by Leanne Banks
Jason opened the door to Tyler.
“Your brother is here needing to kill time until the safety inspection clears us to start construction again.”
Jason took a deep breath and understood his brother’s inability to remain idle. The events of the previous days had the potential to drive any man to the edge. Speaking of driving a man to the edge, he thought, and his mind traveled to the red-haired witch who had abandoned him this morning.
“You can set up preliminary plans for the Westin project in Rio,” Jason said, closing the door behind him.
“I thought that was a maybe,” Tyler said.
“It became a yes last week.”
Tyler shrugged. “That’s why you’re vice president of marketing. If anyone can turn a no or maybe into a yes, it’s you.”
Jason again thought of Adele and bit his tongue.
Tyler scrutinized him, his gaze lingering on the places where Jason had cut himself shaving. “You don’t look too good. Did you have a rough night?”
“I’m okay. My morning just wasn’t smooth as glass.”
Tyler tensed. “Did one of the investigators call with bad news?”
Jason shook his head. “No. Nothing like that.”
Tyler crinkled his face in confusion. “Then what—” He broke off and studied Jason. “Something to do with the redhead wonder?”
Jason paused a half beat too long. He knew it by the expression of realization on Tyler’s face. “Did you finally get her into bed?”
Irritation flooded him. “It’s not like that,” he told Tyler. “You asked for something to do. Get out of here and work on the Westin project.”
“Let me guess. You spent the night with her, and she wants to get married now.”
“Not exactly,” Jason said. “She walked out on me this morning,” he said, still incredulous.
Tyler shrugged. “That happens sometimes. Women are weird. Maybe she wasn’t comfortable at your house or something.”
“We weren’t at my house,” Jason said.
“Huh?” Tyler said. “Well, where were you?”
“At the condo. She started this insane conversation, told me to leave, then when I wouldn’t, she sneaked out the door while I was getting dressed. She wasn’t wearing a damn thing beneath that robe,” he muttered to himself, pacing.
Tyler began to chuckle. “She ran out on you from the condo, which is technically her house while she is here?” He laughed again. “That’s desperate, Jason. What did you do to the poor woman?”
Tyler remembered their lovemaking and slowed his pacing. “Nothing to make her leave. Nothing—” He broke off and scowled. “When she gets in here, I’m giving her a short course in etiquette if I don’t wring her neck first.”
Tyler nodded slowly. “Oh, well, that should make her come running.”
Jason’s temper flared. “This is none of your business. I don’t want you discussing it with anyone, especially Mom or Dad.”
“You really think Dad won’t be able to tell? He can read either of us like a book.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want you discussing it. I don’t encourage Mom and Dad to force matrimony down your throat, and believe me, the opportunity presents on a regular basis.”
“Okay, okay,” Tyler said, raising his fingers in the sign of the cross.
Jason pulled the Westin file from a drawer and handed it to Tyler. “Knock yourself out.”
Tyler nodded. “I will,” he said. “Good luck with the redhead.”
The redhead arrived when Jason was on a conference call. As soon as he concluded it, he took a deep breath and walked to Adele’s office. Her door barely ajar, she sat behind her desk reading a professional journal and making notes. Her hair was pulled back more tightly than usual and she wore black. Don’t mess with me. Too late, he thought, and pushed open the door.
She looked up, and her eyes flashed with turbulent emotion. Everything about her seemed on guard. She stood. “I’m sorry I left so abruptly this morning, but I’m not sorry, too.”
Jason’s head began to pound. “We couldn’t accomplish anything by your leaving.”
“Actually I did. I ate a fast-food breakfast and worked on regaining my sanity.”
“And did you succeed?”
The vulnerability in her gaze tugged at him. “I started in that direction.” She inhaled and looked away. “I know it wasn’t wise for us to get involved.”
Jason felt his gut twist. “If you could turn back time, would you make a different choice?”
She closed her eyes and was silent for a long moment. “No, but it’s not going to work. You may be able to hide your emotions, but I just don’t have that talent.”
Jason walked behind and closed his arms around her. “Maybe we shouldn’t hide it.”
Adele turned in his arms and looked at him as if he were crazy. “And you think Kate Fortune, your mother or your father will have nothing to say or suggest? You know what Kate is like. She’ll have the flowers picked out for our fictitious wedding before you or I can scream help.”
Jason grimaced. She had a point, but he was determined to continue seeing her. The prospect of not holding her, not knowing her was like barbed wire on his nerve endings. “You don’t really think we can go back, do you?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. I just know I’m not mistress or wife material, so what does that make me?”
“How about lover, friend and disruptive force in my life?”
She gave him a thoughtful glance. “Maybe,” she said with grudging approval. “And how do we respond to questions?”
“We don’t,” he said, and smiled. “We change the subject or flat-out say we’re not discussing the matter.”
Adele looked doubtful. “Do you really think that will work?”
Jason pushed her door closed, locked it and drew her into his arms. “I don’t want you to think about Kate Fortune or my mother or father or any other Fortunes right now.” He brushed his lips against hers and felt his body buzz with the memory of their intimacy. “I want you to think about me,” he said, and did his best to wipe everything else from her mind.
Much later he found her in her office again.
“I’ll take you to dinner tonight,” Jason said after he had finished an extensive international project meeting. Between the aftermath of the accident and new accounts, he’d had to ask Adele to go ahead with preliminary proposals for some of the hospital policy. Her hair escaping the topknot and her feet shoeless, she sat in a chair beside her desk with her feet propped up on a small cabinet. She didn’t appear nearly so stiff and distant as she had earlier today. Looking at her made him ache and feel soothed at the same time. Damn combination, he thought.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not ready for a public appearance.”
Her rejection caught him off guard. Jason had spent his life being pursued by women who’d been far more interested in his name, his money and the prestige of being associated with him. “Are you saying you don’t want to be seen with me?”
She gave a lop-sided smile. “Pretty much.” She swung her legs around and stood. “You can come to my condo for dinner if you like, though.”
He wanted more than anything to understand her. “I thought you didn’t want to be a mistress.”
“I’m not. I’m just not ready to be referred to as Jason Fortune’s woman du jour.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re getting me confused with Tyler again.”
She met his gaze, and her expression turned serious. “Not a chance.”
He relented, but in an odd way her reluctance bothered him. Jason couldn’t explain it, but he was torn between hiding Adele and what they shared away from prying eyes and staking his claim in public. He felt a disconcerting possessiveness about her, and if Adele knew, she was so damned independent he was certain she’d be horrified.
She prepared a stir-fry that they didn’t quite finish before he made love to her. Afterward
, she was cold, so he wrapped a blanket around them both and sat up to hold her. He lifted her bare fingers to his lips and kissed them. “Why don’t you wear jewelry?”
“I wear earrings every once in a while.”
“But no rings,” he said, then skimmed his finger over her neck. “No necklace.”
“When I was pretty young, I had a roommate named Annabelle at the children’s home for almost two years. She kept insisting that her mother was going to come and take her away after she got well. That was everyone’s dream, so one really believed her.” She smiled. “Except me. I knew about Annabelle’s stuff.”
“Stuff,” he echoed, intrigued.
“Annabelle had jewelry. She had a ring with her birthstone and a bracelet with her name engraved on it. She wore a locket around her neck with teeny, tiny pictures of Annabelle and her mother inside it. When she wasn’t wearing her jewelry she kept it in a music box.” A look of bittersweet reminiscence crossed Adele’s features.
“Some of the other girls were jealous of Annabelle’s stuff. It was pretty, but I never wanted her stuff as much as I wanted the stories that went with them. Annabelle’s mother put the ring in a birthday cupcake for Annabelle’s sixth birthday.”
Adele smiled. “The bracelet had a secret message on the inside. I L Y, Mom. And the coolest thing of all was the music box. It played ‘Edelweiss,’ which is a very pretty song. But what made it special was that Annabelle’s mother used to sing ‘Edelweiss’ to her every night when she put her to bed.”
“Did her mother ever come for her?” Jason asked, lacing his fingers through Adele’s hair.
Adele nodded. “Yes. Annabelle’s mother had gotten tuberculosis, and it took a long time for her to get well, but when she did, she came and got Annabelle. I’d never seen people so happy they cried. I was sad that she left, but I couldn’t be real sad because they were so happy. So I think Annabelle shaped my attitude about jewelry.”
“How?”
“If I’m going to wear jewelry, I want a story to go with it. Otherwise, it’s just stuff.”
Moved, he said nothing, but tucked her head beneath his chin. Jason thought of Cara and how important jewelry had been to her. The flashier the diamond, the better. Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, he had sensed his family’s wealth and name had been more important to his wife than he had been. He thought of Adele as a child and all she must have longed for. His heart hurt, and he felt a powerful, driving urge to give her everything she’d never had, everything she should have had. The urge was so strong it disturbed him. He wasn’t ready to care so much.
With each question answered about her, however, two new questions grew in its place. Where, he wondered, would it end?
The following day Adele tried to adjust to the sense of being off-kilter. Her heart didn’t beat the same way it did before. “Maybe I need a pacemaker,” she muttered to herself as she sat in his office while he finished a telephone call with someone on the other side of the world. Jason Fortune had messed up her orderly existence. For Adele it was a matter of choosing between two evils, and Jason was too compelling to pass up.
They’d spent the morning making fast headway on plans for the outpatient teen pregnancy center. She admired his ability to see the big picture and at the same time to pay attention to details. Gazing surreptitiously at him, she took in the easy way he wore a suit and remembered the equally easy way he wore nothing. He was handsome in a way that would always turn women’s head, but what held Adele’s attention was the way his mind and heart worked.
She glanced down at the framed picture of Lisa and smiled.
Jason hung up the phone and checked his watch. “Where were we?”
“At a good stopping place,” Adele said. “How did Lisa’s slumber party go?”
“She had a good time, and my mother has spoiled her to death during the past few days. Last night was her first night back. That’s why I didn’t stay late last night,” he said. “She asked about you.”
Adele felt a rush of pleasure. “Really? I was just thinking I’ve missed seeing her.”
He nodded, but said nothing.
Adele studied his face and sensed something wasn’t quite right. “Are you sure she’s okay? Are you worried about her?”
He sighed and raked his hand through his hair. “She’s fine. I haven’t decided how to handle her and you.”
“Her and me?” Adele asked, confused.
“She hasn’t really had a mother figure in her life except for her grandmother, and she’s very impressed with you.”
Adele would have felt flattered except Jason didn’t sound pleased. “Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know. I’m concerned that she may get attached to you.”
Her stomach gave a vicious twist. His words emphasized the temporary nature of their relationship. That should be fine, Adele told herself. Neither of them wanted anything permanent. They weren’t suited for anything permanent.
“Your job here will be done as soon as you and I complete the operations for the hospital,” he said, and Adele could tell he was reading her face.
Darn, she wished she were better at hiding her emotions. She bit her lip. “I understand that you would want a more permanent feminine influence on your daughter,” she said.
He rounded his desk to stand in front of her. “She’s so young, and it may not make sense, but I want to protect her from any more loss as much as I can.”
Adele understood his need to protect. She wished she understood why it hurt so much. “You weren’t worried about this the first night you had me over to dinner.”
He shook his head. “I had no idea how quickly she would grow attached to you.”
Or how quickly Adele would grow attached to Lisa, she thought, struggling with her feelings.
“This isn’t anything personal,” he said. “I just need—”
Adele lifted her hand. “I understand. It’s a good thing for you to protect your daughter,” she said, because although it hurt, it was the right thing to say. Clearing her throat, she glanced down and caught sight of her watch. “I hate to remind you, but it’s probably time to leave for Mike Dodd’s funeral.”
He nodded slowly. “Can I give you a ride?”
“I’ll drive myself,” she said, needing to pull back into herself a bit.
He reached out for her hand. “I don’t want you to be hurt by this. I would rather hurt myself.”
Adele felt her eyes grow damp and blinked to keep telltale tears at bay. She could hear his desire to protect her and his daughter tearing at him.
Even though she missed Lisa and would have loved to know her better, Adele was deeply touched that Jason so wanted not to hurt her. Somewhere inside her, she found the strength that had gotten her through similar times, times when she’d felt as if she’d been on the outside looking in.
“There’s no need to hurt yourself. I’m okay,” she said, and if it wasn’t true at the moment, she would make it true. “We need to leave.”
In her car, she followed Jason to the memorial service at the small chapel. Sitting in the back, she watched Jason and Tyler speak to a young woman whose face looked strained with grief. Angelica Dodd, Mike’s sister. She felt a well of sympathy for the woman. Adele had been told Angelica and Mike had no other family, so Angelica was now alone.
Adele saw several men with the trademark Fortune bone structure and was impressed by the presence of them at the service. In particular, Riley Fortune, hovered by Angelica’s side.
The minister began the service with prayer and scripture, then shared a message about the fleeting, uncertain nature of life, and the importance of living life to the fullest while we can, the importance of loving to the fullest while we can.
Adele’s heart tightened and she studied Jason’s profile. She had never loved a man before, but he was taking her to places she’d never been, teaching her things about herself she’d never known. Her biggest fear was that she would learn she wasn’t nearly so strong and in
dependent as she’d believed, because when it was all said and done, Adele was certain she would be alone again. She was not a keeper.
Nine
“Daddy, who was the man that died?” Lisa asked as Jason tucked her into one of the guest room beds at his parents’ home. Jason had decided that staying with his parents a few extra days would offer an extra boost of security during the crisis.
“He was a foreman,” Jason told her, brushing her hair from her face.
“Why did he die?”
His daughter was always full of questions, particularly at bedtime. “The elevator broke.”
“Is it fixed?”
“By the end of the week it will be.” He touched his forefinger to her nose. “It’s time for you to go to sleep. You have school tomorrow.”
Lisa sat up. “But I haven’t shown you the bracelets I’m making yet.”
Jason knew she was stalling, but he didn’t mind giving her extra attention, especially with all the disruptions lately. Although he had wanted to see Adele after the memorial service, Jason had known he needed to spend some time with Lisa. “Okay,” he said, “show me.”
Lisa leaned over and pulled two beaded bracelets from a pocket of her backpack beside the bed. “My teacher helped me get started. See the colors,” she said. “Green, red, black and amber.” She looked up at him proudly. “Guess why I picked those colors.”
Her enthusiasm warmed him. He smiled. “You got me. Why?”
“Because Adele’s eyes are green, her hair is red, my hair is black, and my eyes are amber. I want to give her one to thank her for rescuing me.”
Jason’s heart twisted. He was proud of his daughter for her attitude of gratitude and generosity, but it was easy to see Lisa was already attached. He put his arm around her. “Princess, the bracelets are very pretty and it’s very very nice of you to make one for Adele. You do understand that she’s not moving permanently to Pueblo. She’s doing a special job for the hospital, and then she’ll go back to Minnesota.” Stating the fact brought him no joy.
Lisa wrinkled her brow in confusion. “Do I have time to give her the bracelet before she leaves? Is she leaving tomorrow?”