Читать книгу Fortune's Valentine Bride - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 9

“You sure you don’t mind me setting up an office in your house?” Blake asked his older brother Scott for a second time.

Ordinarily, he would have opted to use one of the offices in the building housing the Fortune Foundation in town. However, it was currently off-limits since it had sustained major structural damage during the tornado.

Scott had only recently decided to transplant himself from Atlanta to Red Rock and had just purchased a ranch and the house that stood on it. As of yet, he and Christina, the woman who had won his heart, were redecorating the rooms and several were still in limbo. Blake was temporarily claiming one for an office—as long as Scott had no objections.

“I mean, I’m already in your hair, bunking here until Wendy’s baby is strong enough to finally make us uncles.” Blake thought for a moment, then decided to ask Scott, since he was now the Red Rock resident. “Maybe it’d be better if I rent a couple of rooms in town—”

Scott waved away what he anticipated was the rest of his brother’s thought.

“After the tornado, whatever’s available in Red Rock has most likely been commandeered for temporary living quarters for the folks who lost their homes, or whose homes are so damaged that they’re not safe to stay in right now. Besides,” Scott added as an afterthought, “turning part of my place into ‘FortuneSouth-West’ might just make points with the old man, though I doubt it.”

Their father, as everyone knew, had very high standards, which at times, Scott couldn’t help feeling, even God might have some trouble reaching. It didn’t help matters that, in the aftermath of the tornado, Scott had decided not to go back to Atlanta but to make a life for himself here, with a woman he firmly believed was his soul mate. A woman he had only known for a little over a month. The senior Fortune, Scott felt certain, undoubtedly believed that he had lost his mind—instead of finally finding his soul.

“And you’re sure I won’t be in your way?” Blake probed.

This new, improved and far more relaxed Scott was going to take some getting used to, Blake thought. Up until a month and a half ago, Scott had been as big a workaholic as their father and oldest brother, Michael. But he was definitely of a mind that this change in his brother was for the better.

“Not unless you plan on lying in the front doorway like a human obstacle course,” Scott answered. He grinned as he regarded his brother who, at twenty-seven, was five years younger than he was. “Might be kind of nice having you around for a while. Aside from that little buried-alive incident on New Year’s Eve-eve—and, of course, Wendy’s wedding—we don’t get to see each other all that much anymore,” he noted.

The observation amused Blake. “Said the workaholic,” he interjected.

“Not anymore,” Scott emphasized. “That tornado kind of made me reexamine my priorities.” Almost dying did that to a man, Scott thought. He felt as if he’d been given a second chance for a reason—and he didn’t intend to waste it by going back to “business as usual.” “There’s a lot more to life than finding different ways to continue building up a telecommunications empire.”

His brother really was sincere, Blake thought. This wasn’t just a passing phase. Scott was serious about putting his roots down in Red Rock because living here was so important to Christina, his future wife, and thus, important to him.

“Yeah, I know what you mean, about reexamining my priorities,” Blake explained when Scott raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I told Wendy that I feel like my life’s been on hold long enough and that it’s time I did something about it.”

“Anything you care to share with the class?” Scott asked, amused at the very serious expression on Blake’s face.

“I’m going after the one who got away,” Blake told him simply.

Scott nodded and smiled. He might have been a dedicated workaholic when they were all back in Atlanta, but that didn’t mean that he had been wearing blinders 24/7. He was quite aware of how his young brother’s assistant, Katie Wallace, looked at Blake when she thought no one was paying attention. At the time, he’d found it rather amusing. But now, finding himself on the other side of love, he understood how she must have felt—and continued to feel. But something wasn’t making sense, he realized.

“I wasn’t aware that she had exactly ‘gotten away,’” Scott commented.

Blake supposed that Scott was either too busy to have noticed, or maybe he’d just forgotten. “Yeah, she did,” he assured his brother.

Okay, maybe he’d missed a chapter or two of Blake’s life, Scott thought. “So you’re going after—”

“Brittany Everett, yes,” Blake said, filling in the name for Scott.

For a second, all Scott did was stare at him. And then he murmured, “Oh,” more to himself than to his brother.

“What do you mean, ‘oh’?”

There was no point in talking about Katie if his brother’s sights were set on a vapid prima donna like Brittany Everett. Like everyone else in the family, because of the circles they all moved in he was vaguely aware of the woman—and what he knew, he didn’t find very compelling.

Scott shrugged, dismissing his slip. “Nothing, just surprised that you seem so determined to get together with her.” For a moment, he thought back to his brother’s college days. “Didn’t Brittany dump you right after graduation?”

“No one dumped anyone,” Blake insisted. “We just drifted apart.”

“Right, after you caught her in a lip-lock with some other guy, if I remember correctly.”

“I should have fought for her.”

You should have cut her loose long before that, Scott thought. But Blake was a big boy now, able to make his own decisions. Besides, Scott had a feeling that the more he talked against Brittany—whose only attributes as far as he could see were strictly physical—the more, he was certain, Blake would dig in. They were alike that way, he and his brother.

So Scott dropped the matter, stepped back and hoped for the best. “If you say so. Look, I promised Christina I’d meet her for lunch, so I’d better get going. Good luck with whatever it is you’re planning to do.” And I hope you come to your senses real soon.

The reference to time had Blake looking at his own watch. “Hey, I’d better get going, too. I’ve got to drive over to San Antonio International Airport to pick up Katie,” he said, joining his brother in the hallway. “She’s flying in to help me with my strategy to win back Brittany.”

Scott stared at him, utterly stunned. “She is?” he asked. This couldn’t be right. “You actually told Katie that you were ‘launching’ this so-called campaign to get Brittany to become Mrs. Blake Fortune?”

“Well, not in so many words,” Blake admitted. The next moment, he saw a very wide smile curving his brother’s mouth. He was unaware of having said something funny. “What?”

“Nothing,” Scott answered, waving his hand and struggling to keep the laughter under wraps. “Just, good luck with that.” And then, he couldn’t resist asking, “By the way, how many pallbearers would you like at your funeral?”

Maybe the tornado had shaken Scott up more than anyone realized, Blake thought. His brother wasn’t making any sense. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

But Scott continued grinning mysteriously. And then he patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out, Blake,” he assured him, just before he hurried off down the hallway and out of the house.

Blake shook his head as he followed slowly in his brother’s path, heading for the car he’d left parked in the huge, circular driveway. He put the odd conversation with Scott out of his head.

Right now he had something more pressing to attend to.

The way he figured it, if the flight from Atlanta arrived on time, he was just going to make it to the airport by the skin of his teeth—barring the unforeseen. It was a footnote that he had gotten into the habit of adding ever since the tornado had turned his life and his family’s lives entirely upside down, tossing them on their collective ears.

Katie had deliberately brought only carry-on luggage with her. She had no desire to spend the extra time required to wait for luggage.

So, in the interests of speed and efficiency, Katie had stuffed into a single piece of luggage everything she felt she would need that couldn’t be purchased at some local shop between the airport and Red Rock. After engorging the suitcase to the point that it looked as if it would explode, she’d sat on the lid and fought with the zipper until she’d managed to bring the closure full circle.

She managed to secure the very last ticket for the next outgoing flight to San Antonio International Airport.

She didn’t relax the entire flight, her mind busily embracing the key phrase Blake had used when he’d called her.

I need you.

Part of her still didn’t believe she’d finally lived to see the day when everything she’d dreamed about for so long would actually start happening.

Don’t start sending out the wedding invitations yet, her mind warned. That was the part of her that was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She could warn herself all she wanted about not getting too excited—but she still was.

When the plane landed—reasonably on time for once, she noted, hoping that was a good omen—she was debating whether to just rent a car and drive to Red Rock or splurge and have a shuttle service do the driving for her.

The latter would prove to be the more expensive route, because of the distance that was involved, but she really wasn’t too keen on driving by herself all that way. She was tired and the prospect of falling asleep behind the wheel was unnerving.

Maybe if she had a really strong container of coffee—

As it turned out, there was no need to debate the pros and cons of driving versus being driven, because, as she was weighing her options, she realized that she was being paged over the P.A. system.

Heading over to the customer service desk, she didn’t actually see Blake, she saw his smile. But she knew that smile even at this distance. It belonged to Blake. Blake was here! And he was walking toward her.

Reviewing their phone conversation in her head, she couldn’t recall him saying anything about picking her up at the airport. She knew where he was staying, thanks to the directions he’d texted to her on her phone. Scott Fortune had bought a ranch here and Blake was staying with him. Since, according to Blake, the company would be paying for her flight, she’d just assumed that she would wind up charging either the car rental or the shuttle service to FortuneSouth Enterprises. Never one to wantonly spend money, even if it was someone else’s, she was just trying to make the best decision.

Was Blake this eager to see her that he had driven over himself?

The pounding of her heart went up another notch.

The exhaustion that had been slowly laying claim to her completely vanished as Katie picked up her pace, all but breaking into a run as the distance between them shortened noticeably. The heavy suitcase became nothing more than an unwieldy pull toy in her wake.

“You made it,” Blake called out to her, obviously pleased at how quickly she’d managed to get here after he’d called her.

Katie beamed at him. “Nothing could have kept me away.”

“Good,” he pronounced with approval. “Then we can get right down to work as soon as you’re ready. Here, let me take that for you,” he offered, putting his hand over hers on the suitcase handle.

The brief contact still managed to steal her breath away, as it usually did. But what he’d just said pushed reality in, front and center.

“Work?” Her heart fell. Blake was still making noises like a workaholic. The hope that he would be just a little more laidback, a little more … personal … died a quick, bitter death.

Katie had a strange expression on her face. He took it to mean that she was experiencing a little jet lag. Maybe she did need to rest awhile, although he’d known her to work tirelessly when the occasion called for it.

“Yes. Work,” he repeated. “That’s the reason I sent for you. It was Wendy’s idea, really. She thought you could help me get my campaign underway.”

“Your campaign,” she repeated numbly. Was this why he “needed” her? To work on some marketing campaign? Here? She felt confused. Even so, she sensed her slim grasp on happiness slipping away as her heart constricted within her chest.

“Yes. My campaign,” he asserted, then added the damning phrase: “To win back Brittany Everett.” Not seeing her face all but fall, he laughed a little self-consciously. “I know it’s not exactly what you’re used to doing, but I thought that if I went about winning Brittany back the way we go about landing an account for FortuneSouth Enterprises, then I’m almost guaranteed to be successful.”

So this was what shock felt like, Katie thought. Shock, mixed with acute disappointment. Her pounding heart now felt like utter lead in her chest.

“And Wendy suggested you send for me to help you procure this woman?” she asked in disbelief.

“Not procure,” he corrected, bristling at the word she’d used. “That makes it sound sordid.” He didn’t want Katie starting out with the wrong idea about this. Otherwise, she’d be no help at all and, he had to admit, he had come to rely on her shrewd instincts pretty heavily these past two years. “Brittany and I had a connection in college.”

“Yes, I remember,” she answered grimly as they made their way down the escalator to the first floor.

There was deep regret in his voice as he concluded, “And then I didn’t follow through. I want to win her back. I’ll be taking her to the Valentine’s Day fundraiser in Atlanta in a few weeks. That’s when I intend to make my move.”

Were they talking about the same woman? As she recalled, the woman was a little too Scarlett O’Hara for her taste.

“Kind of hard to get close to someone with that kind of a throng surrounding her,” she recalled.

That, Blake thought, disturbed by Katie’s comment, was an unwarranted, uncalled-for assessment. “It wasn’t a throng,” he protested.

“Okay, a swarm, then. Or maybe ‘mob’ might be a better word to use,” she suggested crisply.

How could he? her mind cried. How could he think about getting together with a girl like that again? She’d never understood what had compelled him to get together with Brittany in the first place. Yes, she had what amounted to an almost-perfect body, but it was coupled with a completely imperfect personality for him.

They were outside the terminal now and approaching the valet’s booth. Blake glanced in her direction as he gave the valet his ticket.

“I’m sensing a little hostility here,” he noted.

“Just a little?” Katie muttered under her breath.

Blake cocked his head, bringing his ear a little closer to her. The noise level outside the terminal was even louder than it was inside, making it hard to maintain a conversation without resorting to shouting. And Katie hadn’t shouted. Had he not seen her lips moving, he wouldn’t have even been aware that she’d said anything at all.

“What did you just say?” he asked.

Katie was quick to shake her head. There was no point in arguing. “Nothing.”

Besides, what did she expect? she silently upbraided herself. For the world to suddenly change? For Blake to suddenly wake up, come to his senses and see what was right in front of him? A woman who was willing to love him, flaws and all, for the rest of his life—for the rest of her life.

Leopards didn’t change their spots and Katie couldn’t believe that in the interim years a girl like Brittany Everett would become more compatible with Blake.

What was wrong with him? she silently fumed.

The next moment, she redirected the question toward herself. What the hell was wrong with her? Had Blake ever indicated that he had feelings for her that went beyond a boss appreciating his employee’s work? Did he even indicate that he felt she went above and beyond the call of duty each and every time?

Well, that was her mistake, wasn’t it? She did so in an effort not just to seem indispensable to him, but to have him suddenly look at her, really look at her and see her for the first time. See how good she was for him—not just for the company, but for him—and then maybe, just maybe, that could lead to something more.

The word more however had no meaning here—unless it was to indicate that she doubted if Blake could be more wrong in his choice of a future wife, which was where this whole stupid “campaign” was clearly going.

She couldn’t do this, she thought. She couldn’t go through with this. She couldn’t be his master strategist, his Cyrano, to help him land a woman who would ultimately stomp all over the heart he was planning on serving to her on a silver platter.

Katie began to voice her protest, but then, before even a single word managed to come out, she changed her mind.

Blake was going to go through with this with her or without her and if she protested, he might just view it as being a case of sour grapes. But if she was there, at his side, helping him with this awful campaign, maybe it would finally hit him that she had all the virtues and assets that he, in his delusion, thought that Brittany possessed.

And, she added silently, if this all blew up on him, she’d be right there to help him pick up the pieces.

She’d be privy to every detail of his plan and with it all laid out for her, she would know how best to ruin his plans. And by ruining them, she would be able to ultimately save the man from embarrassment and making the mistake of a lifetime—if not the century.

And if, at the same time, she could get him to see that it was her all along who he should have been with, well, so much the better.

“Look, if I’m asking too much,” Blake was saying, apparently having second thoughts about the wisdom of asking her to help, “then maybe you should—”

“It’s not that you’re asking too much,” she said, cutting him off. “It’s just that, well, I’m not sure if I’m exactly the right person for the job. This is a little different than the usual campaigns we work on.”

“Of course you’re the right person for the job. I mean, this is about what appeals to a woman. Brittany’s a woman and so are you, right?”

She looked at him, a little stunned. “Is that a question?” she wanted to know. “I mean, really?”

“No, no, of course you’re a woman. That’s what I’m counting on.”

He was either being exceedingly simpleminded—or insulting. She wasn’t sure which bothered her more. “That all women are alike?”

He couldn’t really explain why, but he had the feeling he was in over his head—and drowning. What was needed was a time-out so that he could gather his thoughts together and begin again.

Blake was more than certain that Katie was the right woman for the job. After all, someone as attractive as she was probably had guys making a play for her all the time. What sort of things made her reactions positively? That’s what he needed to find out. He just had to find the right way to phrase this so she wouldn’t think that, well, he was coming onto her. Because he wasn’t. Even if, sometimes when she looked at him, he’d find something stirring deep inside of him. That was just a basic, physical thing, nothing more.

Taking a breather, Blake pulled himself back and refocused.

“Tell you what,” he proposed. “Let’s get you over to Wendy’s. She’s dying to see you.”

At least someone was, Katie thought.