Fortune's Legacy

She opened her mouth to say something more, but shut it again almost instantly. She’d already said way too much. And knowing Garrett Wolff, he wouldn’t forget a word of it.

Two

K yra was still shaking as she left Garrett’s office. She deliberately closed the door gently, wanting to kick herself for losing her temper. Hadn’t she been told most of her life that her temper would only get her into trouble?

And for the most part, she reminded herself, she’d conquered that instinctive flash of anger that had prompted her into saying something she shouldn’t too many times.

But that man, she thought grimly, could make a saint come storming out of heaven wielding thunderbolts.

“Are you all right, Ms. Fortune?”

Kyra’s gaze snapped to Carol Summerhill, sitting at her desk. Short, with a lush figure, cropped, dark curly hair and a simpering smile that irritated everyone around her, with the exception of Garrett. Carol wouldn’t see forty again, but she hid the signs of her age with perfectly applied makeup. And she guarded her boss’s office with the zeal of a rabid dog.

“I’m just fine,” Kyra managed to say through gritted teeth. “Thanks.”

“I only wondered,” Carol said slyly, “because you look a little…ill.”

Only because that’s how she was feeling. Along with terrified, furious and worried. But she’d be damned if she’d let Carol know that.

“No,” she managed to answer, “I’m fine. Just a little warm. But thanks for your concern.” Which was, Kyra knew, as much a lie as the answer she’d just given the woman.

Sucking in a gulp of air, she tried to steady the nerves jumping in the pit of her stomach. Then she forced a smile she didn’t feel, and headed past Carol’s desk. No way was she going to let the woman know just how shaken she really was.

The office door behind her opened abruptly, and Kyra spun around to face Garrett again.

“Still here, Ms. Fortune?” he inquired wryly, one eyebrow lifted into a high arch.

“Just leaving,” she assured him.

“Good.” Dismissing her, he turned to his assistant. “Carol, come inside and bring your pad.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, leaping to her feet like a dolphin breaching the surface of a pool to grab at a tasty fish.

The woman had absolutely no dignity, Kyra thought as she watched Garrett disappear back into the inner sanctum. She ground her teeth as Carol paused, gave her a slow smile and shut herself in their boss’s office.

Kyra glared at the closed door and did the only thing she could in that situation. She stuck out her tongue, then left as quickly as possible.

The building was quiet, most of the employees having left for home long before. From down the hall came the soft drone of a vacuum cleaner, and outside the bank of windows behind Kyra’s desk, rain spattered against the glass.

Oblivious to the faint background sounds, Kyra bent over the open file on her cluttered desktop. Frowning in concentration, she flipped through the pages of the Hartsfield report, making notations on the pad at her right. With no distractions, no interruptions, she’d have the presentation ready by morning.

If Garrett Wolff was really going to fire her, it wouldn’t be because he’d found fault with her work. A voice in the back of her mind muttered darkly about men with too much power. About the unfairness of it all. About how, despite how hard she tried, she would never really be good enough.

She swallowed and gripped her pen tightly in her fist. Whispers of self-doubt fluttered through her brain, but that was nothing new. Most of her life she’d covered up her fears with bravado. To the outside world, Kyra was a woman who knew exactly where she was going and just how to get there.

But inside, she was still the youngest child of a drunk. Unsure whom to trust. Unsure of her own abilities. Unsure of every damn thing.

“Okay,” she said softly, as she mentally smoothed the knot of nerves in the pit of her stomach. “That’s enough of that.”

“Talking to yourself is not a good sign, you know.”

Kyra jumped in her chair, slapped one hand to her chest and took a deep breath in an effort to nudge her heart down out of her throat. Her pulse beat wildly as her gaze shot to the man in the open doorway of her office.

Garrett Wolff stood there watching her. Well, he was leaning more than standing. One shoulder was braced against the doorjamb, one foot crossed over the other. His arms were folded across his chest and his sharp gaze was fixed on her. God knew how long he’d been there.

“Let me guess,” she snapped, covering her own embarrassment with the familiar snarl of anger. “Instead of firing me, you decided to just scare me to death and save on the paperwork.”

He grinned, and the solid punch of it raced across the room and hit Kyra like a bolt of something hot and dangerous.

Oh, so not good.

She’d known the man for eight years, during which time he’d irritated her, annoyed her and just plain pissed her off. But she’d never, ever felt a flash of desire for him. Okay, sure, she’d noticed how gorgeous he was.

Heck, she’d have had to be blind to have missed that.

But noticing and noticing were two different things.

Shaking his head, he unfolded his arms and shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “It’s eleven o’clock at night, Ms. Fortune. Why are you still here?”

Uncomfortable under that cool, steady stare, she shifted a little in her seat. She’d thought she was alone in the building. Well, except for the cleaning crew and the security guards.

She often stayed late at night, to catch up on work, to get a jump on the next day’s tasks. She liked the quiet. Probably a holdover from living in a too-crowded house when she was a kid. Just remembering her father’s sudden, unpredictable shouting rages could make her long for peace and quiet. But it was even more than that.

She liked knowing that she was alone and for a few hours could drop the pretense of always being in charge. Kyra knew darn well that most of her co-workers considered her an arrogant know-it-all.

Which would have been funny if it didn’t bother her so much. God, she wished she were a know-it-all. School had never come easy to her. She’d always had to study twice as hard as anyone else to get the grades that had assured her of four years at Texas A&M.

And she’d worked even harder here at Voltage. Staring at Garrett now, though, Kyra wondered if all of her hard work had been for nothing. Frustrating to know that no matter how good her job performance, she could lose everything she’d been working toward because one man didn’t like her.

Well, she wouldn’t make it easy on him.

He was watching her now, still waiting for an answer to his question. “I’m just working out a few details in the Hartsfield plan.”

One of his brows lifted. “Then you’ve managed to sign them on with Voltage?”

“Not yet,” she admitted, wishing she could say yes. “But soon.”

He nodded and straightened up, taking one or two steps into her office. “Good. But you don’t have to work twenty-four hours a day, you know. Voltage really doesn’t expect that of its employees.”

It was strange, having him here in her office. As far as she could remember, this was his first visit. And since she knew full well that her career was currently dangling by a thread, she didn’t count this as a social call.

Which meant he had another reason altogether for dropping by in the middle of the night.

She only wished she knew what it was.

“Really?” she countered, tilting her head to one side and studying him as he walked the perimeter of her office. “Then why are you still here?”

“Touché.” He walked slowly around the room, examining the paintings on the wall, checking out the crystal vase of yellow roses on the credenza, and then finally stopping beside her desk.

He was too close for comfort. Kyra pushed her chair back from her desk so that she could give herself an extra foot or so of space and have an unobstructed view of the man.

His gaze locked on the night beyond the rain-spattered windows. Kyra waited, stubbornly refusing to be the first one to break the silence that seemed to stretch tautly between them. At last she was rewarded.

He turned his head to look at her. “Why are you so driven?”

She blinked, surprised not only by the question, but by the genuine curiosity she heard in his deep voice. There were, of course, lots of answers to the query, none of which she was interested in sharing with her boss.

Especially a boss who made no secret of the fact that he didn’t much like her. But she had to say something.

“Why is it when a woman works hard, she’s driven. When a man does the same thing, he’s just conscientious?”

The smile that curved his lips suddenly was gone almost before it was born, but in that instant something warm and liquid rushed through Kyra, despite her efforts to stop it.

“Good point,” he acknowledged. “But that doesn’t answer the question.”

“Why do you care about the answer?”

“Call it professional curiosity,” he said with a slight shrug. “I see a young woman who should be out having a good time, and instead, she stays locked up in her office nearly every night.”

“And you know this how?”

His lips twitched. “I’m the boss. I’m supposed to know these things.”

He was keeping track of her? She didn’t know what to think about that. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

“I’d like to point out,” she said cautiously, “that you’re here in the middle of the night, too.”

“Yeah,” he said, turning his gaze back to the windows, When he continued, his voice was lower, more thoughtful. “But spending my nights in this building wasn’t something I planned.”

“So go home.”

He turned his head to look at her again, and Kyra saw a half smile flash across his face before it disappeared again. “Good idea. How about we both go?”

He was being nice.

Why?

That swirl of emotion started in the bottom of her stomach again. Surprise flickered through her as she realized she was actually enjoying the sensation. There was something very…intimate about being here in the office alone with him. With the stormy night crouched outside and only a puddle of light from the lamp on her desk illuminating the room, it was as if they were the only two people in the world.

His presence seemed to make the room shrink in size. The walls seemed to close in around them. The tap of rain against the windowpanes was a steady, almost musical accompaniment to the silence stretching between them. She looked into his blue eyes and— Kyra caught herself and shook her head.

If Garrett was being nice, it was only to lull her into complacency before putting her head on the chopping block.

“I’m just going to finish up this last report,” she said, “and then—”

“Mr. Wolff?”

They both looked toward the doorway. Carol Summerhill stood there, watching them in obvious disapproval. Her eyes were narrowed and her lips were nothing more than a flat, grim line.

Kyra suddenly felt like a cheating wife caught sneaking out of a cheap motel. Stupid, she knew. But the look on Carol’s face was that of a jealous woman. Weird.

Garrett, though, seemed more annoyed at the interruption than anything else. “Yes, Carol?”

The woman shifted her gaze from Kyra to their boss. “I only wanted to remind you that you have a teleconference at six in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

His tone, if not the words themselves, were dismissive, but Carol ignored both. “I’ll walk out with you if you like.”

Geez, Kyra thought. Had the woman brought rose petals to toss down in front of him, too?

Garrett stiffened. “No, thanks. You go ahead.”

“Oh.”

Carol looked stupefied, as if she couldn’t quite believe he’d chosen to remain and talk to Kyra rather than leave with her. Well, heck. Kyra was pretty surprised at that herself.

“I have a few things I need to discuss with Ms. Fortune,” Garrett said.

“I see.” Clearly, Carol didn’t see and wasn’t at all happy about it, either. But left with no other choice, she backed out and said, “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“Fine.”

When they were alone again, Kyra chanced a look at Garrett. And she had to ask. “Do you really enjoy all the hero worship?”

He frowned at her. “What?”

She waved one hand at the empty doorway, then stood up to face him, feeling more in charge on her feet. “Carol. Your guard dog.”

He laughed shortly and the sound surprised Kyra. But the real surprise was suddenly realizing that he was even better-looking when he smiled.

Oh dear God.

Stop noticing these things, she told herself.

Shaking his head, he strolled slowly around her desk, idly lifting first her brass nameplate, then a framed picture of her and her brothers and sister. He held the photo and studied it as he spoke. “Carol’s been with me for ten years and she’s…territorial.”

“Yeah,” Kyra said. “Like a Doberman.”

“What do you mean?” Still holding the photo, he shot her a glance.

“Only that it’s probably easier to get an audience with the Pope than it is to get in and see you.”

Frowning slightly, he said, “I didn’t realize.”

Maybe he really didn’t know how well Carol protected him from the people who worked for him. Maybe he was totally unaware that his assistant practically threw herself in front of his door to keep the unwashed at bay. But if he didn’t know, he darn well should.

“You ought to get out more, General,” Kyra told him. “Visit with the troops.”

Thoughtfully, he nodded. “Maybe you’re right.” Then he shifted his gaze back to the picture he still held. “Your family?”

“Yes.” She didn’t have to look at the photo to know what he was seeing. A few months ago she and her siblings had gotten together for lunch, and Kyra had asked a waiter to take their picture. It wasn’t often anymore that she, Susan, Vincent and Daniel were in the same place at the same time. Though they hadn’t exactly been close when they were kids, in the last few years they’d all done some reaching out.

And to be honest, it was Kyra who’d had to do the most reaching. As the youngest of the four, she’d been the most removed from everyone’s lives. And thanks to Vincent running interference between her and her father, she had never really suffered the man’s rages as her brothers and sister had.

In the last few months, things had really changed for Leonard Fortune’s kids, too. Susan, Daniel and even Vincent had found love and happiness. They all felt a sense of peace they’d never had before.

God knew, they’d all earned it. Growing up as the children of Leonard Fortune hadn’t exactly been a game plan for success.

As the youngest, Kyra had been spoiled by her mother and protected from her father’s drunken rages by Vincent’s stubborn determination. Kyra’d been spared most of the misery her siblings had survived. But they were all grown up now. Succeeding on their own terms. Making lives for themselves, despite their father. Despite everything.

And Kyra was determined to do no less than her brothers and sister had done. She had every intention of making a success of her career and then somehow finding the love she’d always dreamed about.

Garrett continued to assess the photo. “Big family.”

“Four kids is a lot, I guess.”

“I’m an only child,” he said, and set the frame gingerly down on her desk, turning it back toward her with the tip of one finger.

“Must have been…quiet,” she said, not sure what he was getting at. Not sure why he was still here, in her office, talking to her as if they were old friends. Or lovers.

Her brain fizzled at the thought and she was forced to remind herself again that noticing Garrett Wolff as anything other than her boss was a one-way ticket to trouble.

He shoved both hands into his pockets. “Too quiet, sometimes.”

Now what did that mean?

As if suddenly realizing he’d said too much, he pulled his hands from his pockets, checked his watch and said, “I’m going home. I suggest you do the same, Ms. Fortune. The work will still be here tomorrow.”

Unable to help herself, she said, “Yes. But will I?”

He studied her for a long minute and shook his head. “Your review’s not till next week, remember? And besides, why are you so sure you’re going to be fired?”

She swallowed hard. “Because I know what you think of me.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “You can’t possibly know everything, Ms. Fortune. But the fact that you always act as if you do can be irritating.”

Instinctively, she tried to argue that point. “I don’t—”

“Who knows?” he added. “Maybe this time you really have irritated the wrong people.”

Kyra felt cold right down to the bone. Gone was the Mr. Nice Guy, chitchatting at night with one of the lesser beings. And in his place was the boss she’d come to know so well. Mr. Ice.

“I won’t make it easy on you,” she said, feeling it was only fair to warn the man that she wouldn’t give up without a fight.

“Ms. Fortune,” he said, “you never do anything the easy way.”

Three

T wo days later, Garrett was beginning to see what Kyra was talking about.

Walking through the expansion division—hell, his division, he’d already noticed people staring at him as if he were an apparition. Some looked nervous, as if he were there to lop off heads or personally hand out pink slips. Others were simply too stunned to return a simple greeting when he smiled and said good morning. And a couple of people paid no attention to him at all, leaving him to wonder if they even knew who the hell he was.

Irritation bubbled inside him. Damn it, he hated to admit that Kyra Fortune was right. But now that he was actually noticing what was going on outside the walls of his own office, he was forced to. Carol had always been so efficient, so on top of everything, he’d never really noticed how much of his world she ran.

Garrett was annoyed to have to acknowledge that Kyra Fortune had seen something he’d missed.

Muted sunlight streamed through the tinted windows surrounding the busy floor. At tiny cubicles and paper-cluttered desks, people hunched over their work or answered the ringing phones. Piped-in music battled for precedence over the sounds of people talking and typing.

And as he walked through it all, he realized he was just another distraction.

Damn it, he had been locked away too long. He’d lost touch with his team.

Oh, he met with a select few once a week, but the men and women who manned the glass cubicles sprawled across the steel-gray carpet were strangers to him. And he couldn’t understand how he’d let that happen.

He hadn’t set out to be alone in an ivory tower. But that was exactly where he was.

Now all he had to do was figure out how to change things.

“C’mon, Kyra, let it go for awhile. Relax. Have a drink. Dance.”

Kyra sighed, picked up her margarita and looked over the rim of the glass at her friend, Isabella Sanchez. Isa’s long, dark hair was a riot of curls around her pretty face. Her dark brown eyes were big and expressive, and her full mouth was turned up in a teasing smile.

But tonight not even her best friend could wangle an answering smile out of Kyra. “I’m just not in the mood, Isa. I shouldn’t have come out tonight. I’m only going to be a supreme downer.” She shook her head, set her glass on the scarred tabletop and leaned back in her chair.

“Girl, you’re letting him win.”

“He’s going to win anyway,” Kyra muttered, straightening up at the mere reference to Garrett Wolff. She’d already told Isa about the confrontation with her boss two days ago. And because she was a great friend, she’d promptly insisted on taking Kyra out to unwind.

Too bad it wasn’t working.

Not even the atmosphere of Rio’s, an upscale bar and restaurant, was enough to lift Kyra’s black mood. All around them people sat at round tables dotting the gleaming wood floor. Iron wall sconces shone with soft light, as did the cream-colored glass balls that hung on silver chains draped from beams in the ceiling.

Cocktail waitresses in black shorts and yellow T-shirts dipped and swayed as they moved through the crowd, carrying loaded trays of drinks and nachos. In the far corner a country and western band swung into a fast-tempo tune that had couples streaming toward the large square dance floor.

Against one wall a long, intricately carved mahogany bar was manned by three bartenders hustling to keep up with demand. A wall of mirrors backed the bar and reflected the room, so that it seemed to go on forever.

Isa reached across the table and patted Kyra’s hand. “Don’t let him get to you like this.”

“Can’t help it,” she admitted, and dragged one fingernail through the circle of water left by her glass on the tabletop. Staring blindly at the path of her scarlet nail, she muttered, “He’s going to fire me.”

“You don’t know that.”

She laughed shortly, despite the sinking sensation inside. “Sure I do.” Reaching out, she snagged a tortilla chip, then sat back in her chair and nibbled it. “He’s hated me since day one.”

“You don’t know that, either.”

“Please. He ignores me in meetings and practically runs the other way if he happens to see me in a hallway.”

“Hmm…” Isa smiled, took a sip of her drink and set it down again.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her best friend shrugged and smiled. “Just hmm…”

“There’s more.”

“I’m only thinking that maybe he’s not avoiding you because he hates you, but because he’s attracted to you.”

Kyra choked on a piece of chip. Coughing wildly, she held up one hand, grabbed her margarita and took a gulp. Still choking, eyes watering, she stared at the other woman. “Are you nuts?”

Laughing now, Isa shook her head and winked at a nearby man when he turned to look at her. Then, focusing on Kyra again, she said, “Sexual tension can erupt in the weirdest places.”

Kyra felt a rush shoot straight through her. Her friend’s words echoed over and over in her mind, and Kyra tried, desperately, to think about them objectively. But there was just no way.

“This isn’t about sexual tension,” she snapped, then winced and lowered her voice as she leaned across the table. “Trust me when I say neither one of us is feeling anything like that.”

“Uh-huh.”

Disbelief rang in Isa’s tone, and Kyra didn’t know how to convince her friend. Especially when there was a slim, fragile, wispy, almost nonexistent thread of worry unspooling inside her. Fine. Garrett was gorgeous. And just maybe, under other, very different circumstances, there might have been something between them.

In a different life.

On a different planet.

In another universe.

Oh, boy.

“I see that look,” Isa said with an air of triumph.

“What look?”

“The look that says, ‘I might be interested.’”

“I’m not.”

“Sure.”

“And even if I were,” Kyra hedged, “he isn’t.”

“Okay.”

“Stop agreeing with me.”

“Whatever you say.”

Kyra’s eyes narrowed. “You’re doing this deliberately.”

“Yeah,” Isa said, laughing. “But it got your mind off everything else, didn’t it?”

Yes, it had. However, her mind was probably safer worrying about being fired than it was thinking about Garrett Wolff in a sexual way. She’d spent the last two days waiting for the other shoe to drop. She’d half expected to be called into his office for the review he’d promised her and then be given a hearty handshake and a severance check.

Her nerves were stretched tight and every breath felt like an Olympic event. She couldn’t take much more of this. Plus, Garrett had been acting differently the last couple of days, too. He’d come out of his office and strolled through the division often enough to start making other people nervous. All of a sudden he was paying attention. Talking to people. Listening to people.