Falling for Fortune

by Nancy Robards Thompson

  And there was the fact that she just couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  When she turned into the Foundation parking lot and saw his car in his reserved parking space, she couldn’t breathe for a moment.

  There was her answer. She should keep the date. And she was so relieved that she almost shook with joy. Before she got out of the car, she took her compact and lipstick out of her purse and touched up her makeup, then ran her fingers through her hair, gave herself a once-over in the rearview mirror and decided that was as good as it was going to get.

  She let herself out of the car, feeling as giddy as a girl who had just been asked to the prom by the captain of the football team. As she walked toward the entrance, she contemplated her strategy—she would go to his office under the guise of discussing what she had accomplished at the high school today and ask him about the fund-raising idea that he and Sawyer had come up with last night.

  She actually had a spring in her step as she emerged from the elevator into the third-floor reception area.

  “Hi, Bev,” she said to the young woman who looked as if she was already starting to pack up and head home for the weekend. But Bev was young and she would learn that when you got a job you really cared about sometimes you had to put in longer hours to get where you wanted to go.

  Or you had to come back to the office to find out whether or not you were going to go anywhere that weekend, said the snarky voice in her head.

  In the movie in her mind, she reached up and stuffed a sock in her doubting mouth.

  “Oh, hey,” Bev said. “What are you doing back here? It’s nearly five o’clock.”

  “I know. I need to talk to Christopher. Is he available?”

  Kinsley started walking toward his office before Bev had the chance to answer.

  “I don’t think you should go in there,” she said. She looked around the office as if confirming nobody else was within earshot. Still, she lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “He has a woman in there. And she’s really, really pretty. She just got here about fifteen minutes ago. I don’t know that it’s a business thing. But don’t you dare say that I said that.”

  Kinsley’s whole body tingled. And not in a good way. It was more like a pang of regret that was trying to undermine her confidence. She took a moment to put things in perspective. Sure it was Friday evening, but why would Christopher have a date meet him at the office? The woman could be a donor. She could be his sister. He had told her he had a sister. Two, in fact. If she stayed out here when the two of them came out of his office he would probably introduce her.

  No, that would look contrived and desperate. A little stalker-ish. Instead, she would wait in her office and when she heard them come out she would grab her things and just happen to meet them at the elevator.

  Yes, that plan would work.

  “Hey, Kins,” Bev said. “Could I ask a huge favor? It’s like ten minutes to five and I have a date tonight. Is there any way you could cover the phones for me? Since you’re gonna be here, anyway...?”

  “Sure,” Kinsley said. “Just forward the main line back to my office. But answer a question for me. What did she look like?”

  Bev pressed some buttons on the phone, then stood there with her purse on her arm, her cell phone in her hand and a baffled look on her face. “I don’t know...really pretty...really classy...like she has a lot of money...like somebody he’d take to the symphony or ballet with on a Saturday night. You know, that kind of woman.”

  “Do you think she’s here to donate to the Foundation?”

  Bev was already edging toward the elevator. “I don’t know.... She seemed to be kind of into him.”

  Bev pushed the elevator button and the door opened immediately. She backed into it. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Let me know what you find out. Maybe she’s his new girlfriend?”

  As the elevator doors closed and carried Bev away, Kinsley replayed in her head the conversation she’d had with Christopher last night. He had said that he wasn’t staying at the night club because she wasn’t there. He’d said that he wanted them to go out again. When she hadn’t answered he’d said he would take that as a yes.

  Given all that, why would he bring another woman he was interested in to the office? It just didn’t make sense.

  Kinsley went into her office, left the door open, settled herself at her desk and waited.

  About fifteen minutes later, she heard laughter coming from the reception area. She stood and started to grab her purse so that she could go out and make the accidental meeting at the elevator happen, but something stopped her—something in the tone of their voices. Something in the way they seemed to be laughing intimately at a private joke...

  She dropped her purse on her desk chair and edged her way to the door. She peeked out, hoping Christopher wouldn’t see her. If he did she would just say she thought that she was the only one left in the office and... She looked just in time to see Christopher with his hand on the small of a very beautiful woman’s back.

  “Our dinner reservation is at seven,” he said. “We should have time for a drink before they seat us.”

  As the elevator doors opened, his hand stayed there as he ushered her in. Kinsley ducked back inside her office so that they wouldn’t see her when they turned around to face the front.

  Standing there alone in the empty office on a Friday night, Kinsley suddenly felt like the biggest fool in the world. So she’d gone against her better judgment and had agreed to go out with Christopher tomorrow night. Here was proof positive that she was simply one of a string of women.

  Her rational mind reminded her she had no right to be upset or jealous. She had known all along that this was his M.O. But she couldn’t help the way her heart objected. Tomorrow night obviously meant something completely different to her than it did to him.

  If she let herself fall for Christopher Fortune any more than she already had, she was setting herself up for a world of heartbreak. She’d grown up with a mother who had been so desperately in love with a man who treated her wrong. Her mom’s love for her dad ended up killing her.

  Even though Christopher had certainly given no signs of being physically abusive, his fickle ways, his seeming to want only the things that were out of his reach—and then abandoning them when he was finished toying with them—did not make Kinsley feel good.

  If she invested any more emotion in him, she would be mentally abusing herself. That wasn’t going to happen.

  She forwarded the office phones to the answering service, gathered her purse and turned off the office lights, realizing that fate had given her the answer she’d been looking for earlier that evening.

  Christopher Fortune had been in the building, but he was emotionally unavailable.

  Chapter Nine

  Okay, she was avoiding him.

  She had been most of the week.

  It was Thursday morning and she hadn’t seen him in the office since she’d watched him leave with that woman on Friday. She admitted it was a little childish. But she felt a little burned and very foolish for letting her heart control her usually clear head. She needed to put space between them.

  When he’d called her, she’d responded by text— except for Saturday and Sunday. She carefully avoided personal topics of conversation—such as What happened to our date on Saturday? Didn’t we have plans, tentative as they were?

  She hadn’t bothered to explain that if he wanted to take her out he needed to firm up plans sooner than the day of—and not parade his Friday night date through the office.

  Even if their relationship was casual, that was simply bad taste.

  Oh, who was she kidding? If she hadn’t seen him with that woman she probably would have overlooked his lax planning. But it didn’t matter now. It was better that reality, the inconvenient interloper it was, crashed the
party sooner rather than later. Now, she was intent on locating the silver lining in the gray cloud that she refused to let rain on her career.

  This near miss had been fair warning that dating someone she worked with was simply a bad idea.

  It wasn’t that every man who took her out had to commit to exclusivity before the first date. But she realized—too late—that what she felt for Christopher was different. She should’ve known better than to let herself lose control. Playing with Christopher Fortune was like playing with fire. She knew who he was and what he was all about. She knew that she couldn’t play by his rules.

  It was best to keep their relationship strictly business. That way, no one misunderstood and no one got hurt.

  Monday and Tuesday she had conveniently scheduled herself to be out of the office. With a little investigating, Kinsley learned through Bev that Christopher would be out of the office on Wednesday and today. That should be enough time to clear her head and regain her equilibrium. She was professional and she knew she couldn’t avoid him forever. After all, the Spring Fling was on Saturday. But everything was in place. She had done her tasks and had discreetly followed up to ensure that he had taken care of everything on his list.

  She wasn’t surprised to discover that he had.

  That’s why she chose to focus on the good, the professional side of their relationship, the part that worked. She just needed to remember to not let herself get snared in Christopher’s charismatic web.

  She had the rest of the day to collect herself. Because he was supposed to be back tomorrow, she planned on emailing him later today and asking if he had time to meet at the fairgrounds Friday afternoon to do a walk-through and preliminary set up for the event. They would be so busy with their booth preparations there would be no time for personal talk. Plus, Christopher was a smart guy—he seemed to catch on quickly. Surely by now he understood that their relationship had been relegated to the “professional zone.”

  She printed out her to-do list and had just begun checking off items and making notes when she sensed someone standing in the doorway of her office.

  Christopher.

  Her stomach did a full-fledged triple gainer, and as much as she hated it she audibly inhaled. She bit the insides of her cheeks hard to get her emotions in check.

  Act like a professional.

  “Hey, stranger,” said Christopher. “Just wondering if there’s room for the putting green under the tent?”

  Kinsley couldn’t look him in the eyes. It wasn’t very professional, and she knew it. But neither was the way his gaze seemed to be burning into her. She straightened a stack of paper on her desk. She put a few loose pens into her desk drawer. Aligned her coffee mug on the coaster on the edge of her desk.

  “The putting green?” Good. Her voice was neutral. “Christopher, you know I was only joking when I suggested you bring it to the Spring Fling. You don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.”

  “I know I don’t have to,” he said.

  She picked up her pen and circled an item on her list.

  “I figured we could just have a raffle. The kids can put their name into a drawing for prizes when they sign the bullying prevention pledge card—”

  “The raffle sounds great. But let’s bring the putting green, too. It will be an active visual. We can use it to draw people in. Oh, hey, and I wanted to tell you that I got word earlier this week that not only is Redmond Flight School offering a couple of prizes for us to give away—a couple of glider flights, which the kids should really love—but also everyone over there is behind doing an air-show fund-raiser in the fall. And Susan Eldridge and Julie Fortune were able to snag some gift cards from some of the local restaurants and merchants for us to use as prizes. I’m just blown away by how great and helpful everyone has been. It’s a great team, don’t you think?”

  “Of course. I’ve always found everyone here to be exceptionally helpful.”

  “I know. But good teams are hard to find.” Something in his voice changed. “When you have one, you should hang on to it.”

  Oh, no. Here it came.

  She decided to head it off before he could shift things into the personal.

  “Yes, we are lucky to have such great coworkers, aren’t we? And if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go talk to Hank in maintenance about getting some extra chairs for the tent.”

  She stood, but Christopher closed her office door.

  “I called you on Saturday and Sunday, Kinsley. Did you get my messages?”

  “I had to go out of town.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I might think you’ve been avoiding me. We had plans over the weekend. Or so I thought.”

  “Well, you should have thought about that before you brought your Friday night date to the office. Christopher, you shouldn’t have kissed me if you were involved with someone else.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. Now she had no choice but to look him square in the eyes.

  The sight of him completely upended her equilibrium. She fisted her hands at her side, digging her nails into her palms. It was supposed to distract her from how she always seemed to get drawn in simply by looking at him. Even now, as he stood there looking baffled.

  Wow, not only was he a player, but he was a good actor too.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I’m not involved with anyone else.”

  Maybe involved was overstating it. “Well, you shouldn’t have kissed me if you were even dating other people.”

  “Kinsley, I really have no idea what you’re talking about. I mean, sure, I’ve dated other women in the past, but nobody seriously. You are the first woman I’ve even considered dating exclusively.”

  She suddenly felt claustrophobic. Hearing him say the words but knowing they were encased in a lie made her want to run. How could he stand here, look her in the eye and tell her she didn’t see what she knew she saw? At that moment, she realized just how different she and this man who was playing with her heart really were.

  “Please don’t, Christopher. Don’t insult me. I saw you with that woman here at the office on Friday.”

  Confusion contorted his face. “Nora?”

  And now he was going to try and change his tune, try to explain it away, but she wasn’t going to have it.

  “I have no idea what her name is, but she is beautiful. You have great taste in women—at least outward appearances. But what you don’t seem to understand is that Nora and I are obviously cut from different material. Women like her might be fine with kissing and keeping it casual, but I’m not. I don’t give myself away. Not even a kiss. Kisses are intimate, and I don’t take intimacy casually.”

  She seemed to have struck him dumb because all he could do was stand there and stare at her, his lips pressed into a thin line.

  “Since we have to work together,” she said, “we have to keep things strictly professional, Christopher. Unlike you, I don’t have family who can come to my rescue. My contacts aren’t unlimited. I need this job.”

  Christopher looked taken aback, but there was a new light in his eyes.

  “Kinsley, Nora Brandt is an etiquette coach. I hired her because I took your advice to heart. I was thinking about how I needed to get better at learning people’s names, and that made me wonder about my other social and professional deficiencies. Nora and I went out to dinner Friday night so she could see me in action.”

  For the love of God, she wanted to believe him.

  “But I saw you with your hand on the small of her back. That’s pretty intimate.”

  “Apparently so. She told me as much when we were in the elevator. Honestly, the entire night was pretty humiliating. I’m not good at this...this.” He gestured with both hands, at her, around the office. “I was raised on a ranch. My role models were my buddies and my broth
ers. We hung out at The Grill and flirted with the same handful of girls who didn’t know any better than we did. I have no idea what I’m doing. Sometimes I feel so far out of my element I feel like a total buffoon. So, I hired an etiquette coach to help me. You are so smooth and polished. You deserve to be with someone who is your equal. Someone who doesn’t embarrass you like I would.”

  Kinsley was so stunned that her mouth actually hung open.

  Christopher held up a finger.

  “Wait just a moment. I can prove it to you.”

  He pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it to Kinsley. The card had Nora Brandt’s photo on it. Sure enough she was the woman Kinsley had seen him with on Friday.

  “You can call her if you want. She’ll confirm everything.”

  Now Kinsley was the one who felt like the total buffoon.

  “And just so you know, she’s married. And even if she wasn’t, she’s not my type at all. There’s no other woman in the world I’m interested in right now besides you.”

  * * *

  Kinsley had been jealous.

  The thought made Christopher smile as he filled the last helium balloon and tied a knot in the stem. Because if she was jealous, that meant she had feelings for him. Even though she was still keeping him at arm’s length, the chill had thawed.

  There was still a chance, he thought as he tied a ribbon to the balloon and added it to the bunch that would join its twin at the entrance to the tent.