Wendy Etherington - Irresistible Fortune

“No. The hair’s … fine. It suits you.”

“I’m not really big on shoes. Are you one of those women who uses shoe shopping to replace sex?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then it must be because I’m an amoral, grave-robbing opportunist.”

“That certainly plays a major part.”

That wasn’t it? He had faults besides his scoundrel image? Good grief. “What’s the other part?”

“Parts, plural. I don’t like people who think because I’m small I’m also weak.”

Finally a question he could answer with absolute honesty. “I never, for one second, assumed you were weak.”

“I’m so glad. I also don’t like that you’re all over the place.”

“All over the place?” he repeated, trying to recall the last time a woman had caught him so off guard.

“At times you appear overindulgent and self-absorbed,” she continued. “Then you say something intelligent, almost insightful. It’s interesting.”

He definitely couldn’t have her thinking he was interesting. Her astuteness could ruin everything.

They’d reached the stairs leading from the beach to the pier, and she slipped on her shoes. “Thank you for your time. I’m sure we’ll be seeing—”

“Sure you don’t want to come back to my place for a while?”

“Your place?”

“Yeah. The boat.” He inclined his head toward the marina. “I could tell the guys to take off for an hour or so.”

“Gee, a whole hour?”

“Or so.”

Her eyes frosted over. “No, thank you, Mr. Fortune.”

“Call me Gavin.”

“Not Dr. Fortune?”

“No way. That makes me sound like a comic book supervillain. How about Dr. Kensington?” He pursed his lips. “No, that makes me sound like an uptight English lit teacher.”

“I neither have a doctorate nor am I uptight.”

“But you sound like you do. I have two, and I don’t.”

“Two what?”

“Doctorate-level degrees.”

“From where?”

“Cambridge and Princeton. Oh, and I got a masters in European history from Oxford. Just for fun.”

Brenna burst out laughing. She giggled until tears leaked from her eyes. “Of course. Just for fun,” she managed to say when she calmed enough to talk. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For killing any attraction I might have been delusional enough to feel for you.”

With that, she climbed the stairs and strolled down the wooden slats toward the parking lot.

He’d figured she wouldn’t take either his real credentials or his fake tasteless proposition seriously, but he hadn’t expected to be so disappointed in her reaction.

And the Yeats came back to him.

Here we will moor our lonely ship

And wander ever with woven hands,

Murmuring softly lip to lip,

Along the grass, along the sands,

Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands.

IN THE LIBRARY TWO DAYS later, Brenna leaned against the front counter, no doubt distracting Sloan from her work. But everybody was working. Maybe she should get a summer job.

Of course, she was supposed to be focusing on The Carolina project for the historical society. And that thought led her right back to the place she’d sworn to quit going. “He’s an insufferable egomaniac and an amoral, grave-robbing opportunist.”

“You forgot gorgeous,” Sloan said, never pausing as she tapped her fingertips on the computer keyboard.

“Looks don’t figure into this.”

“Sure they do. Helen said he’s hotter than the Fourth of July sun.”

Helen was another society member, who was also a business partner of Brenna’s father. The two of them were the best real estate agents on the island.

Generally, Helen was a fine judge of man candy, and technically, she wasn’t wrong in this case, though Brenna was loath to admit it.

She’d seethed for two days over her encounter with Dr. Gavin Fortune, whose mystery had only deepened. It took some digging, but with the help of the society’s resident computer expert—a teenager named Penelope Waters—she hadn’t found proof of advanced degrees, but a buried secret.

Fortune hadn’t always been his name. He’d had it changed several years back. When Brenna had asked what his name had been before, she’d gotten a strange answer from Penelope.

“Nobody knows,” she’d said. “The records were sealed by a federal court judge.”

Beautiful, mysterious and possibly brilliant. What were the odds?

Too bad he was a complete ass.

“Helen also says he has a thing for you,” Sloan continued.

“Well, he can keep his thing to himself.”

“He seemed pretty disappointed to find Helen as the new historical society representative for his recovery project.”

“I’m sure he was. He wouldn’t dare pull the kind of crap on Helen he tried on me.”

Sloan finally looked away from her computer screen. “What kind of crap … exactly?”

“He made fun of my cat, my temperament and my outspokenness. He derided a Brontë—he didn’t mention which one —and Jane Austen, then made a clumsy pass. That’s it.”

“So you already told me. I still contend something else must have happened for him to run you off like that.”

Brenna scowled. “He didn’t run me off.”

“Then why did you send Helen to deal with him?”

“Because I can’t stand him.”

Sloan’s gaze probed hers. “You sure it’s not because you like him too much? ”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Madame President, he’s destroying the history of our island.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Mrs. Kendrick.” A dark-haired girl of about ten walked up to the counter. “I’m supposed to find some books for my little brother. Can you help me?”

“Sure thing, sweetie,” Sloan said, rounding the counter. “How old is he?”

“Four.” The girl pursed her lips. “He can’t really read yet, but he likes to pretend.”

“I’m sure we can find something to help him on his way.”

Brenna propped her chin on her fist as they walked away. Sloan was defending Fortune? What was that about?

Maybe Brenna was more sensitive than any of them about this particular project, but the rest of the society had to agree that Fortune and his crew weren’t good for Palmer’s Island. Even her father, who generally lived in the here and now unless a good spot of history helped him sell a property, was concerned about the fate of The Carolina. Before her parents had left on their month-long cruise, they’d encouraged Brenna to keep a close eye on the ship’s recovery efforts.

She wondered what Grandmother would have thought about all of this.

Brenna had been raised on stories of Lucy McGary, her great-grandmother, who’d been a museum curator in Washington, D.C. In 1942, she’d been selected by the museum to transport several canvases of a well-known artist to London.

Unfortunately, the Germans had bombed their ship, convinced the vessel was transporting ammunition to the Allies. Her grandmother, along with fifty others, had been killed. The watertight safe of canvases had also met a watery grave.

Until 1992.

That year, the descendants of the artist convinced the ship’s former owners to explore the wreck site and try to locate the lost paintings, which were now worth millions.

The excavation team, led by Dr. Dan Loff—who would later be famous for serving as mentor to Gavin Fortune—scavenged the sunken ship for treasure. When Brenna’s family learned their relative’s large, jeweled broach had been recovered, they flew to New York with pictures and proof of ownership, hoping to reclaim it.

Loff had already broken the setting apart and sold off the pearls and emeralds, one by one.