Читать книгу Stand-In Bride - Barbara Boswell, Barbara Boswell - Страница 10

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.