Karen Templeton - Fortune's Cinderella

Yearning bled through her words, gave the lie to her defensive posture. Scott came up behind her to wrap her in his arms. “The best damn deal I’ve ever run across,” he whispered into her ear. “And the only one I’ve ever truly cared whether I landed or not.”

Gently, he twisted her around to face him, his fingers winnowing through her hair to cradle the back of her neck, their mouths so close he could feel her breath, coming in short, sweet bursts. “And if you can’t trust your intuitions, trust mine. Because they’ve never been wrong.”

Never in her life had she wanted to believe so badly. To let herself fall into the promise in those warm brown eyes. If this is a dream , Christina thought, I don’t want to wake up. Ever .

But nobody knew better than her that wanting wasn’t enough to change what was.

Dear Reader,

I adore Cinderella stories, don’t you? Seriously, who doesn’t (at least occasionally!) fantasize about a handsome prince (or reasonable facsimile thereof) sweeping her away to a life of ease and glamour and all the cute shoes she can cram in her closet. But when the fantasy arrives for Christina Hastings—in the form of telecommunications mogul Scott Fortune—her damaged heart warns her not to trust it. Or him. So Scott has his work cut out for him, convincing Christina that he’s the one who’s struck it rich.

Of course most of us buy our own cute shoes. And cars. And whatever else we need. But if our princes can’t exactly hand over the credit card and say, “Go for it, honey,” at least they’ve given us their hearts—which is worth more than a closet full of shoes, any day.

Enjoy!

Karen

Since 1998, two-time RITA ®Award winner and Waldenbooks bestselling author KAREN TEMPLETONhas written more than thirty books for Mills & Boon. A transplanted Easterner, she now lives in New Mexico with two hideously spoiled cats and whichever of her five sons happens to be in residence.

Karen Templeton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Marie Ferrarella,

Judy Duarte,

Nancy Robards Thompson,

Susan Crosby

and Allison Leigh,

who made my first attempt at

writing a continuity book so much fun.

And a lot less scary than I thought it would be.

We are now sisters.

Make it happen .

If Scott Fortune could attribute anything to his success—in life, in business—it was that simple mantra, doggedly applied to every challenge that dared him to fail. Too bad the weather on this blustery, end-of-December afternoon hadn’t gotten that particular memo.

From underneath the expansive portico fronting the main entrance to La Casa Paloma, an exclusive resort where he, his parents and his siblings had stayed while in Red Rock, Texas, to attend his youngest sister Wendy’s wedding to Marcos Mendoza, he glowered at the charcoal sky. But the heavens jeered at his insignificance, the icy rain jackhammering the battered winter lawn, the gravel drive where a pair of SUVs waited to ferry them to the regional airport ten miles away and the chartered jet that would take them home to Atlanta.

“You really have to go already?”

Scott turned, smiling in spite of himself at Wendy’s newly wedded—and not-so-newly pregnant—glow. Behind her, through the open, intricately carved double wooden doors, assorted family members traipsed back and forth, while the groom and his two brothers, Javier and Miguel, carted luggage out to the cars. In a minute, he’d have to herd his other siblings. But now he opened his arms to let his baby sister walk into them—as much as she could, at least—thinking that Marcos Mendoza was the luckiest, and bravest, guy in the world, taking on the family’s little princess.

“You know I’ve got to get back,” he said into his much shorter sister’s slippery brown hair. “As it was, I left several projects hanging to come here.”

Snorting, Wendy disentangled herself. And gently smacked his arm, her all’s-right-in-her-world grin a blatant affront to the dreary weather. “Well, excuse me for putting you out,” she said, her warm brown eyes sparkling, her accent tilting more toward Texan by the second.

“And anyway—”

“I know, I know—Daddy’s hot to get back for that New Year’s Eve gala y’all are sponsoring.” Her mouth pulled into a pout … for about a half second before she grinned again. Wasn’t that long ago, however, that those pouts had been precursors to the hissy fits of a precocious, blatantly spoiled young woman who’d assumed being an heiress was her life’s work. At their wits’ end, a year ago his parents had packed off Miss Diva-in-Training to Red Rock for some serious grounding … as a waitress in Red, the Mendoza family’s restaurant. Which Marcos managed.

Poor guy probably never knew what hit him.

And neither, in all likelihood, had Wendy, who was definitely not the same wild child she’d been then. Although the marriage had been far more to get their parents off her case than to please Wendy herself, whose penchant for doing things her way was legendary. And yet, there was more to that glow than hormones, Scott suspected. She seemed genuinely happy, and content, in a way that felt almost foreign to him.

“Why don’t you come see us off?” he said, suddenly loath to leave her.

Palming her burgeoning belly underneath her too-tight sweater, she shook her head. “My doctor wants me to take it easy. And to be perfectly honest—” she grinned again “—having y’all around has worn me out —”

“… because when people pay a thousand bucks a plate,” their father said as he strode through the door, his attention far more focused on his touch-screen phone than their mother, who trailed him like an agitated, delicate gray bird, “they expect the people who got them to part with their money to show up.”

Spotting her youngest daughter, Virginia Alice Fortune dragged Wendy into her arms, a small pink box containing a sampling of Wendy’s exquisite desserts swung from her French-manicured fingers.

“For heaven’s sake,” Scott heard his mother mutter, cupping her baby’s head to her cashmere-covered bosom, “it’s not as if we’re going to serve them their salmon and buttered asparagus personally!”

Over the crush of her mother’s embrace, Wendy’s eyes popped, and Scott swallowed a sigh. Because God forbid their mother—who’d raised all six of them on her own, without a nanny in sight—should stand up to their father. Not that many people did. The impenetrable aura of his vast wealth notwithstanding, at six-foot-four, his full head of dark hair barely tinged with silver, John Michael Fortune’s physical presence alone made most folks think long and hard about disagreeing with him.

Which made his mother’s soft, “What’s the harm in staying another day or two?” all the more stunning. And finally brought his father’s confused gaze to hers.

“Because I promised the Harrises we’d be there,” he said, his annoyance clear. “Which you know. And it’s not as if we’re never coming back.” His eyes shifted to Wendy, who was soon to give him his first grandchild. “Baby’s due in March, you said?”

“I did.”

“Then we’ll be here.”

But as John Michael escorted their mother to the car, Scott caught Wendy swiping a tear from her cheek. What a weird bunch they were, he mused as Marcos bounded back up the porch steps to slip an arm around his wife’s thickened waist, plant a quick kiss on her lips. For as long as Scott could remember, their father had rammed home to all six of them that you were either a success or a failure—there was no middle ground … and his mother, that nothing was more important than family. Dual mantras that defined everything they did. Everything they were.