Barbara Boswell - Stand-In Bride

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.

“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.”