Fortune's Mergers

“Stiff or foreplay?”

Gina looked at her askance. “What the heck does that mean?”

“Stiff is like dead fingers. No movement. Foreplay is playful, sensual. Thumb strokes on the palm. Little squeezes of the fingers. Which was it?”

Gina frowned a moment thinking. “Foreplay,” she decided.

Zoie rubbed her hands together in glee. “Oh, man. That’s good. Real good. What else?”

“While we were walking, he put his arm around my shoulders a couple of times. And he snuggled me up inside his coat when we were standing by the Falls.”

“Back to front or front to front?”

“Back to front.”

“Did you feel anything? Like a hard-on, I mean.”

“Zoie!” Gina cried.

Zoie held up her hands. “Okay, okay. Just trying to get a bead on his level of attraction.”

“It was one date,” Gina reminded her drolly. “It’s a little early to start thinking about sex.”

Zoie opened her hands. “Hey. Sex knows no time-line. When the time’s right, it’s right. You’ve got to learn to open up a little bit. Go with the flow.”

Gina winced. “I don’t know how.”

“Relax, you mean?”

Gina nodded.

“Alcohol,” Zoie said without hesitation. “Nothing loosens up a person’s inhibitions quicker than a stiff drink or two.”

Shaking her head, Gina pushed to her feet. “I’m not much of a drinker.”

“Good. That means it would take less to get you going.”

Sputtering a laugh, Gina planted her hands on her hips. “You are a real case, you know it? Here you are telling me to get drunk and have sex with a man I hardly know.”

“Do you want to remain a virgin the rest of your life?”

Gina winced, then shook her head. “No.”

“Does Case ring your bell?”

Gina rolled her eyes. “If you’re asking if I’m attracted to him, yes.”

Zoie shrugged. “Well, there you have it. Case Fortune is your frog-prince, the guy who’s going to introduce you to the wild side of life, teach you the old bump and grind.”

Gina clapped her hands over her cheeks, her face flaming. “I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion.”

Zoie unfolded her legs and rose. Slinging an arm around Gina’s shoulders, she drew her with her as she walked to the door. “Sister, it’s time. Past time, if you ask me. You’ve been wearing that chastity belt long enough.”

Three

At the moment, Gina felt more like a voodoo priestess than she did an author of children’s books.

Candles surrounded her work table, filling the loft with flickering light and the calming scent of lavender. Sounds of the ocean, specifically chosen for its soothing qualities, played from her stereo speakers. A bowl of cheese—flavored crackers mixed with chocolate candies—both known for having produced restorative powers in the past—was in easy reach of her hand. Her good luck toad sat on his perch on the crooked arm of her task light, overseeing her work. She’d even changed into her oldest and most ragged sweat suit. The one with the hole in the left sleeve and the streak of hot pink fingernail polish on the thigh. The same one she’d been wearing when she’d received the call from the publishing company, telling her they wanted to buy her first book.

She’d tried every trick in the book to jump-start her creative muse, but so far not a one of them had worked.

And it was all Case’s fault.

Or, rather, Zoie’s, she corrected with a frown.

Zoie was the one who had put the idea of sleeping with Case in her mind. And now that was all she could think about. Besides the would-he, could-she, should-she worries that would plague any virgin considering making the fall, she kept imagining what kind of lover Case would be.

And when she wasn’t worrying about the act itself, she was stressing over the man she was considering giving herself to.

Prior to Sunday and her outing with Case, she hadn’t known him personally, and what she had known, she hadn’t particularly liked. As far as she was concerned, he was cut from the same pin-stripe-cloth as her father, which was reason enough to dislike him—or, at the very least, distrust him. Businessmen like Case and her father were incapable of maintaining personal relationships. Not the kind of relationship Gina wanted and needed from a man. Men like them devoted all their time, energy and emotions to the companies they ran. Company first, family somewhere way down the line. That was the motto they lived by.

Hadn’t Gina witnessed enough of her own mother’s frustrations and disappointments married to a man obsessed with his business to know she wanted no part of that life? Hadn’t she purposely chosen a career on the opposite end of the spectrum from her father’s for that same reason? Hadn’t she shut her father out of her life because he’d always chosen business over family? It hadn’t been a decision she’d made rashly or without proper justification.

It had been a means of survival.

As a young girl, troubled by the tension and unhappiness in her home, she’d created a fairy tale world to retreat to, a safe and happy place filled with the characters she created in her mind. After her mother’s suicide, when her father had packed her up and shipped her off to boarding school, she’d taken those fairy tale characters with her, relying on them for the emotional support and comfort her father was incapable of supplying. As an adult, she’d taken those same characters and the stories she’d made up about them and spun them into a cash cow that currently paid the bills, which had given her the ability to sever her financial dependence on her father and, in a sense, thumb her nose at him and his way of life.

And now she was considering sleeping with a man from her father’s world? The world she hated, despised, shunned?

She dropped her elbows to her desk and her head to her hands. “Oh, God,” she moaned miserably. “What was I thinking?”

She needed to forget Case Fortune and focus her mind on toads. Timothy Toad, specifically. Timothy Toad was her friend, her redeemer. He was the only male she could count on, the only one who had never let her down. He had no faults, no ulterior motives, no hidden agendas. He was perfect in every way.

There was only one problem. Two, actually, if she considered the fact that Timothy Toad was a figment of her imagination.

Timothy might be a male, but he wasn’t a man.

Yawning, Gina rubbed her fists against her eyes, trying to scrub away the webs of weariness. It was pushing midnight on day eight of her deadline and she wanted nothing more than to go to bed. But sleep was out of the question until she’d made the requested changes on the illustrations.

Glum, she poked a toe at the wads of paper littering the floor around her feet. Each represented a failed attempt at giving the art director what he wanted. She’d been at it for a week and she was no closer to capturing on paper the art director’s concept than she had been when she had started.

Firming her jaw, she snatched up the pencil again and held it over the blank piece of paper.

“It’s because you’re not concentrating hard enough,” she lectured sternly. “You know the story. Heck, you wrote it! Just draw the images and emotions that are in your head.”

Hoping to jumpstart her creative juices, she pressed the lead to the paper, drew a circle, then leaned back and studied it, waiting for the image hiding inside to reveal itself. Something flashed by the window, catching her eye, and she glanced up in alarm.

But the only thing she saw was her own image reflected in the dark glass.

“Now you’re seeing things,” she muttered under her breath. “Next thing you know you’ll be talking to yourself.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth, realizing it was too late. She already was.

Something struck the glass and she snapped her head up in time to see a flash of white, before it dropped beneath the ledge and disappeared from sight. Her heart thudding wildly, she stood and leaned to peer out. Frustrated by the drafting table that stood between her and the window, she shifted around to its end and pushed it out of her way.

Another flash of white streaked past her peripheral vision and she whirled to the window to look out, watching as the white object drifted slowly down. Paper? she asked herself. Whatever it was it couldn’t be anything more substantial than paper or it would have made a more of a sound when it hit the window.

She shifted her gaze to the sidewalk directly below her window and saw a man standing beneath the street light. A vandal, she thought, her anger surging. Prepared to give the guy apiece of her mind, she shoved up the window. “What do you think you’re doing down there?” she shouted furiously. “If you don’t leave this instant, I’m calling the police.”

The man tipped his head back and looked up.

She gaped. “Case?”

“Stay right there!” he shouted, then darted over to pick up the paper from the ground.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

“Sending you an airmail message.” He reared his arm back and sent the white object flying.

When she saw that the paper airplane was going to come short of making it to her window, she leaned out and grabbed it, managing to catch it by the tip of a wing. Ducking back inside, she read the message scrawled inside.

It’s been a week. No calls. Toad lovers need hugs, too.

She pressed her fingers against her lips, her heart melting at the last line, then let out a laugh and leaned out the window and called down to him, “You’re crazy.”

“No I’m not. I’m lonely. Can I come up? It’s freezing out here.”

She winced, remembering her earlier decision to forget Case Fortune. “It’s kind of late,” she hedged.

“It’s not like you’re asleep or anything,” he pointed out. “Come on, Gina. At least give me a chance to warm up.”

She vacillated a moment longer, then caved, telling herself it was cold outside and he probably was freezing. “Okay. But just for a minute.”

She closed the window, then stooped to scoop up the wadded balls of paper and stuff them into the waste basket. She didn’t want him to see the evidence of her creative block.

She heard the muffled sound of the elevator making its ascent and hurried to the door, combing her fingers through her straggly hair.

When she opened the door, Case was stepping off the elevator. He was dressed casually for a change. Boots, jeans, a black sweater beneath a leather jacket. His hair was mussed—probably from the watch cap he’d dragged off his head and shoved into a pocket of his jacket—and his cheeks were ruddy from the cold. If possible, he looked even more handsome than he did when wearing a business suit.

She groaned inwardly, remembering her ragged sweats and the lime green fuzzy socks that covered her feet.

A slow smile spread across his face. “Hi, gorgeous.”

She ducked her head and wound a strand of hair behind her ear. “I look a mess.”

“You look wonderful to me.”

Before she could call him the liar he was, he put his hands on her shoulders and backed her into her loft.

“Seven days, three hours and thirty-two minutes,” he said, as he kicked the door closed behind him.

She blinked at him in confusion. “What?”

“That’s how long I’ve been wanting to do this.”

Before she realized his intent, he covered her mouth with his. She didn’t want to kiss him, she told herself. And she didn’t want him kissing her.

Or did she?

She might have mentally decided she never wanted to see him again, but her body didn’t appear to have received the message. Without conscious thought, she was leaning into him, her breasts pressed against the muscled wall of his chest, her face tipped up to his. His hands slid to her back, his palms urging her closer still, and she responded, lifting her arms and looping them around his neck.

Strong. Possessive. Demanding. His kiss mirrored exactly the character traits she’d attributed to him, yet she didn’t find his kiss in the least bit repulsive. In fact, she found it intoxicating, invigorating, exciting.

He framed her face between his hands and drew back with a satisfied sigh to press his lips against her forehead.

“I’ve been thinking about doing that all week.”

His voice sounded rusty, the admission dragged from a place deep inside him. She’d been thinking about kissing him, too, but couldn’t have uttered a word if her life had depended on it.

He tipped her face higher, his expression filled with reproach.

“Why haven’t you called?”

“I—I haven’t finished the drawings.”

He glanced toward her drawing table, where the task light cast a circle of light over her sketch pad. “You were working?”

She nodded.

“And I interrupted you,” he said with regret.

She shrugged. “No biggie. I wasn’t making much progress anyway.”

He shifted his gaze back to hers, a smile teasing one corner of his mouth. “Would thinking about me having anything to do with that?”

She stared, at first horrified that he somehow knew the cause of her creative block, then pursed her lips. “Your ego is showing.”

He slipped his hands beneath the hem of her sweatshirt and drew her hips to his. “I was thinking about you. Couldn’t get a thing done all week.”

She gulped, remembering Zoie quizzing her about the hard-on and trying not to think about that. “Y-you’re just saying that.”

He dipped his head and nuzzled his nose behind her ear. “Now, why would I lie to you?”

An hour ago—heck, five minutes ago!—she could’ve named a hundred reasons why he would. But at the moment she couldn’t think of anything beyond his mouth, his taste, and how much she wished he would kiss her again.

“Case—”

Even as she spoke his name, he slid his mouth to hers, his hands in a slow journey up her ribs. Heat flamed in her middle and fanned to every extremity, stealing her breath, as his thumbs nudged the undersides of her breasts.

She heard a moan and inwardly cringed when she realized the sound had come from her. She’d die before she’d let him know how inexperienced she was—or how needy. But he didn’t appear to have heard her. He was much too busy teasing her tongue with his and stroking her breasts.

This is it, she thought wildly, as electrical shocks ricocheted through her body. This is what desire feels like. She’d thought she’d experienced it before, but she’d been so wrong. This was raw, mind-consuming, nerve-burning lust, the kind that made a woman say to hell with discretion and propriety, rip off her clothes and throw herself at a man.

Realizing how close she was to losing control, she tried to get a grip on her emotions. She wouldn’t give herself to Case. Couldn’t. She knew how much pain men like him were capable of inflicting.

Knowing this, she pressed her hands against his chest. “Case. No.”

“Come on, baby,” he murmured, rubbing his groin seductively against hers. “You want this. We both do.”

She clamped her fingers around his forearms and dragged his hands from beneath her sweatshirt. “Whether I do or not isn’t the point. I’m saving myself for the man I marry.”

His face went slack. “You’re a virgin?”

Embarrassment burned her cheeks, but she nodded.

He dragged a hand over his hair. “Well, that certainly puts a different spin on things.”

She looked at him in puzzlement. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Look,” she said, her frustration returning. “If you’re only here for sex, you might as well leave. I’ve got work to do.”

He hesitated a moment, then shrugged off his jacket. “No. I’m staying.”

Stunned, she watched him cross to her desk and pluck the illustration she’d been working on from the wallboard where she’d tacked it.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Is this one of the drawings the art director asked you to change?”

She wrinkled her nose at the reminder. “One of four.”

He sank down on her stool, studying the drawing. “The guy must be blind. This is really good.”

Shaking her head, she moved to stand beside him. “No. He was right. The expression is all wrong.” She pointed at Timothy Toad’s face. “He’s supposed to be sad, and he looks … I don’t know. Bored.”

“What’s wrong with bored?”

“Nothing, except in the story, he’s just lost his best friend. He should be … sad.”

Case picked up a pencil, offered it to her. “Show me.”

She tucked her hand behind her back. Her art was a private thing, something she did alone, never in front of an audience. “I really don’t like for people to watch me work.”

He shifted her to stand between his knees. “I promise, I won’t look.”

Mindful of his stubbornness, she snatched the pencil from his hand. Hoping to get rid of him, she quickly drew a rough sketch of Timothy’s face, turning the corners of his mouth down. She paused a moment to study the drawing and her eyes sharpened, as she saw, not only the difference in the emotion from the original sketch, but the direction she needed to continue. She quickly drew in a fat tear drop leaking from his eye, then added a reflection of Timothy’s friend’s face shimmering in the moisture.

“That’s it!” she cried, turning to throw her arms around Case’s neck and hug him tight. “That’s exactly the emotion I’ve been searching for.”

Oblivious now to Case’s presence, the fact that she had an audience, or that she had wanted him to leave, she spun back around, flipped the page and began to sketch in earnest, the pencil all but flying over the page.

Gina opened her eyes to bright sunlight gleaming through the floor to ceiling windows of her bedroom and stretched lazily. Waking to sunshine was an oddity for her, as her bedroom faced west, not east.

But when a person slept the day away, she reminded herself, she couldn’t expect the sun to follow suit.

Fueled by a creative burst of energy, she’d worked through the night, completing all four of the illustrations requiring changes by her art director. She’d finished the last just before sunrise and had crawled fully dressed into bed. Case had left shortly thereafter. She wasn’t sure of the exact time of his departure, as she’d been too exhausted to look at the clock. But she remembered him pulling the covers over her and tucking her in. She also remembered feeling the light scrape of his beard, as he’d placed a kiss on her cheek and hearing the huskiness of his whispered “goodnight.”

She drew the covers to her nose to hide her smile. She couldn’t believe he’d stayed all night. He’d remained right with her throughout her creative frenzy, never once complaining or appearing as if he was bored or anxious to leave. She’d stood between his knees while working on the first two illustrations, with him watching over her shoulder. And when she’d grown weary of standing, he’d pulled her onto his lap and looped an arm around her waist, holding her there while she completed the last two.

What kind of man would do something like that? she asked herself. Certainly not the kind of man she’d accused Case of being. There had been nothing selfish or self-serving in his behavior. And his comments had been encouraging and supportive, not negative or demeaning. In fact, without him, she doubted she would’ve been able to make the needed changes. His probing questions were what had finally unleashed her creative block and helped her find the images and emotions she’d needed to complete the task. And it was his supportive presence that had given her the ability to stick with the task throughout the long night until she’d finished the last one.

The telephone rang and she glanced at the extension on her bedside table, somehow knowing it was Case. After the second ring, she picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Good morning.”

A shiver chased down her spine at the sound of his voice and she sank back against her pillow, hugging the receiver to her ear. “It’s afternoon,” she reminded him.

“Did I wake you?”

“No. I was awake.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Like the dead. How about you?”

“The same. I had no idea drawing was so exhausting.”

She hid a smile. “I don’t remember you holding a pencil.”

“Didn’t I?” His chuckle rumbled across the airwaves to her ear. “Then explain why my fingers are cramped?”

“That was probably from holding me on your lap all night.”

A lusty sigh crossed the airwaves. “Yeah. That must’ve been it.” There was a stretch of silence, then he asked, “Do you have plans for dinner?”

She blinked in surprise at the sudden change in topic. “Well, no. I haven’t even thought about food.”

“Then have dinner with me. My parents just returned from Australia and all the family is gathering at the estate to welcome them home.”

She clutched the phone tighter to her ear, panic tightening her chest at the thought of meeting his family. “I wouldn’t want to intrude on a family celebration.”

“You wouldn’t be intruding. It’s nothing fancy. Just a chance to welcome them home. Besides, they’ll love having you join us.”

“I don’t know, Case,” she said doubtfully. “I’m an only child. I don’t have much experience with big families.”

“Tell you what,” he offered. “Dinner isn’t scheduled until seven. I’ll pick you up at six. Give you the grand tour of the estate. That way you can meet some of the family prior to dinner and won’t feel so overwhelmed.”

Despite Case’s assurance, Gina was overwhelmed. From the moment he’d turned onto the drive that wound its way through the Fortunes’ one-hundred and seventy-five acre estate until he came to a stop in front of his family’s home, she was struck dumb by the majesty of it all. Gothic in design, the mansion stood like a fortress against a gun-metal gray sky. Three stories of dark gray stone and scrolled ironwork made up the center portion of the house, with one-story wings jutting left and right. Gina counted a minimum of four chimneys rising from the black roof before she gave up and simply stared.

Case covered her hand with his. “Don’t worry,” he teased. “It may look haunted, but no ghosts live within those walls.”

She released an uneasy breath. “That’s good to know.”

He climbed out and circled the hood to open her door.

“We’ll save the outdoor tour for a warmer day,” he told her, leading the way to the front door.

One step inside and Gina released the breath she’d been holding, as well as her fears of bumping into a ghost. While the outside of the mansion appeared cold and gloomy, the inside was filled with warmth and color.

Before she could take it all in, Case caught her hand and tugged her toward the split staircase, taking the set of stairs to the right. “First stop, my bedroom.”

She jerked to a halt, pulling him to a standstill, as well. “You live here?” she asked in amazement.

“Along with my parents, brother Creed, half-brother Blake, and sister Eliza. Skylar, my half-sister, has a cottage on the estate, so I guess you’d say she lives here, too.”

“Doesn’t it get a little crowded? I mean, it’s a huge house, but I’d think you’d want some privacy once in a while.”

“When I do, I head for my penthouse on the top floor of the Dakota Fortunes’ building. Creed has a penthouse there, too, but the units are totally separate. Even when we’re there at the same time, we seldom see each other, unless we make a point to do so.”

He gave her hand a tug. “Come on. There’s lots to show you.”

When they reached the second floor, he opened a door and bowed slightly. “My humble abode, madame.”

Amused by his butler-like manner, she stepped inside and looked around, her eyes rounding, as her amusement gave way to shock. “Holy cow. You could drop my entire loft in here and have room left over.”

He shrugged off his coat and draped it over a chair, then helped Gina remove hers. “It serves its purpose.” He headed for the wet bar built into a corner of the room. “Would you like something to drink?”