Stand-In Bride

She saw him gape in disbelief as he read the list of top-ten most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A., one of whom was him!

The magazine slipped from his fingers, and Julia knew it was a sign of how upset Michael really was. She’d never seen him drop so much as a pencil before. But the magazine hit the floor, its pages fluttering like the wings of a frantic bird.

“Who is responsible for this?”

Michael’s voice was low, every syllable precise, his blue eyes like twin chips of ice. Though his expression remained impassive, Julia instantly recognized the signs of his fury. Her boss was the most controlled person she had ever met, never given to dramatic displays of temper, but she knew he was quite capable of rage.

She’d witnessed his wrath when something went awry within the Fortune Corporation, had seen his dark blue eyes turn cold with anger and had heard his sharp tone of voice, as unnerving as any blustery barrage.

Kristina, however, either didn’t recognize or else chose to ignore his symptoms of anger. “It’s so cool, isn’t it, Mike? You’ll be a household name along with—”

“I am insulted and infuriated at this atrocious invasion of privacy!” Michael’s voice was low and deep. “Did you do it, Kristina? Is this another inappropriate idea of yours, one confusing advertising with publicity? Did you contact this magazine and—”

“I did not!” Kristina was offended.

“Then how did they get my name? And my picture?” demanded Michael. “Why would they put me on this stupid list unless somebody—you—engineered it?”

“The magazine editors picked you. I had nothing to do with it,” Kristina exclaimed defensively. “It’s your own fault you’re one of the chosen, brother.”

“I know that it’s fashionable to blame the victim these days, but do you mind explaining why I am responsible for this—this…” Words failed him.

Julia was worried. She had never seen Michael driven to speechlessness in the entire time she’d known him.

“Just consider the facts, Mike,” Kristina retorted, undaunted by her brother’s fury. “You’re twenty-nine years old and you’re single, good-looking and rich. You’re a member of a prominent family and you already hold an important position in the company. Plus, you’re actually good at what you do, so you’re probably going to succeed Uncle Jake as CEO sometime in the future. That makes you supereligible, and that’s how you made the list.”

Michael wasn’t buying it. “What about that picture of me?” he demanded coldly. “Next you’ll accuse me of sending it in myself.”

“I don’t know how they got your picture,” Kristina said with a huff. “Maybe your mother sent it in, hoping that some heiress would hop a plane to Minneapolis and marry you, giving Mommie Dearest yet another crack at even more wealth. I certainly wouldn’t put it past her. Your mother would do anything for money!”

Michael seemed to turn to stone, every muscle in his body tight, his eyes burning with dark fire. At six foot one, he towered over both women, and Julia shrank back, feeling suddenly, inordinately intimidated by his size and presence. Kristina, who was glowering at her brother, clearly did not.

When Michael spoke, his voice was eerily calm, his face a composed, expressionless mask. “I can’t waste any more time on this nonsense—I have work to do. Julia, will you please escort my sister out of here?”

He turned and went inside his own office, closing the door behind him with careful, quiet finality.

Silence descended like a shroud for a few long moments. Finally, Kristina heaved an exasperated sigh. “Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have accused his mother. But to be perfectly honest, his mother is a greedy, vindictive witch! You’ve met Sheila, haven’t you, Julia?”

Julia nodded reluctantly. Oh yes, she’d met Sheila, Nate Fortune’s scheming, narcissistic first wife, the mother of Michael and his brother Kyle and sister Jane.

Nate, the younger brother of CEO Jake, was the lawyer in charge of contracts, patents, suits and other legal matters for the Fortune Corporation. Kristina was the product of Nate’s second marriage to warm, down-to-earth Barbara, the polar opposite of Sheila.

Julia didn’t care for Sheila Fortune, who had been sharp and condescending whenever she swept into the office. But being Michael’s employee, Julia certainly wasn’t about to join in trashing his mother.

Kristina didn’t expect her to. She was perfectly content to trash her father’s first wife on her own. “Truly, I don’t know how my sister and brothers stood living with Sheila when they were growing up, even part of the time. My dad said Sheila deliberately got pregnant with Mike and Kyle and Jane to insure herself eternal child support, not to mention a cushy lifetime of alimony that—”

To Julia’s immense relief, the telephone rang, cutting Kristina off in midtirade. While Julia answered the call, Kristina grabbed the magazine and left the office with a quick wave.

The rest of the morning was exceptionally busy, and Julia was in the midst of compiling copies of several targeted marketing surveys conducted by the company when Lynn, Margaret and Diana, assistants to other Fortune executives, arrived in her office.

“Time for lunch,” Lynn announced. “We’re debating between the Loon Café, where we can watch the yuppies eat while they talk on their cellular phones, or the mall. What’s your pleasure?”

Julia visibly started. “I had no idea it was this late!”

“No wonder. You’re buried under a ton of paperwork,” Diana observed. “But even slaves have to eat, so climb out from under it and come with us.”

The women made a point of lunching together at least once or twice a week, and Julia was always included. She hated to forgo their lunch date today, but these surveys were so time-consuming….

Michael chose that moment to enter her office. His expression could be interpreted as either questioning or accusing.

Julia chose to interpret it as questioning. “I was just thinking about going to lunch,” she explained.

“Lunch?” Michael echoed, as if the concept were unfamiliar to him.

Julia saw her friends exchange glances. “I’ll finish these surveys when I get back,” she said, her decision made. She was not a slave and intended to prove it.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to wait until after you get back to ask you to download these files.” Michael placed a stack of diskettes on her desk. Without another word, he turned and went back into his office.

“Brr! The temperature always drops at least twenty-five degrees when he’s in a room.” Margaret pretended to shiver. “The man is an emotional refrigerator.”

“Think of the career he could have in the frozen-food industry!” Diana said with a chuckle.

“He’s sort of in a bad mood today.” Julia came to Michael’s defense. Having seen that eligible-bachelor list and guessing the uproar it was going to generate, she figured he was entitled to one. “He has a lot on his mind.”

The four women left the office and started down the corridor toward the elevators.

“How do you tell his bad moods from his good ones?” Lynn queried. “Have you ever actually seen the man smile?”

“He is very reserved,” Julia explained. “But when you get to know him well, he is really a nice guy.” She was certain that was true, though she had yet to get to know him well.

“If you say so,” Margaret said doubtfully. “Hey, I’m casting my vote for the mall. There’s a fifty-percent-off sale at Lindstroms’ starting today….”

It wasn’t until later, when Julia was on her way home at the end of the day, that she had time to think about Kristina’s uncensored comments on Sheila Fortune, the woman who’d married and bitterly divorced Michael’s father.

Julia rode the bus to and from work because her job status did not include a parking place in the Fortune Building and the cost of all-day parking in town was prohibitive. But she didn’t mind the bus rides. If she didn’t have a book to read, she sat and gazed out the window, absorbed in thought. Today she did have a book—a thriller about a crime-solving coroner—but she laid it on her lap and let her mind drift to Michael Fortune.

Hearing those few basic facts about Sheila and Nate Fortune’s rancorous marriage and divorce did explain Michael’s uncompromising view of marriage, Julia mused.

He was adamantly against it. Julia had never heard anybody express such strong antimarriage views. And he certainly hadn’t altered his perspective this past year, during which three members of his family had decided to marry.

He had distanced himself as much as possible from the events. Each time—when his cousin Caroline married Nick Valkov, when his brother Kyle married Samantha Rawlings and when Caroline’s sister Allison married Rafe Stone—Michael had sent Julia to select a wedding gift.

“Buy whatever you think is appropriate. I certainly have no ideas and no interest in anything pertaining to marriage,” he’d said, giving her carte blanche with his credit cards. He did not want to see or hear about what she’d bought for the happy couples.

Julia had hoped her selections were acceptable. The nice thank-you notes written to Michael by the brides had given her a warm glow. She sincerely hoped that all three couples would live the proverbial “happily ever after.”

Michael did not share her optimism. Each time, before signing his name to the wedding cards she’d purchased with the gifts, he’d made a sound that was something between a sarcastic laugh and a growl.

“I guess if this is what they really want to do…” he’d said all three times, his tone disapproving. Julia had once heard someone make a similar statement in a similar tone when commenting on a family of acrobats who insisted on working without a safety net.