Fortune's Surprise Engagement

by Nancy Robards Thompson

  God, she hated feeling out of control like this.

  Sophie grabbed her into a hug. “Oh, Liv, I’m so sorry you’re hurting. You really do love him, don’t you?”

  Adding to the out-of-control feeling, she realized she was nodding her head when she should’ve been shaking it and convincing herself that she didn’t love him.

  “I know your relationship started off as a ruse to get me back in the wedding, but from the minute I saw the two of you together I was holding out for you. I knew this was real even if you all didn’t know it.”

  She wanted to tell Sophie to stop. It was over. She’d loved and lost and now her heart was broken and she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Rehashing everything was only making it worse. Salt in the wound. Insult to injury.

  “Olivia, if you love him, why are you sitting here? Why are you letting him get away? I don’t even understand what happened last night.”

  The two of them sat down on the edge of the jetted tub. Olivia found her voice and gave Sophie the lowdown.

  Sophie listened without saying a word until Olivia had talked herself out. When she was quiet, Sophie said, “Okay, let me get this straight. You’re upset with him about a winery deal that he already had going before he met you. The one that would keep him here in Austin. And you’re upset because he intended to ask our father to buy in to save the deal, but he put off asking him because he didn’t want to approach dad under false pretenses and he didn’t want to involve you because he didn’t want you to feel obligated to help him after you had roped him into this wedding farce he gained absolutely nothing from. Hmm... Let’s think about that for a minute.”

  Sophie let the words hang in the air.

  “I don’t know, Liv. I’m not quite seeing the same picture of a liar and a scoundrel and a cheat that you seem to think he is. Am I missing something?”

  “Yeah, I’m not seeing it, either,” Rachel said. Olivia looked up to see Rachel and Zoe standing in the bathroom doorway. “I think you’re in love and you’re scared. I think you’re projecting your fears onto him so that the relationship will end and you’ll be exactly where you thought you would be.”

  Olivia sucked in a quick breath.

  “Well, congratulations,” said Zoe. “You did it. You wanted him to leave. And he did. Happy now?”

  “Zoe, shush,” said Rachel.

  “No, she’s right,” said Olivia. “She’s absolutely one-hundred-percent right. I’ve been so busy wallowing in my misery over being left, over thinking any man who is interested in me is a scoundrel who wants something. But that’s not Alejandro. I may have lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me, because I’m an idiot.”

  “No, you’re not an idiot,” said Sophie. “You are a smart, wonderful, generous person with a huge heart. You will go to the ends of the earth for those you love. You proved that in what you did for me. Now be kind to yourself and go after him. Go get your man.”

  “I will,” Olivia said. “I mean, I would, but I don’t know where he is.”

  “He didn’t tell you where he was going?” Rachel asked.

  “He had to sleep somewhere last night. Obviously he didn’t go to his brothers, because you would know if he had. He didn’t stay with Cisco and Delaney. Maybe he went back to the Driskill?”

  “Let me get my cell phone and I’ll look up the number and we can call and see if he’s registered there,” said Zoe. “Rachel, you call Cisco and ask if he’s there.”

  “Or we could just call his cell phone,” Sophie said.

  Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that? It was the only logical thing to do, but her brain had been so addled she hadn’t even considered the obvious.

  Olivia got her phone and called Alejandro’s number. When it started ringing, they heard a strange ringing sound coming from the spare bedroom. The four of them went to investigate and finally found Alejandro’s cell phone underneath the foot of the bed. It must’ve fallen out of his pocket as he was packing.

  Olivia sighed. “Well, now I have a valid reason to see him again.”

  “Olivia, your feelings for him are a valid reason to see him again,” said Zoe. “You need to think positively. As positively about the outcome of things for yourself as you do for those you love. Because you are worth it. You deserve the same kind of love that you bestow upon other people.”

  After her sisters left, Olivia sat in the silent living room for a long time thinking. Rachel had called her husband, Matteo, and had gotten the phone numbers of Rodrigo and Stefan, Alejandro’s cousins and business partners.

  Now Olivia placed a call to Stefan.

  “Hi, Stefan, this is Olivia Fortune Robinson. I’m a friend of Alejandro’s. He was staying with me in Austin while he was here for the wedding.”

  “Hey, Olivia, I know who you are. Alejandro had a lot of nice things to say about you.”

  Her heart clenched. He had nice things to say about her, but she’d thought the worst of him. Well, he probably wasn’t thinking nice things about her now. With just cause.

  “He left Austin yesterday and I’m not sure where he went, but he left his cell phone here and I’d like to get in touch with him to let him know I have it. Is he back in Miami, by any chance?”

  “No, he’s still in Texas. He went to see his dad in Horseback Hollow. If you want, you can probably get in touch with him through Orlando.”

  Stefan gave Olivia the telephone number.

  “Stefan, can you tell me a little bit about Hummingbird Ridge? As an investment...and what you’re looking for in an investor. I know that one of your investors pulled out. Can you give me a ballpark dollar amount? I may know someone who is looking for an investment opportunity.”

  It was a whim, and she knew a whim could be dangerous because, as a general rule, spontaneity had always gotten her in trouble. But then again so had planning everything out to the last painstaking detail. So she took a deep breath and threw caution to the wind.

  He filled her in on the details.

  “Thanks so much, Stefan. I’ll get back with you. Or Alejandro when I see him.”

  “Hey, no problem. It’s nice to talk to the woman who has stolen my cousin’s heart.”

  Alejandro had confided his feelings in Stefan?

  The thought renewed her hope.

  She called Alejandro’s phone. She knew he wouldn’t pick up, but that was beside the point. She wanted to hear his voice. That’s all she meant to do—call, listen to his voice on his voice mail greeting and hang up. Instead, she ended up leaving him a message, even though she knew he wouldn’t get it until she gave him back his phone.

  “Alejandro, it’s Olivia. I’m sorry. What I hate most about this fight is that I might’ve ruined something that could’ve been so good. I hope that we can talk about this. Will you give me that chance? Because if I don’t get the chance to tell you I love you, I know I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. I love you.”

  He might not want to hear from her. He might want her to mail the phone to him since he would probably be back in Miami soon. But she had to tell him how she felt.

  Since Rachel lived in Horseback Hollow, and Stefan said Alejandro was there... If he was still going to be there tomorrow when her sister went home, maybe Rachel could take the phone to him. Or maybe Olivia could go with her and deliver it herself.

  One way or another he had to hear her message.

  * * *

  Alejandro should’ve trusted his instincts. If he
hadn’t gone to the party, Gerald wouldn’t have had the opportunity to dump on them like that in front of Olivia. But who was he kidding? If he hadn’t gone to the party, Olivia would’ve gone by herself and her father probably would’ve sent a message home through her about what a flake he was for canceling the meetings and avoiding him.

  In hindsight, he should have been upfront with Olivia. He could’ve told her he didn’t want her to get involved in his offer to her father. If only he could go back and do it over again. But he couldn’t. He had to deal with the way things were. He needed to focus on finding another investor for Hummingbird Ridge.

  On his way out of Austin to Horseback Hollow he had stopped by the winery. Jack and Margaret Daily had agreed to give Alejandro first right of refusal if another buyer came along. That motivated him to quit moping and get the job done.

  In the meantime, it was good to be sitting at the Hollows Cantina in Horseback Hollow having a beer with his father before returning to Miami.

  “I’m sorry the engagement is off,” Orlando said.

  Alejandro waited for his father to add that everything had happened too fast and they’d probably gotten caught up in the moment, but he didn’t. They sat in companionable silence not needing to talk, just happy to be in each other’s company.

  Alejandro had already decided that he wouldn’t tell his father that everything started off as a farce, a ruse to get Sophie down the aisle, and somehow it had turned into something real. That, for the first time since Anna, he had been able to feel again.

  “You love her,” Orlando said as if reading his mind.

  “Yep.”

  “Then what are you doing here when you should be there telling her that?”

  * * *

  By the time Olivia talked to Orlando, Alejandro had already left Horseback Hollow.

  Her heart sank. Orlando hadn’t been very forthcoming with information about Alejandro’s whereabouts. She couldn’t blame him; after all, he was protecting his son. However, he had promised to relay the message to Alejandro that she had called and she had his phone.

  It should’ve been enough, leaving messages with both Stefan and Orlando, but Olivia spent a restless Sunday night tossing and turning and coming up with a crazy plan. By six o’clock Monday morning she was at Austin–Bergstrom International Airport, boarding a flight to Miami.

  Rachel was the only person she told of her plan. Olivia knew it was a crazy thing to do, but she had never been the type to sit around and wait for things to happen. In fact, when it came to love she had proactively prevented anything from happening. Not this time. When she went to bed tonight, she would know that she had done everything possible to save the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  When she landed in Miami armed with Alejandro’s address, she got a cab to his house. The only problem was Alejandro wasn’t there. He wasn’t at his office, either. That’s where she met Stefan and Rodrigo in person. They told her he was still in Texas.

  “But Orlando said he left,” she told them.

  His cousins seemed truly baffled. Or maybe they were just good actors covering for him—after all, his acting ability might run in the family. Maybe he didn’t want to see her and his family was running interference.

  She tried to leave his cell phone with them, but they refused. “I know he has a meeting at Hummingbird Ridge at the end of the week,” Stefan said. “I think you would be better off taking the phone back with you. He can pick it up from you when he’s there. If he needs a cell in the meantime, he can get one of those disposable phones.”

  “If he does, would you please let me know the number?”

  She sounded desperate, even to her own ears. Well, she was desperate.

  Maybe Alejandro was right. Maybe true love only came around once in a lifetime. He’d had his with Anna. Olivia had found hers—as short-lived as it had been—with him.

  Olivia and her bruised heart returned to Miami International Airport. Disappointment was her only companion. Instead of leaving with the fulfillment—or at least the closure—she was certain she’d find when she saw Alejandro and he realized the great lengths that she would go to for him, she left feeling uncertain and small.

  By the time she landed in Austin, it was nearly seven thirty in the evening. She was tired and she should be hungry, but she wasn’t. All she wanted to do was go home and put on her jammies and pull the covers over her head.

  She was intently digging in her purse for her car keys as she exited the airport and she wasn’t really watching what she was doing.

  “Excuse me, miss. Do you need a ride?”

  In the split second before she could fully register who was speaking, the deep, masculine voice still sounded hauntingly familiar. She flinched and looked up, her heart nearly jumping out of her chest as her eyes focused on Alejandro. He was standing there holding a sign that said Fortune Robinson.

  Instinct took over. She dropped her purse and ran into his waiting arms. He greeted her with the deepest, most possessive kiss and for a moment the entire world faded away. If she’d fallen asleep on the flight home, if she was dreaming this, she never wanted to wake up.

  When they finally came up for air, he cupped her face with his hands. “I got your message.”

  “Which one? I left messages with both your dad and Stefan, who is very nice, by the way. I met him in Miami.”

  Alejandro smiled. “I heard. I can’t believe you went all the way to Miami. And I wasn’t talking about either of those messages. I got the one that you left on my cell phone.”

  “How could you hear that message? I have your phone.”

  That reminded her that her purse and its contents were on the ground. When she stooped down to pick it up and gather her belongings, Alejandro bent down and helped her.

  “Here it is, right here.” She handed him his phone.

  “I have a computer program that allows me to check my messages remotely. When I heard your voice and what you had to say, I knew I had to come to you right away. Olivia, I love you. How could we just walk away from each other?”

  All she could do was shrug and shake her head.

  “Let’s never do that again. I almost grabbed a flight to see if I could meet you in Miami. But with the way we’ve been narrowly missing each other, I figured it would be best to be right here when you got home. Rachel gave me your flight information.”

  She hugged him again. “Alejandro, I’m so sorry for everything. I hope you can forgive me for pushing you away.”

  “Let me think about that for a moment.” He turned over the sign and held it up. The other side read, “Olivia, will you marry me...for real?”

  Her heart felt as if it would burst out of her chest. “You know how much I love champagne?”

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes locked with hers.

  “You know I love it more than anything. But I love you more. I would give up champagne forever to have you.”

  “There’s no need for you to give it up. Especially now.”

  “Why is that? Is it because you heard that there’s another investor interested in joining you in the Hummingbird Ridge venture?”

  His eyes flashed and she waited for him to ask if it was her father, but he didn’t. So she offered the information. “It’s me. I want to invest in you and Hummingbird Ridge and make it possible for you to be in Austin permanently.”

  “I would be here with or without Hummingbird Ridge. We will definitely talk about that later. But I want y
ou to know I want to be with you, wherever you are. Obviously it isn’t a good time to give up champagne. Because we’ll need it to toast both of our partnerships—business and personal,” he said. “But first, this time, I need to do this right, querida.”

  He pulled a familiar small red box out of his pocket and opened it. It was the fire opal ring she had put back in his briefcase.

  He fell to one knee. “Olivia Fortune Robinson, will you do me the great honor of being my wife?”

  “Yes! This time, I am not letting you get away.”

  As he slid the fire opal ring on her finger, a crowd of people broke into a rousing round of cheers and applause. It was her family—her sisters and brothers and their spouses. And his family—Orlando and Josephine and his sister and brothers. They were all there to see him propose.

  He pulled her into his warm embrace, into that spot in his arms where she fit so perfectly. For the first time in her life, Olivia Fortune Robinson knew with her whole heart that love was real.

  * * * * *

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