- -
- 100%
- +
Maybe, Lila thought as she left her house, if she took this much trouble getting ready for the occasional dates she went out on, she might not still be single at the age of thirty-three.
Lila sighed. She knew better. It wasn’t her clothes or her makeup that were responsible for her single status.
It was her.
After breaking up with Everett, she had picked herself up and dusted herself off. In an all-out attempt to totally reinvent herself, Lila had left Houston and moved to Austin where no one knew her or anything about the past she was determined to forget and put totally behind her.
She’d gone to work at the Fortune Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing assistance to the needy. Through hard work, she’d swiftly risen and was now manager of her department.
And because of her work, Lila’s life went from intolerable to good. At least her professional life did.
Her personal life, however, was another story.
Sure, she’d dated. She’d tried blind dates as well as online dating. She’d joined clubs and had gone to local sporting events to cheer on the home team. She’d gone out with rich men as well as poor ones and those in between.
It wasn’t that Lila couldn’t meet a man, she just couldn’t meet the man.
And probably even if she could, she thought, that still wouldn’t have done the trick. Because no matter who she went out with, she couldn’t trust him.
Everett had destroyed her ability to trust any man she might become involved with.
Try as she might, she couldn’t lower her guard. She just couldn’t bear to have a repeat performance of what had happened to her with Everett.
Rather than risk that, she kept her heart firmly under lock and key. And that guaranteed a life of loneliness.
At this point in her life, Lila had decided to give up looking for Mr. Right. Instead, she forced herself to embrace being Stubbornly Single.
As she took one last look in the mirror and walked out the door, she told herself that was what she really wanted.
One day she might convince herself that was true.
* * *
Her upgraded appearance did not go unnoticed when she walked into the office at the Fortune Foundation that morning.
“Well, someone looks extra nice today,” Lucie Fortune Chesterfield Parker noted the moment that Lila crossed the threshold. “Do you have a hot date tonight?” she asked as she made her way over toward Lila.
“No, I don’t,” Lila answered, hoping that would be the end of it.
Belatedly, she thought that maybe she should have brought this outfit with her and changed in the ladies’ room before going to lunch instead of coming in dressed like this.
Lucie and she were friends and had been almost from the very first time they met at the Foundation, but Lila really didn’t want to talk about the man she was having lunch with.
Initially from England, Lucie was married to Chase Parker, a Texas oil heir who had been her teenage sweetheart. Because of that, Lucie considered herself to be an expert on romance and she felt she had great radar when it came to the subject.
Her radar was apparently on red alert now as she swiftly looked Lila over.
Studying her, Lucie repeated, “Not tonight?”
“No,” Lila said firmly. She never broke stride, determined to get to her office and close the door on this subject—literally as well as figuratively.
“Lunch, then?” Lucie pressed. “You certainly didn’t get all dolled up like that for us.”
Lila looked at her sharply over her shoulder, but her coworker didn’t back off. The expression on her face indicated that she thought she was onto something.
When Lila made no response, Lucie pressed harder. “Well, are you going to lunch with someone?”
Lila wanted to say no and be done with it. She was, after all, a private person and no one here knew about her past. She’d never shared any of it. No about the child she’d given up for adoption or the man who had broken her heart. However, it wasn’t in her to lie and even if it were, Lucie was as close to a real friend as she had in Austin. She didn’t want to risk alienating her if the truth ever happened to come out—which it might, likely at the most inopportune time.
So after a moment of soul-searching, she finally answered Lucie’s question.
“Yes.”
Lucie looked at her more closely, obviously intrigued. “Anyone I know?” she asked.
“No,” Lila answered automatically.
Not anyone I know, either. Not really, Lila silently added. After all, it had been thirteen years since she’d last been with Everett. And besides, how well had she known him back then anyway? He certainly hadn’t behaved the way she’d expected him to. It made her think that maybe she had never really known Everett Fortunado at all.
“Where did you meet him?” Lucie wanted to know, apparently hungry for details about her friend’s lunch date.
“Why all the questions?” Lila reached her office, but unfortunately it was situated right next to Lucie’s. Both offices were enclosed in glass, allowing them to easily see one another over the course of the day.
“Because you’re my friend and I’m curious,” Lucie answered breezily. “You’ve practically become a workaholic these last couple of months, hardly coming up for air. That doesn’t leave you much time for socializing.”
Pausing by her doorway, Lila blew out a breath. “It’s someone I knew back in high school,” she answered. She stuck close to the truth. There was less chance for error that way. “He’s in town on business for a couple of days. He looked me up on Facebook and he suggested having lunch to catch up, so I said yes.”
Lila walked over to her desk, really hoping that would be the end of it. But apparently it wasn’t because Lucie didn’t retreat to her own office. Her friend remained standing in Lila’s doorway, looking at her as if she was attempting to carefully dissect every word out of her mouth.
“How well did you know this guy—back in high school, I mean?” Lucie asked, tacking on the few words after a small beat.
Lila stood there feeling as if she was under a microscope.
Did it show, she wondered. Did Lucie suspect that there had been more than just high school between her and Everett?
“Why?” she asked suspiciously, wondering what Lucie was getting at. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Lucie, it was just that inherently she had trouble lowering her guard around anyone.
“Well, if someone who I knew back in high school suddenly turned up in my life,” Lucie said easily, “I don’t think I’d dress up in something that would make me look like a runway model just to go out to lunch with him.”
Lila shrugged, avoiding Lucie’s eyes. “I’m just showing off the trappings of a successful career, I guess.”
“Are you sure that’s all it is?” Lucie asked, observing her closely.
Lila raised her chin, striking almost a defiant pose. “I’m sure,” she answered.
Lucie inclined her head, accepting her friend’s story. “Well, if I were you, I’d remember to take a handkerchief with me.”
Lila stared at the other woman. What Lucie had just said made absolutely no sense to her.
“Why?”
Lucie’s smile was a wide one, tinged in amusement. “Because you’ll need a handkerchief to wipe up your friend’s drool once he gets a load of you looking like that.”
Lila looked down at herself. Granted, she’d taken a lot of time choosing what to wear, but it was still just a two-piece outfit. “I don’t look any different than I usually do,” Lila protested.
Lucie’s smile widened a little more as she turned to leave. “Okay, if you say so,” she answered agreeably, going along with Lila’s version. “But between you and me, you look like a real knockout.”
Good, Lila thought. That was the look she was going for.
* * *
There were mornings at work when the minutes would just seem to drag by, behaving as if lunchtime would never come. Lila would have given anything for that sort of a morning this time around because today, the minutes just seemed to race by, until suddenly, before she knew it, the clock on the wall opposite her office said it was eleven fifteen.
She’d told Everett that she would meet him at the restaurant she’d selected at eleven thirty.
That meant it was time for her to get going.
Lila took a deep breath, pushed her chair away from her desk and got up.
When she stood up, her hands braced against her desk, her legs felt as if they had suddenly lost the power of mobility.
For a moment, it was as if she was rooted in place.
This was ridiculous, Lila told herself, getting her purse from her drawer.
She closed the drawer a little too hard. The sound reverberated through the glass walls and next door Lucie immediately looked in her direction. Grinning, Lucie gave her a thumbs-up sign.
Lila forced herself to smile in response then, concentrating as hard as she could, she managed to get her frozen legs moving. She wanted to be able to leave the office before Lucie thought to stick her head in to say something.
Or ask something.
This was all going to be over with soon, Lila promised herself.
Once out of the building, she made her way to her car. An hour and she’d be back, safe and sound in the office and this so-called “lunch date” would be behind her, Lila thought, trying to think positive thoughts.
It would be behind her and she’d never have to see Everett again.
But first, she pointedly reminded herself, she was going to have to get through this ordeal. She was going to have to sit at a table, face Everett and pretend that everything was just fine.
She was going to have to pretend that the past was just that: the past, and that it had nothing to do with the present. Pretend that those events from thirteen years ago didn’t affect her any longer and definitely didn’t get in the way of her eating and enjoying her lunch. Pretend that the memory of those events didn’t impede her swallowing, or threaten to make her too sick to keep her food down.
Reaching her car, Lila got in and then just sat there, willing herself to start it. Willing herself to drive over to the restaurant and get this lunch over with.
Not a good plan, Lila. This is not a good plan. You should have never agreed to have lunch with Everett. When he wrote to you on your Facebook page, asking to meet with you, you should have told him to go to hell and stay there.
You’ve got no one to blame but yourself for this.
Lila let out a shaky breath and then glanced up into the rearview mirror.
Lucie was right. She looked fantastic.
Go and make him eat his heart out, Lila silently ordered herself. And then, after you’ve finished eating and he asks if he could see you again, you tell him No!
You tell him no, she silently repeated.
Taking another deep breath, she turned the key in the ignition.
The car rumbled to life. After another moment and a few more words of encouragement to herself, Lila pulled out of her parking space and drove out of the parking structure and off the lot.
* * *
The restaurant she’d selected was normally barely a five-minute drive away from the Foundation. Even with the sluggish midday traffic, it only took her ten minutes to get there. Before she knew it, she was pulling into a space in the restaurant’s parking lot.
Sitting there, thinking of what was ahead of her, Lila found that she had to psych herself up in order to leave the shelter of her vehicle and walk into the restaurant.
To face her past.
“No,” she contradicted herself through gritted teeth. “Not to face the past. To finally shut the door on it once and for all and start your future.”
Yes, she had a life and a career, a career she was quite proud of. But she also needed to cut all ties to the woman she had once been. That starry-eyed young woman who thought that love lasted forever and that she had found her true love. That woman had to, quite simply, be put to rest once and for all.
And she intended to do that by having lunch with Everett, the man who had taken her heart and made mincemeat out of it. And once lunch was done, she was going to tell him goodbye one last time. Tell him goodbye and make him realize that she meant it.
Lila slowly got out of her car and then locked it.
Squaring her shoulders, she headed for the restaurant. It was time to beard the lion in his den and finally be set free.
Chapter Three
This was absurd, Everett thought. He was a well-respected, sought-after physician who had graduated from medical school at the top of his class. Skilled and exceedingly capable. Yet here he was, sitting in a restaurant, feeling as nervous as a teenager waiting for his first date to walk in.
This was Lila for God’s sake, he lectured himself. Lila, someone he’d once believed was his soul mate. Lila, whom he’d once been closer to than anyone else in the world and had loved with his whole heart and soul. There was absolutely no reason for him to be tapping the table with his long fingers and fidgeting like some inexperienced kid.
Yet here he was, half an hour ahead of time, watching the door when he wasn’t watching the clock, waiting for Lila to walk in.
Wondering if she wouldn’t.
Wondering if, for some reason, she would wind up changing her mind at the last minute and call him to cancel their lunch. Or worse, not call at all.
Why am I doing this to myself? Everett silently demanded. Why was he making himself crazy like this? So what if she didn’t show? It wouldn’t be the end of the world. At least, no more than it was all those years ago when Lila had told him she didn’t ever want to see him again.
The words had stung back then and he hadn’t known what to do with himself, how to think, what to say. In time, he’d calmed down, started to think rationally again. He had decided to stay away from her for a while, thinking that Lila would eventually come to her senses and change her mind.
Except that, when he finally went to see her, he found out that she was gone. Lila had taken off for parts unknown and no one knew where. Or, if they did know, no one was telling him no matter how much he asked.
That was when his parents had sat him down and told him that it was all for the best. They reminded him that he had a destiny to fulfill and now he was free to pursue that destiny.
Not having anything else to cling to, he threw himself into his studies and did exactly what was expected of him—and more.
He did all that only to end up here, sitting in an Austin restaurant, watching the door and praying each time it opened that it was Lila coming in and walking back into his life.
But each time, it wasn’t Lila who walked in.
Until it was.
Everett felt his pulse leap up with a jolt the second he saw her. All these years and she had only gotten more beautiful.
He immediately rose in his seat, waving to catch her attention. He had to stop himself from calling out her name, instinctively knowing that would embarrass her. They weren’t teenagers anymore.
* * *
Lila had almost turned around at the door just before she opened it. It was only the fact that she would have been severely disappointed in herself for acting like such a coward that forced her to come inside.
The second she did, she immediately saw Everett and then it was too late to run for cover. Too late to change her mind.
The game was moving forward.
She forced a smile to her lips despite the fact that her stomach was tied in a knot so tight she could hardly breathe. It was the sort of smile that strangers gave one another in an attempt to break the ice. Except that there was no breaking the ice that she felt in her soul as she looked at Everett.
All the old heartache came rushing back to her in spades.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured to Everett when she finally reached the table. “Am I late?”
“No,” he quickly assured her. “I’m early. I didn’t know if there was going to be a lot of traffic, or if I’d have trouble finding this place, so I left the hotel early.” A sheepish smile curved his lips. “As it turned out, there was no traffic and the restaurant was easy enough to find.”
“That’s good,” she responded, already feeling at a loss as to what to say next.
She was about to sit down and Everett quickly came around the table to hold out her chair for her.
“Thank you,” she murmured, feeling even more awkward as she took her seat.
Having pushed her chair in for her, Everett circled back to his own and sat down opposite her. He could feel his heart swelling just to look at her.
“You look really great,” Everett told her with enthusiasm.
Again she forced a quick smile to her lips. “Thank you,” she murmured.
At least all that time she’d spent this morning fussing with her makeup and searching for the right thing to wear had paid off, she thought. Looking good, she had once heard, was the best revenge. She wanted Everett to be aware of what he’d given up. She wanted him to feel at least a little pang over having so carelessly lost her.
The years had been kind to him, as well, she reluctantly admitted. His six-foot frame had filled in well, though he was still taut and lean, and his dark hair framed a handsome, manly face and highlighted his dark-blue eyes. Eyes that seemed to be studying her.
“But you do seem a little...different somehow,” Everett said quietly a moment later.
She wasn’t sure what he meant by that and it marred her triumph just a little. Was that a veiled criticism, she wondered.
“Well, it has been thirteen years,” she reminded Everett stiffly. “We knew each other a long time ago. That is,” she qualified, “if we ever really knew each other at all.”
He looked at her, wondering if that was a dig or if he was just being extremely touchy.
It seemed there were four of them at the table. The people they were now and the ghosts of the people they had been thirteen years ago.
The moment stretched out, becoming more uncomfortable. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Everett asked her.
“Just an observation,” Lila answered casually. “Who really knows who they are at that young an age?” she asked philosophically. “I know that I didn’t.”
He sincerely doubted that. “Oh, I think you did,” Everett told her.
Seeing the server approaching, she held her reply. When the server asked if he could start them out with a drink, Lila ordered a glass of sparkling water rather than anything alcoholic. Everett followed her example and asked for the same.
“And if you don’t mind, I’d like to order now,” Lila told the young server. “I have to be getting back to the office soon,” she explained.
“Of course.”
After he took their orders and left, Everett picked up the thread of their conversation. “I think you knew just what you wanted years ago,” he told her. “I’m the one who got it all wrong.”
Was he saying that out of pity for her, she wondered, feeling her temper beginning to rise as her stomach churned.
“On the contrary,” Lila responded. “You were the only kid who was serious when he said he wanted to play ‘doctor.’ If you ask me, ‘Dr. Fortunado’ achieved everything he ever dreamed about as a kid.”
Everett’s eyes met hers. Longing and sadness for all the lost years filled him. For the time being, he disregarded the note of bitterness he thought he detected in her voice.
“Not everything,” he told her.
This was an act. She wasn’t going to fall for it, Lila thought, grateful that the server picked that moment to return with their drinks and their orders. Everett wasn’t fooling her. He was just saying that so that she would forget about the past. Forget her pain.
As if that were remotely possible.
Silence stretched out between them. Everett shifted uncomfortably.
“So, tell me about you,” he finally urged. “What are you doing these days?”
Lila pushed around the lettuce in her salad as if the fate of the world depended on just the right placement. She kept her eyes on her plate as she spoke, deliberately avoiding making any further eye contact with him. She had always loved Everett’s dark blue eyes. When they’d been together, she felt she could easily get lost in those eyes of his and happily drown.
Now she couldn’t bear to look into them.
“I’m a manager of one of the departments at the Fortune Foundation. My work involves health outreach programs for the poorer families living in the Austin area.”
That sounded just like her, Everett thought. Lila was always trying to help others.
But something else she’d said caught his attention. “Did you say the Fortune Foundation?”
“Yes,” she answered. Suspicion entered her voice as she eyed him closely and asked, “Why?”
“Well, it just seems funny that you should mention the Fortunes. My family just recently found out that our last name might very well be ‘Fortune’ rather than ‘Fortunado.’” He pulled his face into a grin. “Crazy coincidence, isn’t it?”
Coincidence. Lila had another word for it. Her eyes narrowed as she pinned him with a look. “Is that why you wanted to get together for lunch?” she wanted to know. “To ask me questions about the Fortunes and see how much information you could get?”
He stared at her, practically dumbstruck. What was she talking about?
“The fact that you work for the Fortune Foundation has absolutely nothing to do with my wanting to get together with you,” Everett insisted. Thinking over her accusation, he shook his head. “I’m not even sure if the family is connected to the Fortunes. It could all just be a silly rumor or a hoax.
“And even if it does turn out to actually be true, my family’s not positive if we want to reveal the connection. It sounds like there are a lot of skeletons in the Fortune closet. Actually,” he confessed, backtracking, “maybe I spoke out of turn, talking about the possible connection. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to anyone at the Foundation.”
Did he think she was going to go running back after lunch and act like a human recording device, spilling every word that had been said between them? Just what sort of an image did he have of her?
Lila found herself struggling to tamp down her temper before she said anything.
“Well, obviously not everyone at the Foundation is a Fortune,” she pointed out icily. “And anyway, the Fortunes are a huge family. I don’t think anyone would be surprised to find out that there’s another branch or two out there. There’ve been so many that have been uncovered already.”
Everett nodded. “Makes sense,” he agreed, even though he still felt a little leery about having the story spread around that the Fortunados believed that they were really Fortunes. Trying to steer the conversation in a different direction, he asked, “I’m curious—what do you think of the Fortunes?”
Lila’s smile was reserved. She remembered hearing a great many unnerving rumors concerning the Fortune family before she began working at the Foundation. But most of what she’d been told turned out not to be true. For the most part, the stories were just run-of-the-mill gossip spread by people who were jealous of the family’s success as well as their money.
“In my experience,” she qualified in case he wanted to challenge her words, “they’re a great family. A lot of people hold the fact that they’re rich against them, but the family does a lot of good with that money. The Fortunes I’ve met aren’t power hungry or self-centered. A great many of them have devoted their lives to the Foundation, to doing as much good as they can,” she emphasized.
“Power-hungry and self-centered,” Everett repeated the words that she had used. “Is that the way you think of most rich people?” he asked. Then, before Lila could answer, he went on to ask her another question—the question he really wanted the answer to. “Is that how you think of me?”
Her eyes narrowed again as she looked at Everett intently. Rather than answering his question, she turned it around and asked Everett a question of her own. “Did I say that?” she asked pointedly.