âIs that what I am to you? A deal?â
Yearning bled through her words, gave the lie to her defensive posture. Scott came up behind her to wrap her in his arms. âThe best damn deal Iâve ever run across,â he whispered into her ear. âAnd the only one Iâve ever truly cared whether I landed or not.â
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. âAnd if you canât trust your intuitions, trust mine. Because theyâve never been wrong.â
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 donât want to wake up. Ever.
But nobody knew better than her that wanting wasnât enough to change what was.
Dear Reader,
I adore Cinderella stories, donât you? Seriously, who doesnât (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 Hastingsâin the form of telecommunications mogul Scott Fortuneâher damaged heart warns her not to trust it. Or him. So Scott has his work cut out for him, convincing Christina that heâs the one whoâs struck it rich.
Of course most of us buy our own cute shoes. And cars. And whatever else we need. But if our princes canât exactly hand over the credit card and say, âGo for it, honey,â at least theyâve given us their heartsâwhich is worth more than a closet full of shoes, any day.
Enjoy!
Karen
Make it happen.
If Scott Fortune could attribute anything to his successâin life, in businessâit 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 hadnât 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 Wendyâs 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.
âYou really have to go already?â
Scott turned, smiling in spite of himself at Wendyâs newly weddedâand not-so-newly pregnantâglow. 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, heâd have to herd his other siblings. But now he opened his arms to let his baby sister walk into themâas much as she could, at leastâthinking that Marcos Mendoza was the luckiest, and bravest, guy in the world, taking on the familyâs little princess.
âYou know Iâve got to get back,â he said into his much shorter sisterâs slippery brown hair. âAs it was, I left several projects hanging to come here.â
Snorting, Wendy disentangled herself. And gently smacked his arm, her allâs-right-in-her-world grin a blatant affront to the dreary weather. âWell, excuse me for putting you out,â she said, her warm brown eyes sparkling, her accent tilting more toward Texan by the second.
âAnd anywayââ
âI know, I knowâDaddyâs hot to get back for that New Yearâs Eve gala yâall are sponsoring.â Her mouth pulled into a pout ⦠for about a half second before she grinned again. Wasnât that long ago, however, that those pouts had been precursors to the hissy fits of a precocious, blatantly spoiled young woman whoâd assumed being an heiress was her lifeâs work. At their witsâ 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 familyâs 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 sheâd 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.