” promised Faith Carlisle, among the most persistent reporters on the “local beat” at Channel 3 News. Somehow Faith consistently managed to elude the Fortune Corporation’s receptionists, secretaries and voice-mail system, and though her calls never made it through to Michael, she talked to Julia at least once every day.
Julia was amazed by Faith’s proficiency. And one could only admire the newswoman’s tenacity. Faith Carlisle said she would never give up until she’d landed her interview with Mike Fortune, and so far, she hadn’t.
“You’re wearing me down,” Julia confessed when Faith’s second call of the day came through. “I actually told Michael that I thought it would be a good idea if he met with you.”
“And what did he say?” Faith pressed eagerly.
“He said no.” Julia sighed. “Sorry. I tried.”
“Doesn’t he know that by being elusive, he is increasing his appeal?” Faith was frustrated. “Think Jacqueline Onassis. Everybody wanted to interview her because she was the one interview nobody could ever get. Well, Mike Fortune is playing by those rules.”
“I don’t think he’s playing by any rules. He just wants to be left alone.”
“It’s not going to happen, Julia. Say, how is the voice-mail system over there? Any problems with it lately?”
“No, thank heavens.” Julia remembered Jake Fortune’s fiery visit the last time the system had crashed. She shivered. “The number of calls have dropped off. I think interest in Michael Fortune is finally starting to fade.”
“Don’t be too sure of that, honey,” Faith said, hanging up.
Julia thought nothing more of the conversation until later that day. Not until the voice-mail system abruptly and unexpectedly became so overloaded with messages for Michael Fortune that it short-circuited. Again! Worse, the company’s entire computer system shut down along with it, like a sympathetic unionist supporting a fellow laborer’s strike.
Michael paced his office, infuriated and distraught. Julia leaned against the wall, her arms folded, staring anxiously at the pearl gray carpet.
“Faith Carlisle is responsible, I’m sure of it,” she murmured. “She made a threat, but I didn’t recognize it as a threat at the time. I’m positive she orchestrated this call-in campaign, just to show she could do it. And she’ll keep on doing it until you give her an interview, Michael.”
“Never!” Michael pounded his fist with his hand. “I will never knuckle under to blackmailing media sabotage. We’ll sue, we’ll—”
“Dammit, Michael, I’ve had all I’m going to take!” Jake Fortune’s roar could be heard through closed doors along the entire length of the corridor.
Julia froze. She could hear the CEO’s footsteps thundering along the carpeted hall from the elevator banks to his nephew’s office. The enraged giant from “Jack and the Beanstalk” instantly leapt to mind; she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear Jake Fortune promising to “grind their bones to make his bread.” Michael’s bones and hers, his idiotic sycophant.
She raised wide, apprehensive eyes to Michael. “We could lock ourselves in your closet,” she whispered. “Maybe he’ll think we aren’t here.” She wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not. A safe haven away from Jake Fortune’s threatening onslaught held great appeal.
“Feel free.” Michael gestured toward the closet door. “But I’m certainly not going to hide from my uncle. I’m not afraid of him.”
They heard Jake enter Julia’s office. She eyed the closet longingly. Maybe Michael wasn’t afraid of his raging uncle, but she was. Out of sight, out of mind seemed a sound policy in this situation.
But it was too late. The door to Michael’s office was flung open and Jake Fortune stormed inside.
“Are you aware of the disruption your imbecilic groupies have caused this company?” Jake launched immediately into his tirade. Which went on and on and on.
Michael was respectful at first, but Jake continued to rage, and the scope of his anger seemed unlimited. Soon Michael gave up all attempts at apology or civility and launched a counteroffensive of his own. Blame was cast, aspersions hurled. They were family, and they had ammunition that extended back for years.
Julia stood plastered against the wall, too unnerved to move, watching and listening to the two men verbally annihilate each other. Each seemed to hold the other accountable for everything that was wrong in the company and in the family. She wouldn’t have been surprised if they started in on global culpability, blaming the other for famines and floods and for destabilizing foreign governments.
Her temples began to throb. She’d never had a migraine headache before, but if she was going to have her first one, this would be the time and place for it.
And just when she thought things couldn’t possibly get worse, Nate Fortune arrived, his expression dark as a thundercloud.
“Word has it that you’re threatening my son, Jake.” Nate leapt into the fray without waiting for an invitation.
Julia guessed what had happened. One of the alarmed employees in product development, overhearing Jake Fortune threaten their boss with extinction, had taken the self-protective step of getting word to Nate, Michael’s dad.
Her stomach gave a sickening lurch. Now a turf war was about to break out, and she was stuck right here as an unwilling witness.
“Thanks to your son’s obsessive fan club the entire company has been disrupted, not to mention the costs of getting the damn computer system up again.” Jake glowered at his brother. “And this isn’t the first time it’s happened. I was understanding, I was patient, that first time. The second time, too. Even the third time, I was the model of restraint. But it’s happened five times! Five times! As CEO, I have a responsibility to our employees and our shareholders, and that means ending this sort of insanity!”
“It’s not my son’s fault that women find him irresistible,” Nate said.
Michael winced. “Dad, please. Uncle Jake and I can work this out on our own.”
“What kind of a father would I be if I stood by and let my brother bully you?” Nate demanded. “I saw the way he treated his own son. Poor Adam, the kid was literally driven away by the pressure Jake put on him. Well, I won’t allow my boy to be subjected to that sort of treatment.”
Jake paled at the mention of his only son. His estranged son.
“Dad, this has nothing to do with Adam. And just for the record, Adam is no longer a kid and I’m not a boy,” Michael said firmly. “Indirectly at least, I am responsible for the overload on the computer system. Since that stupid article came out, I’ve been a liability to the company, and as CEO Uncle Jake has every right to be furious over what’s been happening.”
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Barbara Boswell
They called him America's most eligible bachelor, but high-powered executive Michael Fortune didn't want a wife. So he offered his faithful secretary, Julia Chandler, a surprising proposition: become his pretend bride–for a price.Then the world would think he was married, and he could get back to business. Michael never questioned why unassuming Julia agreed to his outlandish charade. Or what would happen once their convenient engagement became a passion-filled affair…producing an unexpected heir to the Fortune dynasty.
Kate Fortune’s Journal Entry
My faithful friend Sterling has informed me that someone is secretly buying up large blocks of shares of Fortune stock. It seems as if the stage is being set for a hostile takeover. I’m desperately afraid that we’re going to lose everything!
But at least we’ll always be a family, money or not. My only wish is that each of my children and grandchildren finds love and happiness. Something my grandson Michael has finally discovered. He’d always been mistrustful of women and love. I left him the ruby ring my dearly departed husband, Ben, gave to me as a symbol of true love. And now he’s given the heirloom to his new fiancée. I couldn’t be more pleased.
Though I worry about the hastiness of this engagement. I do hope he knows what he’s doing….
A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR
Dear Reader,
I found the FORTUNE’S CHILDREN series intriguing because it contained many elements that interest me. I love stories about families whose members are quite different from each other, who may or may not like and trust each other all the time but will rally together when threatened by outsiders.
A series with several generations and different branches of the family interacting with each other makes for an even more interesting read. I was happy to be given the opportunity to write such a story. There are lots of books about parent/child and sister/brother relationships, but in the FORTUNE’S CHILDREN series there are also aunts and uncles and cousins. Writing about those relationships added an extra dimension for me because I’ve seldom written about an entire extended family. It was territory I enjoyed exploring!
This series has the feel of a soap opera, with the many characters and situations interconnecting with each other. This was great fun for me, as I am an avid “soap” fan. I started watching the lineup of fifteen-minute shows with my grandmother way back when, and have been hooked ever since. I love the concept of continuing characters, with different ones taking turns on the “front burner” while the others make appearances or are referred to. I also enjoyed fitting Michael and Julia, my characters in Stand-in Bride, into the ongoing story while creating a specific one just for them.
I hope you will enjoy reading the FORTUNE’S CHILDREN series as much as I enjoyed my participation in it.
Stand-in Bride
Barbara Boswell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
BARBARA BOSWELL
loves writing about families. “I guess family has been a big influence on my writing,” she says. “I particularly enjoy writing about how my characters’ family relationships affect them.”
When Barbara isn’t writing and reading, she’s spending time with her own family—her husband, three daughters and three cats, whom she concedes are the true bosses of their home! She has lived in Europe, but now makes her home in Pennsylvania. She collects miniatures and holiday ornaments, tries to avoid exercise and has somehow found the time to write over 20 category romances.
Meet the Fortunes—three generations of a family with a legacy of wealth, influence and power. As they unite to face an unknown enemy, shocking family secrets are revealed…and passionate new romances are ignited.
MICHAEL FORTUNE: The Fortune Company executive doesn’t want to settle down, but he needs help warding off his female admirers. So he proposes a no-strings-attached engagement to his faithful assistant….
JULIA CHANDLER: She can’t believe it when her boss asks her to be his pretend fiancée! But what starts as a charade produces an unexpected Fortune heir….
MONICA MALONE: The glamorous movie star has ties to the Fortune clan that go way back. She’s a woman scorned who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
KATE FORTUNE: She has to find out who is out to sabotage her company…and destroy her family.
RACHEL “ROCKY” FORTUNE: Identical twin to beautiful Allie, Rocky is a tomboy whose adventurous spirit and inheritance from her grandmother will lead her to the wilderness of Wyoming….
LIZ JONES— CELEBRITY GOSSIP
Michael Fortune, named one of the “Ten Most Eligible Bachelors in the U.S.A.” by Fame magazine, is engaged!
But I have my doubts about this pair. Who is Julia Chandler, anyway? She’s not from any well-known society family that I ever heard of. She’s just a plain-Jane mousy assistant who’s probably a gold digger. But what I can’t figure out is how she hoodwinked the savvy Michael Fortune.
My good friend Faith Carlisle from Channel 3 News interviewed the hastily engaged couple and told me that Michael was quite protective of his soon-to-be bride. She also claimed there was a strong attraction between the two.
But is this really a love match? Perhaps the conniving secretary is pregnant from an illicit after-hours encounter and is blackmailing him? Again, how could a woman like that ever hook the biggest catch in the U.S.?
My prediction: this marriage won’t last long—if it ever really takes place.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
One
It wasn’t unusual for Kristina Fortune to make an impromptu visit to her half brother Michael’s office, and Julia Chandler, Michael’s executive assistant, greeted her with a warm smile. Julia occupied the smaller office adjoining Michael’s luxurious corner suite.
“Julia, look at this!” Kristina stopped directly in front of Julia’s desk and dropped a copy of Fame onto her desktop.
Julia glanced at the magazine cover. Bold block letters promised IN THIS ISSUE: THE TOP TEN MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELORS IN THE U.S.A.
“This is an advance copy. The issues don’t officially hit the stands until tomorrow. Turn to page 15, Julia,” Kristina ordered with an eager glee that immediately put Julia on guard. Kristina, a rising star in the advertising department, sometimes displayed enthusiasm for concepts and notions that caused headaches here in the product-development department.
“The predictable choices, I see,” Julia remarked as she scanned the top-ten list, which began on page 15. She was somewhat relieved; predictability seldom caused departmental headaches. The bachelors included a former president’s son, a millionaire talk-show host, a billionaire music-business mogul, a recently divorced United States senator, an actor who last year had been dubbed “the sexiest man alive” by the same magazine, a bestselling writer of legal thrillers, a superstar basketball player and…
“Michael Fortune!” Julia read number eight’s name aloud and gasped.
“After the magazine hits the stands tomorrow, women all over the country will be lusting after my big brother. Mike will be a genuine sex object!” Kristina was exultant.
Julia felt an ominous stirring within her that kept growing stronger. She’d worked for Michael Fortune, the vice president of the Fortune Corporation’s product-development department for fourteen months, plenty of time to know that he would absolutely hate his new status. It was the Fortune family business that was the abiding focus of Michael’s life, not popularity with the opposite sex—though he was certainly sought after by women here in Minneapolis. After this magazine article hit the stands, Julia guessed he would be the object of a nationwide romantic pursuit.
“What do you think Mike will think of this?” Kristina asked, grinning.
Julia decided it would be prudent to keep her true opinion to herself. Who knew what part, if any, Kristina had played in this surefire fiasco? When it came to dealing with the Fortunes, Julia was always cautious. “This list isn’t going to, um, thrill him,” she hedged. To put it mildly! “I think he would’ve preferred to be named one of the top-ten most effective businessmen in the U.S.A.,” she added carefully.
“Business! Business! That’s all that Mike seems to care about!” Kristina suddenly grew agitated and began to stalk from Julia’s desk to the windowless wall and then back again.
Another pacer, just like her brother Michael, Julia noted. All the Fortunes she’d met possessed a boundless, vital energy that seemed to require constant motion. She guessed their family get-togethers must be exhausting—all that high-spirited verve and drive and strong will emanating from each and every member of the clan. To a quiet, retiring person such as herself even imagining the scene was daunting.
“Mike is like Corporate RoboMan or something!” Kristina ranted. “He’s a workaholic, he has no feelings, he has no life! I swear, if you opened up his head, you’d find microchips. Nothing touches him, nobody can reach him.”
She turned and pinned Julia with a laser stare. “Can you remember the last time you saw him react with even a shred of genuine human emotion?”
“Well, there was the time Anne Campell in the research lab brought her twins to Take-your-daughter-to-work Day and the kids decided to conduct their very own experiment with the latest test samples.” The memory still made Julia chuckle, though she’d been careful to suppress her amusement after Michael had made it clear that he failed to see the humor in the situation. “Too bad their addition to the face powder turned skin a creepy, corpselike blue. Michael was livid about it. Doesn’t that qualify as genuine human emotion?”
“But that’s related to business so it doesn’t count.” Kristina dismissed the incident and turned her attention back to the magazine. “This is a good picture of Mike, isn’t it, Julia? Even though he is my brother, I have to admit he looks really, really hot!”
Julia studied the picture of Michael in the magazine. It was a candid shot of him in well-worn blue jeans and a white cotton polo shirt bearing the Fortune company logo. The photo showed a compellingly virile man, whose muscular body would catch the eye of any female with a pulse. The strong features of his face—the well-defined jaw and square chin, the sharp blade of a nose and deep-set blue eyes arched by startlingly black brows, the hard sensual shape of his mouth—guaranteed him a second glance from any appreciative male-watchers.
And even reluctant ones. Julia was aware of her boss’s masculine good looks, though she had never—nor would she ever!—let him know that she considered him an attractive man.
She well remembered her first meeting with Michael Fortune, on the day he’d hired her fourteen months ago after a brief interview. The sight of him had had a physical effect on her that she’d found unsettling. For the first several weeks of her employment, his presence had sent a rush of adrenaline surging through her. Her heart would race and her skin would feel flushed. She was acutely aware of his every gesture, his every move.
Fortunately, she had been successful in hiding her renegade responses from Michael and everyone else in the company. Friends she’d made on the job told her all about his previous assistants, who had fallen hopelessly in love with Michael Fortune and ended up either quitting or getting fired because they were unable to cope with his personal disinterest and his exacting professional demands.
Julia had no intention of joining that hapless number. She’d read countless articles on the futility of office romances and wasn’t about to risk her job by indulging in a silly and hopeless infatuation with her boss.
Gradually, as the weeks wore on, her heart had stopped pounding when she saw Michael. In time, her body temperature was affected by the thermal conditions of the office rather than his presence.
She’d decided she was safely immune from his appeal. She was too sensible, too practical for such schoolgirl nonsense as having a crush on her boss, Julia assured herself.
An infatuation with Michael would’ve been as stupid as it was futile, for she knew he viewed her as something akin to office equipment. She was useful and efficient, like a fax machine, and more reliable than their copier, which was forever breaking down. His attitude toward her hardly fueled romantic fantasies, and Julia gratefully pronounced herself free of any.
“So how does it feel, working for one of the most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A., Julia?” Kristina demanded playfully. “You’re single, and working with him day in and day out puts you on the inside track. Ever think of going after him?”
Julia laughed at that preposterous notion. She was under no illusions as to her status. Though the Julia Chandlers and the Michael Fortunes of the world might occupy the same space for a certain number of hours each day, they basically existed in parallel universes, never to converge outside the office. Julia was wise enough to accept that.
“Don’t worry. Michael is safe from any advances from me.”
“I wasn’t worried, I—” Kristina began, but she was interrupted by the appearance of Michael Fortune himself.
He’d opened the connecting door between his office and Julia’s and paused on the threshold. His blue eyes, alert and piercing, skimmed past Julia and fastened on his younger sister.
“Kristina, I thought I heard you raising your usual ruckus out here.” He arched his dark brows, his voice a laconic drawl. “Let me guess—you’re here to line up allies for another one of your outrageous ad campaigns? Scouting our advertising executives who, even as we speak, are reaching for their bottles of antacid, anticipating the upcoming battle?”
Kristina grinned. “I do have a fairly wild idea germinating, but I’m still working out the details. When I’m ready to present it, you’ll be one of the first to know, because you agree with me that our ad execs are—”
“You were about to say cautious and conservative?” Michael interrupted.
“I was about to say retro and stodgy,” Kristina countered. “How could they be anything else? They’ve been around since the Nixon administration. Their idea of something innovative is disco bingo.”
“Spoken in the hyperbolic, back-stabbing style of a true ad executive. You fit right in that shark pool, Kristina. And I mean that in the most complimentary way.” Michael’s lips twitched. For him that passed as a smile.
Julia watched the byplay between the two, struck as always by the differences between the siblings, something that went far beyond the six-year gap in their ages and their respective sexes.
Kristina was as open and outspoken as Michael was cool, closed and controlled. Though his family found him remote and enigmatic, over the past year Julia had come to regard him as an intensely private person, someone who did not feel the need to express his every thought or share his innermost feelings with one and all. An introvert herself, she thought she recognized some of the same qualities in Michael.
Not that he was quiet and shy, like she was. The notion of a shy, hesitant Michael Fortune was unfathomable. He exuded a confidence and sure sense of conviction that often bordered on arrogance.
He could be incredibly stubborn, too. Julia had seen him refuse to yield on an issue or stand, no matter how great the pressure—or who applied it. And though his gregarious family complained that he was aloof to the point of being a recluse, they’d never succeeded in converting him to their own exuberant brand of sociability.
“Actually, Julia and I were drooling over the hunks in this magazine.” Laughing, Kristina grabbed the copy of Fame and thrust it into Michael’s hands.
Before looking at the issue, Michael glanced quizzically at Julia. Color suffused her cheeks, and she quickly looked away when his eyes met hers.
Michael felt a stirring of sympathy for her. Clearly, Kristina was joking around and had incorporated poor Julia into the silliness, mortifying her.
He instantly exonerated his assistant, because he simply couldn’t imagine Julia Chandler drooling over pictures of the pretty boys that Kristina would consider hunks.
Julia was always proper, circumspect and competent, qualities he especially valued because they’d been sorely lacking in the parade of assistants who had preceded her. He still held grim memories of the time before Julia had come to work for him.
He’d had to endure all those snide remarks and jokes about the “revolving door” on his assistant’s office. There was gossip that he was impossible to work for and would never be able to keep an assistant longer than a few months. The people in the human-resources department were forever whining that his policy of changing personnel, which sometimes seemed to happen from week to week, made their record-keeping impossibly difficult.
His uncle Jake, the corporation’s CEO, had actually suggested that Michael take a sensitivity-training workshop to put him in touch with the tender feelings of those hapless employees who couldn’t live up to his workaholic standards.
Michael had been outraged. He didn’t want an assistant who couldn’t meet his demands, and he certainly didn’t want to be in touch with their feelings! “I’ll sign up for that workshop when you do, Jake,” he’d said to his uncle, whom he knew did a wicked parody of a sensitivity-training-session leader.
It had been a considerable relief when Julia Chandler—reliable, bright and efficient—arrived and put an end to the parade. That they worked so well together was still something of a wonder to him, when he paused to consider it.
Julia was quiet and unassuming, not the flashy type who sought male attention, and for that, Michael was profoundly grateful. Too many of his past assistants had imagined themselves in love with him and had dressed and acted provocatively to catch his attention, their minds focused on landing the boss instead of on their work. They’d never lasted more than a few weeks. A frazzled Michael, unable to get any productive work from them, had inevitably sent them on their way.
His eyes narrowed as he continued his thoughtful perusal of Julia Chandler. Her simple gray suit and her hairstyle were modest and professional. She had a smooth, ivory complexion that contrasted nicely with the darker color of her nut brown hair. And though Julia wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense, her high cheekbones, firm little chin and large, intelligent gray eyes held an appeal all their own.
Not for him, of course, Michael was quick to assure himself. He was not interested in pursuing a relationship with the best and longest-lasting assistant he’d ever had. He wasn’t interested in pursuing a relationship with any woman that extended beyond short-term safe sex with absolutely no strings attached. His work was the primary driving force in his life and he couldn’t imagine anyone taking precedence over it.
“Go on, look at the magazine, Mike,” Kristina ordered, jarring him from his reverie.
Michael frowned. “Why would I have any interest in looking at the well-oiled Neanderthals you’ve been drooling over?”
“Well-oiled Neanderthals, huh?” Kristina snickered. “Oh, I think you’ll be very interested in seeing these guys, Mike. One in particular.”
Julia tensed. It was like watching someone about to step in front of a speeding bus. She wanted to call out a warning, but her voice seemed to be frozen in her throat. She stood stock-still, watching as Michael cast a disdainful glance at the article.
She saw him gape in disbelief as he read the list of top-ten most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A., one of whom was him!
The magazine slipped from his fingers, and Julia knew it was a sign of how upset Michael really was. She’d never seen him drop so much as a pencil before. But the magazine hit the floor, its pages fluttering like the wings of a frantic bird.
“Who is responsible for this?”
Michael’s voice was low, every syllable precise, his blue eyes like twin chips of ice. Though his expression remained impassive, Julia instantly recognized the signs of his fury. Her boss was the most controlled person she had ever met, never given to dramatic displays of temper, but she knew he was quite capable of rage.
She’d witnessed his wrath when something went awry within the Fortune Corporation, had seen his dark blue eyes turn cold with anger and had heard his sharp tone of voice, as unnerving as any blustery barrage.
Kristina, however, either didn’t recognize or else chose to ignore his symptoms of anger. “It’s so cool, isn’t it, Mike? You’ll be a household name along with—”
“I am insulted and infuriated at this atrocious invasion of privacy!” Michael’s voice was low and deep. “Did you do it, Kristina? Is this another inappropriate idea of yours, one confusing advertising with publicity? Did you contact this magazine and—”
“I did not!” Kristina was offended.
“Then how did they get my name? And my picture?” demanded Michael. “Why would they put me on this stupid list unless somebody—you—engineered it?”
“The magazine editors picked you. I had nothing to do with it,” Kristina exclaimed defensively. “It’s your own fault you’re one of the chosen, brother.”
“I know that it’s fashionable to blame the victim these days, but do you mind explaining why I am responsible for this—this…” Words failed him.
Julia was worried. She had never seen Michael driven to speechlessness in the entire time she’d known him.
“Just consider the facts, Mike,” Kristina retorted, undaunted by her brother’s fury. “You’re twenty-nine years old and you’re single, good-looking and rich. You’re a member of a prominent family and you already hold an important position in the company. Plus, you’re actually good at what you do, so you’re probably going to succeed Uncle Jake as CEO sometime in the future. That makes you supereligible, and that’s how you made the list.”
Michael wasn’t buying it. “What about that picture of me?” he demanded coldly. “Next you’ll accuse me of sending it in myself.”
“I don’t know how they got your picture,” Kristina said with a huff. “Maybe your mother sent it in, hoping that some heiress would hop a plane to Minneapolis and marry you, giving Mommie Dearest yet another crack at even more wealth. I certainly wouldn’t put it past her. Your mother would do anything for money!”
Michael seemed to turn to stone, every muscle in his body tight, his eyes burning with dark fire. At six foot one, he towered over both women, and Julia shrank back, feeling suddenly, inordinately intimidated by his size and presence. Kristina, who was glowering at her brother, clearly did not.
When Michael spoke, his voice was eerily calm, his face a composed, expressionless mask. “I can’t waste any more time on this nonsense—I have work to do. Julia, will you please escort my sister out of here?”
He turned and went inside his own office, closing the door behind him with careful, quiet finality.
Silence descended like a shroud for a few long moments. Finally, Kristina heaved an exasperated sigh. “Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have accused his mother. But to be perfectly honest, his mother is a greedy, vindictive witch! You’ve met Sheila, haven’t you, Julia?”
Julia nodded reluctantly. Oh yes, she’d met Sheila, Nate Fortune’s scheming, narcissistic first wife, the mother of Michael and his brother Kyle and sister Jane.
Nate, the younger brother of CEO Jake, was the lawyer in charge of contracts, patents, suits and other legal matters for the Fortune Corporation. Kristina was the product of Nate’s second marriage to warm, down-to-earth Barbara, the polar opposite of Sheila.
Julia didn’t care for Sheila Fortune, who had been sharp and condescending whenever she swept into the office. But being Michael’s employee, Julia certainly wasn’t about to join in trashing his mother.
Kristina didn’t expect her to. She was perfectly content to trash her father’s first wife on her own. “Truly, I don’t know how my sister and brothers stood living with Sheila when they were growing up, even part of the time. My dad said Sheila deliberately got pregnant with Mike and Kyle and Jane to insure herself eternal child support, not to mention a cushy lifetime of alimony that—”
To Julia’s immense relief, the telephone rang, cutting Kristina off in midtirade. While Julia answered the call, Kristina grabbed the magazine and left the office with a quick wave.
The rest of the morning was exceptionally busy, and Julia was in the midst of compiling copies of several targeted marketing surveys conducted by the company when Lynn, Margaret and Diana, assistants to other Fortune executives, arrived in her office.
“Time for lunch,” Lynn announced. “We’re debating between the Loon Café, where we can watch the yuppies eat while they talk on their cellular phones, or the mall. What’s your pleasure?”
Julia visibly started. “I had no idea it was this late!”
“No wonder. You’re buried under a ton of paperwork,” Diana observed. “But even slaves have to eat, so climb out from under it and come with us.”
The women made a point of lunching together at least once or twice a week, and Julia was always included. She hated to forgo their lunch date today, but these surveys were so time-consuming….
Michael chose that moment to enter her office. His expression could be interpreted as either questioning or accusing.
Julia chose to interpret it as questioning. “I was just thinking about going to lunch,” she explained.
“Lunch?” Michael echoed, as if the concept were unfamiliar to him.
Julia saw her friends exchange glances. “I’ll finish these surveys when I get back,” she said, her decision made. She was not a slave and intended to prove it.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to wait until after you get back to ask you to download these files.” Michael placed a stack of diskettes on her desk. Without another word, he turned and went back into his office.
“Brr! The temperature always drops at least twenty-five degrees when he’s in a room.” Margaret pretended to shiver. “The man is an emotional refrigerator.”
“Think of the career he could have in the frozen-food industry!” Diana said with a chuckle.
“He’s sort of in a bad mood today.” Julia came to Michael’s defense. Having seen that eligible-bachelor list and guessing the uproar it was going to generate, she figured he was entitled to one. “He has a lot on his mind.”
The four women left the office and started down the corridor toward the elevators.
“How do you tell his bad moods from his good ones?” Lynn queried. “Have you ever actually seen the man smile?”
“He is very reserved,” Julia explained. “But when you get to know him well, he is really a nice guy.” She was certain that was true, though she had yet to get to know him well.
“If you say so,” Margaret said doubtfully. “Hey, I’m casting my vote for the mall. There’s a fifty-percent-off sale at Lindstroms’ starting today….”
It wasn’t until later, when Julia was on her way home at the end of the day, that she had time to think about Kristina’s uncensored comments on Sheila Fortune, the woman who’d married and bitterly divorced Michael’s father.
Julia rode the bus to and from work because her job status did not include a parking place in the Fortune Building and the cost of all-day parking in town was prohibitive. But she didn’t mind the bus rides. If she didn’t have a book to read, she sat and gazed out the window, absorbed in thought. Today she did have a book—a thriller about a crime-solving coroner—but she laid it on her lap and let her mind drift to Michael Fortune.
Hearing those few basic facts about Sheila and Nate Fortune’s rancorous marriage and divorce did explain Michael’s uncompromising view of marriage, Julia mused.
He was adamantly against it. Julia had never heard anybody express such strong antimarriage views. And he certainly hadn’t altered his perspective this past year, during which three members of his family had decided to marry.
He had distanced himself as much as possible from the events. Each time—when his cousin Caroline married Nick Valkov, when his brother Kyle married Samantha Rawlings and when Caroline’s sister Allison married Rafe Stone—Michael had sent Julia to select a wedding gift.
“Buy whatever you think is appropriate. I certainly have no ideas and no interest in anything pertaining to marriage,” he’d said, giving her carte blanche with his credit cards. He did not want to see or hear about what she’d bought for the happy couples.
Julia had hoped her selections were acceptable. The nice thank-you notes written to Michael by the brides had given her a warm glow. She sincerely hoped that all three couples would live the proverbial “happily ever after.”
Michael did not share her optimism. Each time, before signing his name to the wedding cards she’d purchased with the gifts, he’d made a sound that was something between a sarcastic laugh and a growl.
“I guess if this is what they really want to do…” he’d said all three times, his tone disapproving. Julia had once heard someone make a similar statement in a similar tone when commenting on a family of acrobats who insisted on working without a safety net.
“Personally, I’d rather be dead than married,” Michael had added all three times, while handing the cards back to her.
“Do you really believe it’s better to be dead than wed?” Julia had paraphrased wryly the third time he’d expressed the sentiment.
“Better dead than wed,” Michael repeated glibly. “Hmm, not bad. I think it has potential as a slogan. Maybe I’ll run it by my cousin Caroline in marketing.”
“Caroline would rather be wed,” Julia murmured. “You bought her a pair of lovely, antique silver candlesticks and signed a wedding card for her a few months ago, remember?”
“I remember signing the card. I have no knowledge of the candlesticks, nor do I care to.”
“Well, Caroline said that she loves them.”
“Good. Since you’re in sync with her tastes, I’ll put you in charge of buying Baby Valkov its welcome-to-the-world gift when the time comes.”
“I’d heard that Caroline was expecting a baby,” Julia murmured.
Everyone in the company knew, because Caroline Fortune Valkov was visibly pregnant. From what Julia heard through the company grapevine, Fortune’s vice president of marketing and her research-chemist husband were as blissfully happy as the card Michael had signed wished them to be.
“That seems to be the way it goes.” Michael looked grim. “Get married and then have a kid, for all the wrong reasons. Of course, some people do it backward—get pregnant and then get married—but the part about the kid being conceived for all the wrong reasons still applies. Doubly so in the shotgun-wedding cases.”
Julia was nonplussed. They’d never had a discussion like this one. And while she had been uncomfortable discussing his family members, she was even more unsettled by his starkly pessimistic views regarding their future. “You don’t believe your cousin and her husband are having a child because they love each other and want to create a family together?”
He’d given her an almost pitying glance, as if she’d just confessed that, as a twenty-six-year-old, she still firmly believed in the existence of Santa Claus.
“Love has nothing to do with it, Julia. The kid could be an accident, the result of a night of too much wine and an overload of hormones. Or if the pregnancy was actually planned, maybe Caroline believes a child will give Nick more incentive to stay with her—and the Fortune Corporation, of course. He is a valuable asset to the company, and Caroline is too good a businesswoman not to realize it. As for Nick, perhaps he sees a child as a way for him to stake a permanent claim on the Fortune money.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Julia said rather boldly. She’d seen the couple together, and their love for each other was obvious, even to an outsider like herself.
Michael shrugged. “Couples have been using children to serve their own agendas from time immemorial, Julia.”
“It’s not always that way. Don’t you think anybody has a baby for the right reasons?” Julia had been unable to keep herself from asking.
Michael had given that cynical laugh-growl and turned his attention back to the papers on his desk, not bothering to dignify such a naive question with an answer.
Having heard about Sheila Fortune, who according to Kristina had produced three children for monetary gain, Julia better understood Michael’s scornful pessimism.
Understood, but did not accept. Julia believed in love and marriage and the children who resulted from such a union. She’d been one herself, and she intended someday to have a loving union like the one her parents had shared. To have children who were loved and wanted by two parents who cherished each other.
She thought back to those wonderful days when her family had been together—Mom and Dad, she and her younger sister, Joanna. A lump lodged in Julia’s throat, and she blinked away the tears that suddenly filled her eyes.
The Chandler family’s time together had been brief, making the happy memories particularly poignant and bittersweet. Her father’s unexpected death from the complications of appendicitis had occurred when she was seventeen. Tragedy had struck again three years ago when a car accident claimed her mother’s life and grievously injured poor Joanna.
Thinking of her younger sister rallied Julia, and she forcefully shook off the aura of gloom threatening to envelop her. Joanna was twenty years old now and in a superior rehabilitation center, working hard to overcome the effects of her devastating injuries from the crash.
Julia was filled with a quiet pride as she visualized her little sister fighting to overcome the odds stacked against her. With the help of a program tailored specifically for her recovery, consisting of grueling regimes of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, music therapy and recreational therapy, Joanna never wasted time feeling sorry for herself.
And until Joanna was well again and able to live an independent life, Julia had put her own hopes and dreams on hold. Her job at the Fortune Corporation was all-important because her generous salary enabled her to pay Joanna’s considerable expenses at the rehab center. Julia didn’t protest about the long hours that workaholic Michael Fortune demanded because there was nothing and no one in her life as important as Joanna and their daily phone calls and weekend visits.
A happy marriage to a man who loved her as much as she loved him, and their much-wanted, much-loved children, had to wait. But when the time was finally right, Julia was certain she would find him. Or maybe he would find her.
Two
“Another bag of mail for the eligible bachelor!” Denny, the clerk from the mail room, sang out, heaving an industrial-size plastic sack into Julia’s office. Three other sacks just like it took up most of the floor space. “There’s more coming in. We had to clear this out to make room.”
“Mr. Fortune will be thrilled to hear it,” Julia murmured wryly.
“Not!” Denny chuckled, pleased with his own joke. “We heard he’s furious about all this. But me and my buddies sure don’t know why. If I had hundreds and hundreds of letters from hot babes craving my bod, you can believe I’d be in paradise!”
Julia glanced at the short, perspiring overweight young man, who was somewhere in his twenties and looked ten years older. There would never be hundreds of letters from hot babes craving his body. Maybe not even one.
“Mr. Fortune doesn’t like the attention the magazine article has brought him,” Julia explained tactfully.
For the past five days, ever since the magazine had hit the stands listing Michael Fortune as one of the top-ten most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A., she’d had versions of this same conversation with Denny whenever he arrived with another sack of mail.
Usually the mail clerk shuffled out immediately afterward, but this morning he seemed to be in a chatty mood. He lingered by her desk.
“We had to bring two more people into the mail room to handle all this extra stuff.” Denny stared at the bulging sacks with a proprietary air. “I was put in charge of them, since I’ve been in the department for five years. We call ourselves the ‘Fortune bachelor team.’”
“Ah,” said Julia. Were congratulations in order? She wasn’t quite sure.
“Yep, we open every letter addressed to Mr. Fortune that don’t have the special company code on it.”
She nodded. To distinguish Michael’s usual business correspondence from the mountain of letters inspired by the eligible-bachelor list, Julia had notified all his colleagues and associates nationally and worldwide to use a special code.
“We even open the letters marked Personal. Mr. Fortune said to especially open those ones.” Denny leaned forward and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Those are usually the ones with the really good stuff in ’em.”
Julia winced.
“You wouldn’t believe what we’ve been finding, Miss Chandler!” Denny exclaimed exuberantly. “Women send Mr. Fortune panties with their phone numbers written on them! And we’re not talking plain old underpants, either. These panties—”
“I hope you’re donating any suitable items of clothing to charity,” Julia interjected, before he could go into detail.
“Miss Chandler, no respectable charity would want them panties, I can tell you that,” Denny said with alacrity. “And then there’s the pictures being sent in! Wow!” His face reddened and he began to breathe heavily. “Mr. Fortune said we could have whatever is in the envelopes, so we divide up the pictures. Sometimes we trade ’em. Chuck actually bought one off of Jonesy for ten bucks! He offered me twenty for a really great one I got, but no way I’m selling!”
Julia’s forced smile became even harder to maintain. She glanced at her watch, a time-honored cue of dismissal. “Uh-oh, I’m running late and have to—”
“But my favorites are the videos the women send in!” Denny did not pick up on her cue. He was not interested in being dismissed. “Picture this, Miss Chandler. Women wearing these real sexy getups or else lying naked on rugs or on beds with candles lighted and music playing while they tell Mr. Fortune how and what they’re going to—”
“I really have to—to get this document to Mr. Fortune for his signature.” Julia jumped to her feet, almost knocking over her desk chair. “It’s extremely urgent.”
“Well, tell Mr. Fortune we followed his orders. There are only letters in the bags. We took care of the other stuff for him.” Smirking, Denny lumbered from the office.
The other stuff. Julia imagined Denny and his cronies slavering over their newfound panty, photo and video collections, and shuddered.
The door to Michael’s office opened, and he stood on the threshold, grim faced. His dark blue eyes focused immediately on the latest sack of mail. “Oh, Lord, not more!”
“Denny wanted me to assure you that he and his crew have removed, uh, any accompanying paraphernalia, and that these sacks contain only letters.”
“Only letters!” Michael echoed tightly. Exasperated, he ran his hand through his dark, thick hair, tousling it. “Do you have any idea of the content of those letters?”
“A fairly good idea,” Julia admitted. She felt a totally unexpected, strange and disconcerting impulse to smooth his hair back into place, and she clasped her hands in her lap, as if to physically prevent herself from acting upon it. “From Denny. He’s extremely enthusiastic about your bachelor-list mail.”
Michael groaned. “This is a nightmare!”
He entered her office and began to pace. It wasn’t easy, since the big mail sacks took up most of the room. Nevertheless, Michael wound restlessly among them.
“Ever since that damnable magazine hit the stands, I haven’t had a moment’s peace. I’m hounded unmercifully day and night by women. I’ve had to get an unlisted phone number. I have to sneak out of my apartment at odd hours and go skulking in and out of the building like a criminal on the run. I don’t dare go to a restaurant or a store or—or anywhere. Women come up to me and tell me the most incredibly intimate things, like their bra size or what they’ll do if I—”
He broke off abruptly, a dark red flush staining his neck. Julia was both amazed and amused. Was Michael Fortune blushing?
“I guess it’s a good thing Denny and his pals have taken custody of the pictures and videos your, er, fans have sent,” she murmured. “According to Denny, who’s become something of an expert in the field, they’re way beyond an R rating.”
“Don’t be flippant, Julia!” Michael reprimanded sternly. “You have only to think about what has happened in the last five days to recognize what an upheaval that list has caused, not only to me personally but to the company!”
“There was definitely an upheaval when the company’s entire computer system had a seizure because all the voice-mail boxes were overloaded with messages for you,” Julia agreed.
“The whole system was down for hours on three separate days!” Michael was beside himself. “How can we possibly conduct business under those conditions? It’s a catastrophe!”
“It certainly isn’t business as usual,” Julia affirmed mildly.
Michael’s eyes glowed like blue flames. “When I told Kristina that having my name on that list constituted an atrocious invasion of privacy, I had no idea how bad it would actually be. The phones and fax machines are jammed with messages from women demanding to meet me. Every radio and TV station in Minneapolis and St. Paul calls at least once a day to schedule an interview with me. The newspapers—both in and out of state—want pictures and interviews, and those syndicated TV tabloid shows have actually sent people to try to get me to consent to appear on their programs. And then there are the talk shows who want to get the ten of us from that wretched list into their studios with an entire audience comprised of single women!”
“That could get ugly,” Julia said dryly. “I have visions of the ten of you being torn limb from limb by your overly enthusiastic prospective brides.”
“It’s not a far-fetched scene. After living through this, I can well believe that there are hundreds of women out there crazy enough to do anything to snare a man!”
“If it’s any consolation, I’m sure the other nine eligible bachelors are being harassed, too.”
“It isn’t any consolation at all!” Michael growled. “The situation is intolerable. I can’t live this way. Bad enough that I can hardly focus on my work with all the distractions and interruptions, but the entire company has been disrupted by this—this army of zealous women who—” Abruptly, he stopped talking, stopped walking and turned to face her. “I just don’t get it, Julia. Why are they doing this?”
“The magazine said the ten eligible-bachelor picks were the ‘Prince Charmings of the ’90s’,” Julia said thoughtfully. “I guess they tapped into all the fairy-tale magic that surrounds—”
“Fairy-tale magic!” Michael gave a derisive snort. “Prince Charming! Give me a break! What woman in her right mind wants to be a sniveling simp like Cinderella?”
“I agree the Prince Charming concept is outdated, and I’ve always thought Cinderella was passive to the point of being dysfunctional.” Julia grinned. “But these letter writers aren’t passive, they’re assertive, and they probably find the prospect of being Mrs. Michael Fortune—”
“There is never going to be a Mrs. Michael Fortune,” Michael promised fiercely. “But even if I did have the slightest inclination to marry, I would never choose a wife by drawing a letter out of a sack. What sane man would? So why do these women bombard us with mail?”
“Hope springs eternal, I guess.”
“There is hope and there is delusion, Julia. These letters fall firmly into the latter category.”
“Well, all those women who wrote in can’t be delusional, so maybe it’s, uh, ambition that is motivating them,” Julia suggested gamely.
“I’m quite familiar with that particular ambition.” Michael’s lips twisted in a cynical grimace. “This entire debacle simply proves what I’ve always known—that women are obsessed with money and will do just about anything to get it.”
“That’s a very depressing point of view, not to mention a vast over-generalization,” Julia said, in defense of every member of the female sex who was not a money-grubbing fortune hunter. Or Fortune hunter.
“Sure.” He laughed coldly. “Whatever, Julia.”
He leaned against the wall and folded his arms in front of his chest. “Did you hear that my mother was the one who sent in that picture of me? She admitted it and didn’t even apologize for doing it. The magazine contacted her, told her about the article, and she express-mailed the photo the next day. Charged the mailing expenses to my dad, of course.”
Julia nodded. She’d heard. She also knew that Nate Fortune had refused to pay and had sent the bill back to Sheila, prompting a visit by her to company headquarters.
Julia knew all about it because Sheila and Nate Fortune had had a screaming match in the corridor of the legal department. Everybody who worked there had heard every word, and news of the scene quickly spread throughout the company.
“Kristina was also right about my mother’s reason for sending my picture into the magazine.” Michael stared broodingly at the floor. “Mother actually said she hoped that the daughter of a ‘sinfully rich billionaire’ would become aware of my existence and contact me.”
His piercing blue eyes met Julia’s, and she shifted uneasily under his gaze. He seemed to be waiting for her to comment.
“I don’t know very much about the daughters of sinfully rich billionaires.” She chose her words carefully, determined to be tactful. “But I don’t think choosing a husband from a magazine list is, uh, quite their style.”
“As if that would deter Mother! She also delivered her standard lecture on the importance of acquiring one’s own immense personal fortune, by whatever means possible. I’ve been hearing that one since I was in kindergarten.” He gave Julia a hard stare. “Did your mother talk to you like that?”
“When I was in kindergarten, my mother and I talked about my dolls and the Easter Bunny and things like that. I can’t remember any advice about financial planning for the future.”
“What? No counsel on how to land a rich husband? No advice on ways to hold out against a prenuptial agreement or on the number of carats requisite in the diamond engagement ring to be purchased by the sucker on the hook? I thought all mothers indoctrinated their daughters about the necessity of marrying into wealth, from the time they were in the cradle.”
“Did your mother have discussions like that with your sister?” Julia asked curiously.
“Of course. For all the good it did. Poor idealistic Janie! She was determined to find true love without money and only succeeded in getting abandoned by the father of her child when he learned she was pregnant. I don’t know what upset our mother more—the fact that Jane slept with a man who wasn’t wealthy enough to be sued for a seven-figure child-support settlement or the fact that Sheila was going to be a grandmother. She still finds it difficult to admit her grandmother status.”
“But Cody is such an adorable little boy,” Julia murmured. She’d seen pictures of Jane’s six-year-old son.
“And my brother Kyle’s little girl, Caitlyn, is an adorable child, too. That doesn’t mean Mother wants to be Cody’s and Caitlyn’s—or anybody’s—grandmother.”
“Sheila Fortune isn’t exactly my idea of a grandmother,” Julia admitted quietly.
“She isn’t anyone’s idea of a grandmother, hers included. However, she does believe in carrying out what she calls her ‘maternal duty,’ and that included sending a picture of me to the magazine. Naturally, there is always an element of self-interest in Sheila’s maternal actions. For example, if that list happened to net me an heiress, I’m certain Mother would arrive at my door, demanding her cut.”
Julia’s lips quirked. “Sort of a finder’s fee.”
“Exactly.” Michael actually smiled—for a split second or two. Then he sighed heavily. “I just want all of this to be over. I’m sick and tired of feeling trapped. I want my privacy back. I want my life back!”
“The magazine comes out weekly, and a new issue will be on the stands in a couple of days,” Julia commented, her voice soothing. “I think you can expect the level of interest to drop then.”
“I hope you’re right,” Michael muttered, stepping deftly around a bulging sack. “Call maintainence and have them dispose of all these bags immediately. And instruct the mail room to stop using this office as a dumping ground. From now on, any superfluous correspondence addressed to me is to be taken directly to the garbage.” He retreated into his office, slamming the door behind him.
He’d begun slamming doors three days ago. Julia sank back in her chair, oddly unsettled by the long personal conversation she’d had with her boss.
It was apparent that this bachelors-list business was really taking its toll on him. The door-slamming, the personal revelations, even the brief flashes of dark humor—all were cracks in Michael’s previously impenetrable armor of control.
She thought of Denny and his cronies in the mail room, enjoying a vicarious thrill at the overwhelming attention that Michael found repugnant. A psychologist could have a field day analyzing the situation.
Maybe someday when she was a psychologist—Julia always thought when, never if—she would write a paper entitled “One Man’s Curse, Another Man’s Blessing,” exploring the topic in detail.
Someday. Julia allowed herself to daydream about the future for just a few moments—a future in which Joanna would be completely recovered. Though the doctors at the rehab center were cautious about Joanna’s prospective ability to attend college, Julia liked to picture her sister as a future student at the University of Minnesota, right here in town at the Twin Cities campus. Julia had earned her own undergraduate degree in psychology there and…had completed one year of graduate school, the first steps toward her goal of becoming a clinical psychologist and working with troubled children and adolescents. A goal Julia intended to achieve. Someday.
But she never lingered very long in the fantasy world of the future. She’d learned that it was far safer to live in the present than to dream of tomorrow. As a survivor of sudden devastating losses, she was well aware that everything could change in an instant, painfully and irrevocably altering one’s life in the most profound and unimaginable ways.
Her thoughts swung back to the past, and she silently thanked her mother for insisting that she take some courses at the local business school during her summer breaks from college. It had been hard at the time, working a forty-hour week to earn her next year’s tuition money while taking business courses. But it had been Julia’s office skills, not her degree in psychology, that had enabled her to land well-paying jobs, first at the Olson, Anderson & Lake Consulting Firm and now here at the Fortune Corporation.
The telephone rang, and Julia quickly answered it. Somehow an enterprising reporter had managed to slip through the receptionist’s call-screening and reach the desk of Michael Fortune’s executive assistant. She asked some intrusive and highly intimate questions about Michael’s sex life and responded to Julia’s terse “no comment” with snickers and not-so-sly innuendos.
Julia’s cheeks turned a ruby shade of red. “I repeat, no comment!” she said sternly and slammed down the phone. The action was oddly satisfying. No wonder Michael had taken to slamming doors.
Julia shared an apartment with three other young women— Jen, Debby and Kia, all students at the West Bank segment of the University of Minnesota, just west of the Mississippi River.
Kia, a graduate student in social work, shared a room with Julia; they’d lived together for the past two years. Jen and Debby, both drama majors in their senior year, had moved into the apartment in August and occupied the other bedroom. All four used the common areas—kitchen and living room.
Lamentably, there was only one bathroom. During her rare flights of fancy, Julia visualized having a bathroom that was hers alone. It seemed like the ultimate luxury.
The apartment was no worse and a lot better than many of the rental units available to upper-level students who didn’t live in university-owned dorms. The building wasn’t too old and the rent wasn’t too high. Split four ways, it was downright cheap for Julia, which was exactly what she wanted.
And needed. Almost all of her salary went to pay Joanna’s expenses at the rehabilitation center. Though Medicaid had paid for Joanna’s eleven-month hospitalization, coverage stopped when she was discharged from the hospital.
Had Joanna gone to a nursing home, the government would have picked up the tab, but Julia didn’t consider it, not even for a moment. She’d spent the long months after her sister’s accident researching facilities, and the rehabilitation hospital on the outskirts of town was superior in every way. There Joanna could receive the intensive specialized therapy she required to eventually lead an independent, productive life.
The alternative—the nursing home—provided custodial care only. Julia viewed placing Joanna there as giving up hope, of resigning her little sister to a life of institutional dependency.
So Julia had sold the Chandler family’s house, used the money to fund Joanna at the rehab center and had moved back into cheaper living quarters in the university section of the city.
Though she was only twenty-six, sometimes she felt decades older than her student neighbors. “Greek Week,” when the fraternities and sororities took over the neighborhood, had certainly lost its charm for her, especially when drunken serenades and contests went on till dawn and she had to get up for work by six.
But both the apartment and the neighborhood were quiet when Julia arrived home a few minutes before eight-thirty. She didn’t know where her roommates were. The four seldom socialized together, although Julia and Kia occasionally ran or biked together in the evenings or on weekends when their schedules coincided. There were a number of suitable trails and paths around the many lakes and criss-crossing parks throughout the city.
Julia gazed longingly out the window into the darkness, wishing Kia were around now. Julia could use a brisk run to work off the frustrations of the long day.
For a few minutes, she stood by the window and debated whether or not to go out alone. The weather was warm for early October, perfect for an evening run, but the darkness concerned her. What woman anywhere wasn’t aware of the dangers of being out alone at night?
But tonight she felt confined and resented the restrictions. Tonight she wanted to be free of both risks and precautions. Two years ago she’d taken a self-defense class at the Y, and the neighborhood was considered safe, she rationalized. There were people around at all hours, especially since she lived so near the theater district, home of an incredible number of productions staged by the university drama department.
Julia vaguely recalled Jen and Debby mentioning a play they were both working in, Jen as an actress and Debby as a “techie” behind the scenes. A light satire, they’d said, and it sounded entertaining. Julia made a mental note to ask them about the dates and times of the show.
She would go see it, if she ever got out of the office in time to make the first act. The way things were going now, she had her doubts. Just thinking about the long and dreadful day at work stressed her all over again.
The events played through her mind like a tape in a VCR. She only wished she could fast-forward certain nerve-jangling scenes. Like when the voice-mail system had crashed again due to an overload of lovelorn messages to Michael Fortune. The mishap had been followed by an angry visit from Jake Fortune himself.
Unfortunately, Michael had been in a meeting and unavailable, so Julia had been the hapless recipient of Jake’s fury. In a steely, formidable tone, Fortune’s boss-of-bosses had ordered her to pass along his vituperative message to Michael, even making her repeat it back to him word for word, to prove she’d gotten it right!
Her palms had been sweating after that encounter. It was bad enough to get chewed out by the CEO of the entire corporation, but to be expected to spread the vitriol to her boss was ulcer inducing. Julia had not delivered Jake’s message to Michael, and she’d spent the rest of the day worrying that her crime of omission would be detected by Jake Fortune. To her great relief, he hadn’t checked back to find out if she had or hadn’t followed his orders.
The day hadn’t improved as morning dragged into afternoon. The voice-mail system took longer than usual to fix, and by the time it was running smoothly, and an exasperated group of buyers from department stores around the country were able to contact the Fortune Corporation about new orders, everybody’s tempers were frayed.
Next came word that a vital shipment of ingredients from overseas had been delayed at the docks in New York, which meant an even longer wait on the production line. That meant dealing with frustrated supervisors in production who were not pleased with the ensuing delays, as well as relaying the bad news to stores that would not be receiving their Fortune products when expected.
Julia had placed the calls for Michael and received a number of tongue-lashings in true shoot-the-messenger fashion. She could only imagine the wrath they would have expended on Michael.
Finally, Kristina had arrived to complain about her latest fight with the head honchos in advertising, whom she claimed lacked vision and guts and were hopeless prudes in the bargain. Julia had ushered her into Michael’s office and hadn’t been privy to Kristina’s latest campaign to “definitively capture the youth market,” but from the raised voices radiating from Michael’s office and Kristina’s stormy exit, she’d guessed the meeting had not gone well.
Neither had the flurry of calls Julia then had to place to the advertising department. Cast in the hapless-messenger role once again, she had been snarled and snapped at by world-class snappers and snarlers.
And, of course, she could say nothing back to any of them. That wasn’t in her job description. She had to grit her teeth and swallow any retort, however appropriate. Her jaws ached from all that gritting.
Julia decided she definitely was going to run. She was wired and edgy, filled with tension that needed to be discharged. In the mood she was in, God help any potential attacker if he dared to attack her!
Shedding her prim office wear, she pulled on a pair of bright gold running shorts and a purple-and-gold University of Minnesota T-shirt, laced up her running shoes and stepped out into the balmy October night. A slight breeze rustled through the branches of the trees. She ran along the sidewalk, moving to the street whenever she encountered pedestrians. Fallen leaves, the first of many more to come, crackled under her feet. Their brilliant red, orange and yellow hues were already beginning to fade as they lay drying on the ground.
She had run a full mile before the tensions of the day began to slowly drain from her. She turned onto a well-lit path that followed the river and glanced at the dark, swiftly-flowing waters.
Julia found herself wondering if Michael was unwinding right now and if so, where and how. She knew he sometimes used the gym in the downtown City Club, and he’d been known to enjoy beating his brother Kyle at racquetball.
But Kyle wasn’t living in Minneapolis anymore, he was at his ranch in Wyoming with his wife and daughter, so there would be no more friendly games on the racquetball court to help alleviate Michael’s stress. And the City Club gym closed at eight o’clock.
Of course, there were other ways to alleviate tension, other kinds of physical activity that didn’t involve leaving the bedroom. Julia felt heat suffuse her skin and knew it wasn’t completely due to the exertion of running.
She didn’t want to think of Michael and sex, but it was hard not to, considering the fact that hundreds of women had been innundating him with offers of sex all week long.
And he had spurned them all.
It wasn’t that he was bent on leading a life of celibacy. Julia knew very well that her boss had women companions from time to time. She ought to know; she was the one who made the dinner and theater reservations in the city and the travel arrangements when the couple took the occasional getaway weekend. She was the one who ordered the flowers to be sent—always roses; Michael was not cheap when it came to florist bills. She was also the one who either put through or refused to put through calls from his lady friend of the moment, depending on the instructions of Michael Fortune himself.
During her tenure as his faithful assistant, Julia had learned quite a bit about the ABC’s of courtship, Michael Fortune style:
A. Michael favored what he called “serial monogamy.” He dated only one woman at a time and expected his chosen candidate to limit herself strictly to him during that period.
B. None of his relationships seemed to last very long. Julia attributed that to his strong antimarriage bias. An involvement with no chance of becoming permanent, or even serious, was doomed to be self-limiting and short-term.
C. Once Michael decided to end the relationship, it was truly over, no matter how his current partner might feel about the matter. If the woman happened to be the one to call it quits, he accepted her decision without ever trying to change her mind. He just didn’t care enough to bother.
Once, one of his exes, bitter over “being dumped just before I was going to dump him,” had given Julia an earful. “Michael Fortune has to be the one in control,” the woman had griped, while Julia maintained a discreet silence. “He demands that the power he holds as an executive in his office be extended to his personal life, and that makes him a lousy candidate for a romance. I’m sure it’s better to work for him than to be in love with him.”
Julia wholeheartedly agreed. Michael was a considerate, even thoughtful boss, but as a lover… She didn’t pursue that line of thought, steering clear of the dangers of an impossible romantic fantasy.
All those eager women in hot pursuit of Michael should’ve done the same, but they couldn’t have known that being placed on the magazine’s “most eligible” list would render him totally ineligible to them. Michael would never consent to being sought after. He had to be the one in charge of a relationship, which meant beginning it himself. He was the proud hunter, not the hunted.
As she ran, Julia passed a number of other joggers and several strolling couples as well. A great many people had opted for outdoor exercise tonight. When she saw a tall, very familiar masculine form running along the path toward her, she blinked in astonishment.
It couldn’t be! Her imagination was playing tricks on her.
She’d spent so many hours working with him and so many of her off-duty hours thinking about him that now she was conjuring up images of Michael Fortune.
Except that the dark-haired man in the blue running shorts and white T-shirt who was approaching her was no figment of her imagination.
It was Michael Fortune himself, and he looked as startled to see Julia as she was to see him.
Three
“Julia?” Michael stared at her as they met on the path.
He could hardly believe his eyes. This young woman, whose face was glowing with perspiration and whose clothes were damp with sweat, seemed the antithesis of the always impeccable, unruffled Julia Chandler whom he worked with day in and day out.
He had never seen the office Julia with a hair out of place, but right now strands of her brown hair were escaping from the confines of her usually tight French braid. She quickly, self-consciously, brushed them back with her hand.
His eyes followed her gesture, and he was suddenly struck by the sight of her small, perfectly shaped ears. Earrings in the shape of small golden balls pierced the dainty flesh of her earlobes.
Michael stared, more than a little disconcerted by his inability to tear his eyes away from her. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d never seen her ears before. Julia wore her hair in that braided style almost every day. But he had never noticed the pink, shell-shaped perfection of her ears. And if asked, he wouldn’t have known whether or not her lobes were pierced or if she ever wore earrings.
Nor did he have any prior recollection of how slender and graceful the curve of her neck was. Now, suddenly, he couldn’t stop looking at it.
Julia touched the side of her neck in a decidedly nervous gesture.
Michael frowned. Her anxiety was understandable; he was staring at her with the avidity of a hungry vampire! What on earth was the matter with him tonight?
He decided to blame that cursed list. Lately he blamed everything on the stresses of being hounded by all those avaricious Mrs. Mike Fortune wanna-bes.
“Hello, Michael.” Julia smiled uncertainly. Her pulse rate, accelerated by her running, continued to beat just as rapidly though she was standing still.
She recognized the encounter as a singularly odd and awkward one. Until now, she and her boss had never seen each other anywhere but their workplace. The protocol there was familiar and well-defined, but it didn’t seem to apply out here on the moonlit trail.
Their apparel tonight was stunningly different from their office clothes, too. In the fourteen months they’d worked together, she had never seen Michael in such decidedly brief attire.
The short sleeves of his T-shirt emphasized bare muscled arms that had always been concealed by his crisply starched shirts and custom-tailored suit jackets. Her eyes darted to a pair of hard, muscular thighs that had never been revealed beneath the trousers of his conservative suits.
Julia quickly averted her gaze. Her mouth felt dry. She wished she had brought along her portable water bottle, but until this very moment, she hadn’t given a thought to being thirsty.
“You’re out here running?” Michael said at last, as the silence stretched uncomfortably between them. He instantly mocked himself for his inanely obvious observation. No, she wasn’t out here running, on the running trail in running clothes, sweating from the exertion of running. She was waiting for a bus!
He felt like a fool, and it was not a pleasant sensation for a man who seldom made a mistake in any area. He wouldn’t blame Julia if she zinged him with a caustic response. Kristina would undoubtedly look at him, roll her eyes and say, “Duh!”
Being Julia, his diplomatic assistant, she merely smiled that pleasant, detached smile of hers and replied politely, “Yes. After today, I felt like I really needed the exercise to unwind.”
“Believe me, I know exactly how you feel!” Michael said, his relief heartfelt. The ice was broken. Julia’s remark had placed them back in their familiar Fortune Corporation roles.
By tacit agreement, they resumed their run, side by side and at a more leisurely pace. They discussed the horrors of the day, even managed a bit of gallows humor about the misfortunes at Fortune.
Julia actually found herself confessing that Jake Fortune had visited her office to vent his frustration about the voice-mail mess, though she refrained from repeating his irate message or even mentioning the fury he’d expressed toward his nephew and toward herself.
But Michael guessed. “Poor Julia. You got caught in the blitzkrieg meant for me, didn’t you? I hope you didn’t take it personally.”
“Oh no,” Julia assured him. “I would never take being called an idiotic sycophant personally.”
“He called you that?” Michael felt anger flare through him. “No matter how angry Jake was at me, there was no reason for him to verbally abuse you.”
“He was upset. I understood,” Julia said quickly.
She was on shaky ground here, discussing the CEO with her boss! The last place she wanted to be was in the crossfire of a Fortune-to-Fortune battle. She never should’ve mentioned Jake Fortune at all, but running with Michael under the relative cover of darkness had provided the illusion of confidentiality and companionability. Somehow the words had slipped out, as if she were talking to a friend from work instead of Michael Fortune, her employer.
She strove to rectify the situation. “In fact, until now, I’d forgotten all about that conversation with Mr. Fortune.”
“Now why don’t I believe you?” Michael arched his dark brows. “I know from experience that my uncle’s verbal jabs have a way of searing your brain like a brand, at least for a while. And if Jake called you an idiotic sycophant simply because you work for me, I can imagine the choice words he had to say about me. Are you going to tell me?”
She shook her head. “You don’t want to hear.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Michael stared ahead at the starry expanse of the sky. “I’m not condoning his actions, but Uncle Jake has been under a tremendous amount of pressure since my grandmother’s death. Not only does he have to deal with losing his mother, but as you know, the reorganization at the company has caused stock values to fall. Jake feels responsible, and unfortunately, my father is more than willing to let him shoulder the blame alone.”
Julia nodded her understanding. Everybody who worked for the company knew that Nate Fortune was fiercely competitive with his older brother, Jake, and that the brothers’ relationship had long been strained as a result. Sadly, their mother’s death had driven them further apart, rather than bringing them closer in mourning.
The sudden death of Kate Fortune, the seventy-one-year-old matriarch, had impacted sharply on everybody connected to either the Fortune family or the company. In the public arena, Kate’s unexpected death and the subsequent reorganization of the company had caused stock prices to tip alarmingly, and privately, the Fortunes were devastated by their loss.
Julia had learned some of the details from newspapers, some from employee gossip and a few from the various Fortunes who passed through her office on their way to Michael’s.
She knew that Kate had been flying one of the family planes solo in Brazil when it crashed and burned in the rain forest. The charred remains of the wreckage had yielded one body, naturally presumed to be the pilot, Kate Fortune.
As someone intimately acquainted with the stunning grief resulting from sudden death, Julia understood exactly how the members of the Fortune family must’ve felt upon hearing that terrible news. How they still must be feeling as they struggled to reconcile themselves to life without Kate.
“I had the pleasure of meeting your grandmother several times when she came to your office,” Julia said quietly. “She was a delightful person, so warm and witty and dynamic. And what a memory she had! I think she knew the names of everybody who worked for the company, and she always had time to say something nice to us.”
“That was my grandmother, all right.” Michael smiled in reminiscence. “I, uh, I got the card you sent right after she…was lost. I appreciated the note you wrote, but I don’t think I ever thanked you for it.”
“I didn’t expect you to, I just wanted to tell you how much I admired her,” Julia murmured. “You must miss her terribly.”
“I don’t let myself dwell on it,” Michael said curtly, uncomfortable at the turn their conversation had taken. “Keeping busy is the best antidote for…” He cleared his throat and shrugged. “For…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
“Grief.” Julia supplied it for him. Her heart swelled with sympathy. “Yes, work does help.”
She wasn’t about to add that talking about the lost loved one helped even more. Obviously, Michael’s style of mourning forbade such an open display of emotion. “I guess working has helped everybody in your family cope,” she added softly.
“That’s true. But unfortunately for my uncle Jake, he is currently facing another crisis that has nothing to do with losing Grandmother.”
Though Michael was rarely this forthcoming, it was a relief to talk about things that had been roiling in his mind for weeks. He felt secure in confiding in Julia. She had a proven track record of loyalty to the company and to the Fortunes.
“I’ve heard from my cousins that Jake’s marriage to Erica is on shaky ground. Their girls, Caroline and Natalie and the twins, are worried sick about their parents. Apparently, Jake’s schedule and his demands are finally taking their toll on Erica, and to make matters worse, she is suffering from a major case of the empty-nest syndrome.”
“Many women have a difficult time adjusting when their children grow up and leave home,” Julia said sympathetically.
“Not my mother. She was only too happy to have her nest all to herself. But Erica is feeling her years without them. Plus she’s spouting all this midlife-crisis stuff about not fulfilling her career ambitions, blaming Uncle Jake for her decision to drop out of college to marry him and stay home to raise children. Like he put a loaded gun to her head and made her do it!” Michael’s disparaging laugh made it very clear whose side he was on in this particular Fortune war.
“Has your aunt Erica ever considered going back to college?” Julia’s psychologist leanings made it impossible for her not to offer help. “Lots of people return to complete their education these days. I’ve read about grandparents in their seventies going for their degrees.”
“Maybe you should give Erica this pep talk,” Michael suggested drolly. “She’s fifty-two, old and fading by her standards, but still full of zest by yours.”
Julia visualized Erica Fortune, who’d always struck her as the quintessential expensively kept, country-club-executive wife. Erica was an elegant blond beauty whose classic looks were ageless. She was married to one of the wealthiest men in the state. She was a mother and grandmother, with strong and healthy progeny.
“It’s hard to imagine a woman with so much not being happy,” Julia murmured.
Michael’s lips curved into a sardonic smile. “Surely you’ve heard the famous maxim, ‘money doesn’t buy happiness’? Not to mention that other old chesnut, ‘there’s more to life than money.’ Of course, all that is heresy to my mother, who staunchly holds the opposing view.”
“There are maxims and chesnuts for that viewpoint, too. How about ‘money isn’t everything, but it sure is far ahead of whatever is in second place’?” Julia cast him a quick, bright smile.
Michael felt queerly disoriented, as if he’d been cast out of time, out of place. For one dizzying moment, he scarcely recognized the young woman at his side. He was accustomed to the calmly bland, impassive mask Julia wore at the office. But when her face was alight and lively, as it was now, she was stunningly pretty!
As if of their own volition, his eyes traveled over her, taking in the sight of her small, firmly rounded breasts bobbing softly as she ran. He realized for the first time that her office clothes were not only loose fitting, they were a downright disguise, hiding a very shapely figure. Nor did those modest, below-the-knee skirts and sensible shoes she wore to work encourage anyone to glance at her legs.
Tonight, Michael’s gaze fixated on them, as if making up for lost time. She was only of average height, about five foot four, but her legs were long and sleek and very well shaped. He stared at the bare smooth skin of her thighs and heat flooded him.
Sweat beaded his forehead and his pulses pounded. He fell several paces behind her, but that tactical retreat only gave him a clear view of the shapely curves of her buttocks. Gulping for air, he began to conjugate Spanish verbs in his head as a very necessary diversion.
When Julia realized he’d stopped running, she paused and turned, looking back at him. By that time, Michael had his unexpected and thoroughly unwelcome lusty impulses under control.
“Leg cramp,” he explained briskly, catching up to her. Well, it wasn’t too far off.
For a while, they ran side by side in a not uncomfortable silence.
Then he said, “Julia?”
“Yes?”
“I apologize for what my uncle said to you today. After Uncle Jake lets off steam, he puts the incident behind him. I hope you can forget it, too.”
“I won’t give it another thought,” Julia promised. “You seem to get along with your uncle most of the time,” she added hesitantly. She hoped she didn’t seem presumptuous, making observations about Fortune family dynamics.
“I’ve always gotten along okay with Uncle Jake, even though he blows up at me from time to time.” Michael shrugged. “He can be demanding and controlling, but I know where he’s coming from.” He smiled wryly. “I think I’m coming from the same place.”
His flash of self-awareness surprised Julia. She tried and failed to suppress a grin.
Michael noticed. “So you agree that Jake and I are cut from the same cloth, hmm?”
“Let’s just say it doesn’t stretch the bounds of reality to imagine you using the term ‘idiotic sycophant,’” she dared to say.
“I’d never use it to describe you.”
“But it just might fit one of Jake’s assistants?” Julia suggested, sliding him a wry, sidelong glance.
“You know, it just might.”
They both laughed. She had a nice laugh, Michael noted. Warm and real. Not one of those phony shrieks or high-pitched trills. He’d always liked her laugh, though they didn’t do much laughing at the office. Lately, even smiles were scarce.
“Uh-oh,” Julia exclaimed.
She saw the group of young women heading toward them at the same time Michael did. The girls were in their late teens or very early twenties and were staggeringly drunk. They were singing and laughing loudly as they careened along the path…and then they spied Michael.
He tensed as one of them shrieked, “Oh, my God, it’s him! One of the top-ten bachelors, the one that lives right here in Minneapolis!”
The girl’s companions joined in the squealing. The scene stirred memories of the newsreels Julia had seen of the Beatles’ arrival in New York back in 1964. She glanced at Michael, who was staring at his admirers, utterly appalled.
Her protective instincts were instantly roused. Perhaps some self-preservatory instincts, too. She didn’t want to be caught in the midst of a wild and amatory throng.
She’d read that highly effective people were supposed to be proactive instead of waiting around to react. Well, here was a chance to prove how effective she could be. Julia walked right up to the girls in what she hoped was a highly proactive manner.
“Do you really think he looks like that guy in the magazine?” she asked the girl who’d first identified Michael. Before she could answer, Julia turned quickly to Michael and called out, “Denny, they think you look like Michael Fortune! Can you believe it?”
Michael stared in confusion.
“That’s my brother Denny,” Julia went on blithely. “He works in the mail room at the Fortune Corporation.”
“The mail room?” one of the girls repeated, her voice ringing with disappointment. “He’s not the Mike Fortune?”
Julia laughed. “He delivers the Mike Fortune’s mail. Is that close enough?”
“I don’t think he looks anything like Mike Fortune,” another girl declared with a disdainful sniff. “Mike Fortune looks like a millionaire. This guy—” she nodded disparagingly in Michael’s direction “—looks like he works in a mail room. You can tell.”
“Denny’s job pays benefits, health and dental,” Julia said. “And he’s eligible, too. He doesn’t have a girlfriend.” She gave them a hopeful look, inviting one of them to volunteer for the position.
That was all it took. The girls weren’t drunk enough not to realize that a guy whose sister was on the prowl for a girlfriend for him did not meet their standards.
“Tell your brother to take out an ad in the personals,” one of them said, as they giggled among themselves. “Maybe he’ll luck out there.”
“We’re holding out for Mike Fortune,” said another. “Or a Mike Fortune type.”
“I think he really does kind of look like Mike Fortune,” Julia called after them, as they hurried on their way. She’d managed to sound credibly forlorn, as the sister of a perennially dateless Denny might.
“He only looks like Mike Fortune if you’re drunk out of your mind, like Wendy is,” one of the girls shouted back.
“Wendy also thought the pizza-delivery guy looks like Tom Cruise,” exclaimed another, and they all laughed raucously.
The girls disappeared around a bend, leaving Julia and Michael alone.
“Denny?” Michael tried to look stern, but he couldn’t quite pull it off.
“It was the first name that popped into my head,” Julia confessed. “And then, somehow you became Denny.” She dissolved in laughter. “You had that glazed look in your eye and your mouth was hanging open. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you started babbling about getting your jollies from opening mail from all of Mike Fortune’s female admirers.”
“My jollies?” he repeated incredulously. Suddenly, he couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled within him.
They were both too breathless from laughing to run, so they walked along the path, making bad jokes. “I know Mike Fortune, Mike Fortune is a boss of mine and you are no Mike Fortune,” Julia paraphrased. “You are a faux Denny.”
“I think I’d rather be a faux Denny than an idiotic sycophant,” countered Michael. “Although if Uncle Jake were to see us carrying on like this, he’d write us both off as giddy nitwits.”
“No one could ever accuse you of being either giddy or a nitwit,” Julia assured him.
“I suppose not.” Michael frowned thoughtfully, turning serious once more. “I can’t even be accused of smiling, according to my stepmother, Barbara. She told me to lighten up, that lately she could count on one hand the number of times I’ve smiled.”
“There hasn’t been much to smile about at the Fortune Corporation this past year,” Julia murmured.
“No, there hasn’t. We’ve had a series of incidents ranging from calamitous to catastrophic.” A grim and somber Michael proceeded to list them. “There was that fire set in the laboratory by an intruder who was never caught, and Grandmother Kate’s plane crash. Then my cousin Allison was stalked by some nut.”
“At least that calamity had a happy ending,” Julia replied. “Allison married her bodyguard, Rafe.”
“Marriage. A happy ending.” Michael arched his brows in that superior, sardonic way of his. “I suppose you would view it that way.”
Julia refrained from pointing out that according to his “better dead than wed” sentiments, his view of a happy ending was a permanent trip to the cemetery.
“Meanwhile, the company’s stock values keep dropping.” Michael heaved a worried sigh. “And of course, there’s that latest mysterious break-in at the lab. Whoever was responsible caused some deliberate destruction that’s resulted in further setbacks in the development of the special youth formula.”
Julia nodded knowingly. She was aware that the company had been working on the youth formula for years, and that Kate Fortune had made her fatal flight to Brazil to procure a rare vital ingredient for it. All told, it was beginning to look as though the Fortune family, blessed for so long with the very best life had to offer, had somehow become cursed instead.
“And on top of everything else,” Michael continued, “I was named one of the top-ten most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A., prompting an avalanche of unwanted attention.”
“And the unprecedented abuse of the voice-mail system,” Julia added.
She sounded serious and sympathetic, but Michael caught the gleam in her gray eyes. “I can tell you don’t think the bachelor list belongs in my account of family troubles, but it’s been a severe inconvenience, Julia,” he said defensively.
“Oh, I know. I’ve been fending off your eager admirers by phone and by fax, too.”
He had the uncomfortable feeling that she was patronizing him. “Tonight, right here on this path, I was almost mobbed,” Michael reminded her. He was determined that Julia understand the full extent of his plight. “If those girls hadn’t been drinking, they never would’ve bought your Denny ruse.”
“Probably not.”
“I’m getting desperate, Julia. I can’t take this continual harassment. I came out here to run tonight because I felt like a hostage trapped in my own apartment. I couldn’t face the stack of mail there—oh yes, I get mail at home as well as at work, and at home I don’t have Denny and his gang to dispose of it for me.”
He started to run again, and Julia picked up her pace to keep up with him.
“There were women hanging around the lobby of my apartment building when I left,” he continued grimly. “I had to sneak out wearing a jumpsuit and cap I borrowed from Al’s Auto Parts. Al and his sons have been servicing the company cars for years and were very understanding when I explained my need for a disguise.”
“A mechanic’s jumpsuit and hat is a good disguise. Do you have a fake mustache and glasses to go with it?”
Her expression was so demure and her tone so sincere that he couldn’t tell if she was teasing him or not. Since he didn’t view Julia as the teasing type, he decided to answer her seriously. “Believe me, I’ve considered buying them. If this mayhem keeps up, I may have to.”
“Maybe you should consider buying a wig, too. How about a long, blond, California-beach-boy style, like Kato Kaelin? Nobody would know you then.”
“Now I know you’re being glib.” Michael studied her intently. “You’re very good at subtext, Julia—saying one thing while conveying something else altogether. I never knew that until tonight. Have you been mocking me for the past year while I remained oblivious?”
“Of course not! We idiotic sycophants are too stupid and too smarmy for subtext.”
Michael laughed. He was enjoying himself, he realized with some surprise. It had been so long, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like.
They reached a lighted parking lot. “My car is here,” Michael said, pointing to his vintage, candy-apple red Corvette. “I was on my way back to it when I met you. I insist on driving you home.”
She accepted his offer with a polite, “Thank you.”
“I’ll refrain from delivering a lecture about the dangers to a woman out alone at night,” he said lightly.
The words were no sooner out of his mouth when Michael realized that he wanted to deliver that lecture. The idea of Julia falling prey to some criminal on the prowl sickened him. “But you really shouldn’t go out alone after dark, Julia. You took a foolish risk in doing so tonight.”
“I took a self-defense class a couple years ago,” she explained. “I don’t like having to curtail my freedom, so I decided to make sure I can protect myself.”
“Isn’t the first principle of self-defense to avoid placing yourself in a dangerous situation?” Michael frowned. “Your class has given you a false sense of confidence, Julia. Promise that you won’t go running alone at night again.”
“Mmm,” Julia murmured noncommittally, putting her hand in back of her and crossing her fingers, undoing her vague promise even as she gave it. After all, it wasn’t Michael’s business where she spent her off-work hours.
They were standing under the light, and he gazed down at her flushed cheeks, at the brown hair that had escaped from its braid to frame her face. She looked small and soft and very feminine.
He cleared his throat. “Would you like to go somewhere for a drink or something to eat?” he asked impulsively, surprising himself. He rarely acted on impulse.
“Looking like this?” Julia glanced down at her sweaty clothes and ran her hand through her tousled hair. “I’d scare away the other customers.”
“You wouldn’t, but I certainly might. Why don’t we make use of the drive-through window at one of the places along the boulevard? That way we wouldn’t have to leave the car. We could sit in the parking lot and have a sandwich and a cup of coffee or a soda or something.”
Julia understood that he was going through the motions of being polite, but there was really no need. “It’s kind of you to offer, but I have to get home.” She glanced at her watch, startled by the time. “In fact, I have to go right away.”
It was almost time for her nightly telephone call to Joanna. And tonight it was important that she call a bit early, because Joanna watched a program on television in the lounge with a group of other young patients. The weekly program had become a regular social event, with popcorn, soft drinks and candy shared among them.
Julia was thrilled that her little sister had gained the interest and the ability to socialize. And to be able to comprehend and concentrate on a plot was a major accomplishment for Joanna. For a year and a half after the accident, the girl’s attention span had been as short as a toddler’s. She’d barely been able to follow the fast-paced, visually stimulating programs designed for preschoolers.
But now… A small smile curved Julia’s lips. Joanna had a circle of friends and enjoyed age-appropriate shows. She was showing improvement every single day.
“You’ll have to give me directions to your place,” Michael said as he walked her to his car. He wondered why she had to rush home—or if the real reason for her hasty departure was because she was eager to escape from his presence.
Michael Fortune, currently being pursued by hundreds of women who claimed to be willing to do just about anything with him or for him, could not even persuade Julia Chandler to drink a soda with him in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant. The irony was not lost on him.
His lips twisted in a grim smile. Wasn’t there a verse about a prophet not being valued in his own land? Or words to that effect. It seemed that the same principle applied to the appeal of an eligible bachelor boss in his assistant’s eyes. Julia spent hours in his company at work. Who could blame her for wanting to steer clear of him in her off hours?
Still, the notion rankled, and the fact that it did bothered him even more. Withdrawing into a moody silence, Michael steered his car through the steady stream of traffic, turning on the radio to a station broadcasting a Minnesota Twins baseball game. The game was meaningless, since neither team had a chance of making it to the play-offs this year, and the Twins and their opponent were merely filling time with lackluster performances.
Neither Julia nor Michael spoke, except when she told him where to turn. When he pulled up in front of her three-story frame apartment building, she opened the car door before he had braked to a full stop.
“Thanks for the ride,” she called, jumping out and slamming the door behind her.
Her abrupt departure was jarring. Irritating, too. Michael watched her dash into the building. He wondered which apartment she lived in. It occurred to him that he didn’t know if she lived alone or with someone…or if that someone was a man. Julia never talked about her personal life at work, at least not with him. He’d never bothered to ask her anything about her life outside the office, and she had never volunteered any information.
Michael drove to his own apartment, a penthouse in a futuristic new building downtown, not far from the Fortune Building. His jumpsuit disguise was in the back seat, and he groaned at the thought of having to put it on again. Luckily, his admirers had given up for the night, and the entrance to the building was clear.
He hurried inside, punching in the code to disengage the security system of the private elevator, then riding it to the top of the building. The elevator doors opened onto a small vestibule directly in front of the door to the penthouse. To the left stood a wall of windows that provided a spectacular view of the Twin Cities skyline.
Michael didn’t pause to glance at it.
Four
The new issue of Fame finally hit the stands, and the top-ten most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A. were last week’s news. The syndicated TV tabloids and talk shows stopped calling, as did the out-of-state newspapers. The number of letters began to drop off. Denny informed Julia that one of the new hires on the “Fortune bachelor team” had been let go, but the other had been asked to stay on in the mail room, as he’d proven himself to be both efficient and accurate on the job.
Though the national media had lost interest, locally Michael was still very much a celebrity in demand. Since his new home phone number was unlisted and he used an answering machine to screen his calls, he was safe from the telephone overtures of his admirers, at least while in his apartment. He continued to be plagued by amorous phone calls at work, but fortunately, the voice-mail system was able to handle the reduced number of them.
However, the Twin Cities media kept up their requests for interviews. They were well aware of local interest in the area’s own homegrown bachelor and knew that information about him would capture the attention of the all-important 18-to-34-year-old female market share.
“Just one interview with Mike and we’ll back off,” promised Faith Carlisle, among the most persistent reporters on the “local beat” at Channel 3 News. Somehow Faith consistently managed to elude the Fortune Corporation’s receptionists, secretaries and voice-mail system, and though her calls never made it through to Michael, she talked to Julia at least once every day.
Julia was amazed by Faith’s proficiency. And one could only admire the newswoman’s tenacity. Faith Carlisle said she would never give up until she’d landed her interview with Mike Fortune, and so far, she hadn’t.
“You’re wearing me down,” Julia confessed when Faith’s second call of the day came through. “I actually told Michael that I thought it would be a good idea if he met with you.”
“And what did he say?” Faith pressed eagerly.
“He said no.” Julia sighed. “Sorry. I tried.”
“Doesn’t he know that by being elusive, he is increasing his appeal?” Faith was frustrated. “Think Jacqueline Onassis. Everybody wanted to interview her because she was the one interview nobody could ever get. Well, Mike Fortune is playing by those rules.”
“I don’t think he’s playing by any rules. He just wants to be left alone.”
“It’s not going to happen, Julia. Say, how is the voice-mail system over there? Any problems with it lately?”
“No, thank heavens.” Julia remembered Jake Fortune’s fiery visit the last time the system had crashed. She shivered. “The number of calls have dropped off. I think interest in Michael Fortune is finally starting to fade.”
“Don’t be too sure of that, honey,” Faith said, hanging up.
Julia thought nothing more of the conversation until later that day. Not until the voice-mail system abruptly and unexpectedly became so overloaded with messages for Michael Fortune that it short-circuited. Again! Worse, the company’s entire computer system shut down along with it, like a sympathetic unionist supporting a fellow laborer’s strike.
Michael paced his office, infuriated and distraught. Julia leaned against the wall, her arms folded, staring anxiously at the pearl gray carpet.
“Faith Carlisle is responsible, I’m sure of it,” she murmured. “She made a threat, but I didn’t recognize it as a threat at the time. I’m positive she orchestrated this call-in campaign, just to show she could do it. And she’ll keep on doing it until you give her an interview, Michael.”
“Never!” Michael pounded his fist with his hand. “I will never knuckle under to blackmailing media sabotage. We’ll sue, we’ll—”
“Dammit, Michael, I’ve had all I’m going to take!” Jake Fortune’s roar could be heard through closed doors along the entire length of the corridor.
Julia froze. She could hear the CEO’s footsteps thundering along the carpeted hall from the elevator banks to his nephew’s office. The enraged giant from “Jack and the Beanstalk” instantly leapt to mind; she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear Jake Fortune promising to “grind their bones to make his bread.” Michael’s bones and hers, his idiotic sycophant.
She raised wide, apprehensive eyes to Michael. “We could lock ourselves in your closet,” she whispered. “Maybe he’ll think we aren’t here.” She wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not. A safe haven away from Jake Fortune’s threatening onslaught held great appeal.
“Feel free.” Michael gestured toward the closet door. “But I’m certainly not going to hide from my uncle. I’m not afraid of him.”
They heard Jake enter Julia’s office. She eyed the closet longingly. Maybe Michael wasn’t afraid of his raging uncle, but she was. Out of sight, out of mind seemed a sound policy in this situation.
But it was too late. The door to Michael’s office was flung open and Jake Fortune stormed inside.
“Are you aware of the disruption your imbecilic groupies have caused this company?” Jake launched immediately into his tirade. Which went on and on and on.
Michael was respectful at first, but Jake continued to rage, and the scope of his anger seemed unlimited. Soon Michael gave up all attempts at apology or civility and launched a counteroffensive of his own. Blame was cast, aspersions hurled. They were family, and they had ammunition that extended back for years.
Julia stood plastered against the wall, too unnerved to move, watching and listening to the two men verbally annihilate each other. Each seemed to hold the other accountable for everything that was wrong in the company and in the family. She wouldn’t have been surprised if they started in on global culpability, blaming the other for famines and floods and for destabilizing foreign governments.
Her temples began to throb. She’d never had a migraine headache before, but if she was going to have her first one, this would be the time and place for it.
And just when she thought things couldn’t possibly get worse, Nate Fortune arrived, his expression dark as a thundercloud.
“Word has it that you’re threatening my son, Jake.” Nate leapt into the fray without waiting for an invitation.
Julia guessed what had happened. One of the alarmed employees in product development, overhearing Jake Fortune threaten their boss with extinction, had taken the self-protective step of getting word to Nate, Michael’s dad.
Her stomach gave a sickening lurch. Now a turf war was about to break out, and she was stuck right here as an unwilling witness.
“Thanks to your son’s obsessive fan club the entire company has been disrupted, not to mention the costs of getting the damn computer system up again.” Jake glowered at his brother. “And this isn’t the first time it’s happened. I was understanding, I was patient, that first time. The second time, too. Even the third time, I was the model of restraint. But it’s happened five times! Five times! As CEO, I have a responsibility to our employees and our shareholders, and that means ending this sort of insanity!”
“It’s not my son’s fault that women find him irresistible,” Nate said.
Michael winced. “Dad, please. Uncle Jake and I can work this out on our own.”
“What kind of a father would I be if I stood by and let my brother bully you?” Nate demanded. “I saw the way he treated his own son. Poor Adam, the kid was literally driven away by the pressure Jake put on him. Well, I won’t allow my boy to be subjected to that sort of treatment.”
Jake paled at the mention of his only son. His estranged son.
“Dad, this has nothing to do with Adam. And just for the record, Adam is no longer a kid and I’m not a boy,” Michael said firmly. “Indirectly at least, I am responsible for the overload on the computer system. Since that stupid article came out, I’ve been a liability to the company, and as CEO Uncle Jake has every right to be furious over what’s been happening.”
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Barbara Boswell
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Зарубежные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: They called him America′s most eligible bachelor, but high-powered executive Michael Fortune didn′t want a wife. So he offered his faithful secretary, Julia Chandler, a surprising proposition: become his pretend bride–for a price.Then the world would think he was married, and he could get back to business. Michael never questioned why unassuming Julia agreed to his outlandish charade. Or what would happen once their convenient engagement became a passion-filled affair…producing an unexpected heir to the Fortune dynasty.