Fortune's Mergers

Four

Gina felt as if she had been dropped down in the middle of a nest of magpies … or, worse, the eye of a tornado. Her head ached, her ears rang, and though the food looked and smelled delicious, she hadn’t managed so much as a bite. How could she, and hope to keep up with the conversations flying around her?

There are so many of them, was all she could think as she stole a glance down the length of the table at Case’s family. Halves, wholes, steps. The one sibling of Case’s she was confident she could address correctly was Creed, and that was only because he favored Case so much. In fact, the two could be mistaken for twins!

His parents were easily identified, as they were the oldest in the group. Nash, Case’s father, could easily have been Case’s brother, due to his youthful appearance and the features he shared with his sons. But the rest? Impossible! There were simply too many.

The sound of Case’s voice forced her attention from her thoughts.

“Any mobsters tried to take over your casino yet, Blake?” Case asked the man across the table.

Everyone at the table howled with laughter—everyone, that is, except Blake. Gina watched his eyes narrow and his hands ball into fists, and thought for a moment he might leap across the table and grab Case by the throat.

“Are you questioning my ability to manage my own business?” he challenged tersely.

“Come on, Blake,” Creed chided. “Where’s your sense of humor? Case was only kidding.”

“Yeah, Blake,” Case agreed. “Can’t you take a joke?”

A woman from the opposite end of the table spoke up. “I think he lost that ability when Dad turned Dakota Fortunes over to you and Creed and left Blake hanging.”

“That’s enough,” Nash said sternly, then offered Gina an apologetic smile. “You’ll have to forgive my children. It seems sibling rivalry persists, no matter what their ages.”

With the attention now focused on her, Gina felt a blush warm her cheeks. “Uh … I wouldn’t know anything about sibling rivalry. I’m an only child.”

“An only child?” Eliza repeated, then sighed enviously. “What I wouldn’t give to be an only child.”

“And miss out on the pleasure of having me as an older brother?” Case teased.

“Yeah, right,” Eliza returned wryly, then grinned and blew him an affectionate kiss.

With that, the confrontation was forgotten and the earlier joviality returned, leaving Gina feeling like a ping pong ball as she tried to keep up with all the conversations around her.

While Case dealt with the lock on the door to the loft, Gina thought back over the evening. Throughout dinner she had felt a distinct disadvantage, since everyone gathered for the welcome home celebration had known each other and she’d known only Case. Yet, she couldn’t help envying his family’s obvious closeness, in spite of the brief confrontation she’d witnessed between Case and Blake.

Remembering the woman who had come to Blake’s defense, she tried to recall her name. “Tell me again your half-sister’s name,” she asked, as she stepped inside the loft.

“Skylar Fortune.”

Exhausted both mentally and physically from trying to keep all of Case’s family straight in her mind, she stripped off her coat and let it fall to the floor. “Steps, halves and wholes,” she said wearily and collapsed onto the sofa. “How on earth do you remember all their names?”

Chuckling, he dropped beside her and cupped a hand at the base of her neck, squeezed. “Years of practice.”

She moaned pitifully as he kneaded the tensed muscles of her neck. “Please don’t stop,” she begged.

The telephone rang, but she ignored it.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m too tired to move. Whoever it is will just have to leave a message.”

At that moment, the answering machine clicked on, playing her recorded message. Seconds later, a male voice came through the speaker, “Gina, it’s your father. Call me at your earliest convenience.”

Ice shot through her veins at the sound of her father’s voice.

“Aren’t you going to call him back?” Case asked.

She turned her face away. “No.”

“But it sounded important.”

“I’m not interested in anything he has to say.”

“Gina,” he scolded gently. “Isn’t that rather harsh?”

“Actually I was being kind, considering how I feel about him.”

“But he’s your father,” he reminded her.

“My family’s not like yours,” she informed him. “My father and I have never been close. His choice, not mine.”

He looked at her in puzzlement. “What do you mean, ‘his choice’?”

“He never had time for me. Or for my mother, either, for that matter,” she added bitterly. “His one and only love is and always has been Reynolds Refining.”

She saw the look of surprise on Case’s face and felt he deserved some kind of explanation. However she was reluctant to offer one, especially after meeting his family and seeing how close all the Fortunes were. She pushed to her feet and crossed to the window to stare out, needing to distance herself from him, while she shared her less-than-picture-perfect past.

“My mother committed suicide,” she said, after a moment. “It was her last and final act to gain my father’s attention.” She shook her head sadly. “But I’m not sure she gained it even then. I know I never did.

“After her death, he sent me away to boarding school. He rarely called, never came for visits. What communications we did have were filtered through his secretary. She sent my allowance each month, shopped for all my birthday and Christmas gifts and mailed them to me. After boarding school, I went on to college, and the pattern remained the same.”

She heard Case rise, felt the weight of his hands on her shoulders, the nudge of his nose against her ear.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

She blinked back tears at the sympathy in his voice. “Don’t be. I’m not. Not anymore.”

She stared out the window, remembering the years of neglect, the pain her father had caused her, as well as the means she’d found to finally sever her ties to him completely.

“The only duty he ever felt toward me was a financial one, and when I was a junior in college, I finally found a way to free him of that obligation.”

“How?”

“My writing. I was still in college when I sold my first book.” She felt the same swell of satisfaction she had the day she’d received the call. “The advance check gave me the financial freedom I needed to cut him out of my life entirely.”

“But you moved back to Sioux Falls,” he said, obviously wondering why she’d return to the place where her father lived. “Was it in hopes of reuniting with your father?”

“Hardly,” she said wryly. “Sioux Falls is home to me, the only one I’ve never known. He robbed me of that and all that was familiar when he shipped me off to school.” She shook her head sadly. “I guess I’m slow, but it took me a while to realize that I had as much right to live here as he did. When I did, I packed up my things and moved back.”

“And you haven’t seen him since your return?”

“No. In fact, the phone call you just heard was the first time he’s attempted to contact me in years.”

Finding the entire subject of her father depressing, she turned and forced a smile. “Now that you know all the dirt about my family, how about a glass of wine?”

His gaze on hers, he lifted a hand and brushed her hair back from her face. “I have a better idea.”

She shivered as he stroked a thumb beneath her eye. “W-what?”

“This …”

He bent his head and she closed her eyes in anticipation of his kiss. His lips touched hers once, sweetly, withdrew, then touched again. The tenderness in the gesture, the comfort she found in it, drew tears to her eyes. Lifting her arms, she wrapped them around his neck and gave herself up to the kiss, to him.

With a low moan, he vised his arms around, drew her to her toes and deepened the kiss. His taste filled her, a heady aphrodisiac that flowed through her bloodstream and turned her bones to jelly. Everywhere his body touched hers tingled with awareness, anticipation. Need.

His hands seemed to be everywhere at once. Squeezing the cheeks of her buttocks. Sweeping up her back. Framing her face. Her body responded to each and every touch. Arching. Heating. Aching for more. He slid a hand between their chests and covered her breast. Her breath grew ragged, her nipple rigid, as he gently kneaded the mound.

Unable to breathe, to think, she dragged her mouth from his. “Case, please.”

He rained kisses over her face, down her neck. “Please, what?”

She knew what it was she wanted from him, what her body ached for. But she knew, too, that she couldn’t give in to that need.

She shook her head. “I can’t do this.”

He drew back far enough to peer at her. “Can’t, what?”

“This,” she said in frustration.

“Why not?”

“I told you before. I’m saving myself for marriage.”

“No sex until marriage?” he asked doubtfully. “Isn’t that rather extreme?”

“Well, maybe engaged,” she conceded reluctantly. “But the commitment has to be there. Commitment is very important to me.”

He studied her a moment, then blew out a long breath. “Yeah, I’m sure it is.”

“Maybe you should go,” she said miserably.

Nodding thoughtfully, he gathered his coat from the chair where he’d dropped it. At the door, he stopped and glanced back. “Gina?”

“What?”

“What kind do you want?”

“What kind of what?” she asked in frustration.

“Engagement ring.”

“He was kidding,” Gina told Zoie the next morning over coffee. “I mean, there was no dropping to one knee, no proposal. He just asked what kind of ring I wanted.”

Zoie rolled her eyes. “Girl, you’re dumb as a board. If it’d been me, I’d’ve told him I’d accept nothing less than four carats set in platinum.”

“I’m not you,” Gina reminded her dryly.

“What’s so wrong with marrying Case Fortune?” Zoie asked. “He’s easy on the eye, rich as sin. You could do a lot worse, you know.”

“I won’t marry a man I’m not in love with,” Gina stated firmly.

“Why not? Women do it all the time. Who knows? You might even grow to love him over time.”

“And I might not,” Gina argued, then tossed up her hands. “I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation. He wasn’t serious. It was just a joke.”

“How do you know it was? Did he laugh? Crack a smile? Did he say ‘gotcha, jokes on you’?”

Gina squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. “Well, no.”

“What did he do?”

“He just … left.”

“Just like that,” Zoie said, with a snap of her fingers. “He proposes, then leaves without waiting for an answer?”

Gina slid her spine down the chair, wishing she’d never told Zoie what Case had said. “Well, he kind of hesitated a minute, like he was waiting for me to say something, then he left.”

Zoie thumped the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Girl, you are undoubtedly the slowest, most naive woman to ever walk this earth. When a man like Case Fortune even hints at marriage, you clamp a ball and chain around his ankle and get him to swear to it in blood, before he can change his mind.”

Scowling, Gina rose to dump her coffee down the drain. “I wish I’d never brought it up.”

“Who’s going to keep you from screwing up your life, if you don’t confide in me?”

Gina shot Zoie a frown over her shoulder. “I’m not screwing up my life. I’m merely being cautious.”

“Same thing. You’ve got to learn to take a few risks. Step out on a limb every now and then. That bubble you’ve been living in might be safe, but it’s got to be lonely as hell in there.”

“I don’t live in a bubble,” Gina stated indignantly. “And I’m not lonely. I go out. I have friends.”

“Name two,” Zoie challenged.

Gina opened her mouth to reply, then closed it, unable to name a single friend, other than Zoie.

“See?” Zoie said smugly. “If I had a good, strong hat pin, I’d pop that bubble and force you out into the real world and out of that make-believe one you hide yourself in.”

Gina pushed the vacuum around her loft, chasing the dust bunnies that had collected during her weeklong creative block. Thankfully, the revisions were now complete and on their way to New York, via Federal Express.

She wished she could pack Zoie up and deal with her as easily.

Flattening her lips, she thrust the vacuum head under the sofa with a little more force than necessary.

“I don’t live in a bubble,” she grumbled under her breath. Just because her lifestyle was different than Zoie’s didn’t mean there was anything wrong with it or her. Zoie was a free spirit, an adventuress, while Gina enjoyed a quieter, calmer existence.

And she wasn’t lonely, she told herself. She wasn’t like Zoie, who constantly needed to be surrounded with noise and color, in order to be happy. Gina was perfectly content with her life just the way it was.

Or she had been, until Case came along.

Giving the vacuum an angry shove, she fisted her hands on her hips, as the upright machine went careening across the room and crashed into her dining table. He was the problem. Case Fortune. He’d dropped into her world like the proverbial Prince Charming and started making her question everything she’d once held dear.

Mainly, her virginity.

Groaning, she snatched up the stuffed toad from the sofa and flopped down, burying her face in its soft fabric. She’d never considered sex a sport, as did many of her peers. To her, sex was special, sacred, an act two people in love shared exclusively with one another.

If that was true, then why was she always thinking about having sex with Case? she asked herself. She didn’t love him. Heck, she barely knew him! So what if his kisses turned her insides to warm butter? Big deal. And who cared if he was drop-dead handsome? In today’s world, pretty faces were a dime a dozen. And so what if he did the sweetest, most romantic things? Any man with a finger could punch in a florist’s number and order a shipload of flowers. And it certainly didn’t take a genius to fold a piece of paper into an airplane and sail it through a window.

But few men did those kinds of things. It took someone special to even think of doing them. Someone thoughtful, kind, generous. Someone with a heart.

She slowly drew the stuffed toad from her face, her eyes wide. Was Case truly the kind of man she’d just described? She racked her brain, trying to think of instances where he’d displayed the traits she’d once attributed to him—cold, heartless, driven.

He had to be all of those things, she told herself. A businessman like Case didn’t climb to the position he was currently in without stepping on a few people along the way. Her own father had sacrificed family in favor of business. Surely Case had done the same.

But then she remembered the loving comments he’d made about his mother, while gazing at the portrait of her that hung in his room; his concern for his step-mother when she’d appeared about to faint; the easy camaraderie she’d witnessed between he and his siblings the night he’d invited her to have dinner with his family.

Had she misjudged him? she asked herself honestly. Had she blown any future she might’ve had with him by refusing to have sex with him?

She firmed her jaw. If so, that was just too bad. Her virginity was important to her, a gift she intended to give to her husband, to the man she loved. If Case wrote her off just because she wouldn’t have sex with him, then he wasn’t the man for her.

A knock on the door jerked her from her thoughts. Sure that it was Zoie coming to apologize for all the mean things she’d said that morning, she pushed to her feet, thinking she might make her friend squirm for a while before forgiving her. After all, the things Zoie had said were cruel and totally untrue.

But when she opened the door, it was Case, not Zoie, standing in the hallway.

“Case,” she said in surprise.

“Are you filming a pancake commercial?” he teased.

Remembering that she had wrapped her hair in a bandanna, she ripped the scarf from her head and balled it into her fist. “Sorry. I was cleaning house.”

He lifted a brow. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

Flustered, she stepped back, allowing him to enter. “Sorry,” she murmured as she closed the door behind him.

“That’s twice you’ve apologized in the same number of minutes.” He bit back a smile. “Usually that’s a sign of a guilty conscience.”

She ducked her head, blushing. “More like embarrassment. Obviously, I wasn’t expecting company.” She peered up at him curiously, suddenly remembering the time. “What are you doing over here at this time of day? Shouldn’t you be at the office?”

“I’m playing hooky.”

“Really?” she said in surprise. “Somehow you don’t seem the type.”

“Here we go with that ‘type’ thing again,” he said wearily.

She winced. “Sorry.”

“That’s three,” he said, then smiled, “But you’re right. Ordinarily I don’t skip out early, but I figured I might as well leave, since I wasn’t accomplishing anything, anyway.” He gave her a hopeful look. “I was hoping I could talk you into playing hooky with me.”

She glanced down at her front and wrinkled her nose at the sight of her faded sweat suit and stocking feet. “I’m not exactly dressed for an outing.”

“I was thinking more about a movie marathon.” He lifted his briefcase and gave it a pat. “I came prepared with a half dozen DVDs, a box of microwave popcorn and a six-pack of beer.”

She choked a laugh. “Are you serious?”

He plopped his briefcase down on the dining table, flipped up the latches and lifted the lid. Inside were a stack of DVDs, as well as the aforementioned boxes of popcorn and six-pack of beer.

“You are serious” she said in disbelief.

He shrugged off his coat, then loosened the knot of his tie. “So? What do you say? Are you game for a movie marathon?”

Laughing, she plucked the box of popcorn from the briefcase and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll make the popcorn, while you cue up the DVD.”

By the time the credits rolled on the last movie, Gina and Case were spooned on the sofa, with Case at her back and one of his legs hooked over hers.

She dabbed a tissue at her eyes. “That movie always makes me cry.”

“Me, too.”

She snapped her head around to peer at him, then dug an elbow into his ribs. “Liar. You didn’t cry.”

“I did, too,” he insisted.

Picking up the remote, she aimed it at the TV. “Men,” she muttered, and turned off the set.

“Just because we don’t wear our emotions for all the world to see, doesn’t mean we have don’t have any.”

She shifted to her back to look up at him. “And that’s to say that women do?”

He swiped a tear from her cheek and lifted it for her to see. “There’s your proof.”

Chuckling, she swatted his hand away. “Okay, so I’m a wimp and cry at sad movies.”

He bent his head to nuzzle her cheek. “Never argue with me. I’m always right.”

She gave his head a playful push. “Your ego is showing again.”

He dipped his head over hers. “Let’s make out,” he whispered against her lips.