Stand-In Bride

“Personally, I’d rather be dead than married,” Michael had added all three times, while handing the cards back to her.

“Do you really believe it’s better to be dead than wed?” Julia had paraphrased wryly the third time he’d expressed the sentiment.

“Better dead than wed,” Michael repeated glibly. “Hmm, not bad. I think it has potential as a slogan. Maybe I’ll run it by my cousin Caroline in marketing.”

“Caroline would rather be wed,” Julia murmured. “You bought her a pair of lovely, antique silver candlesticks and signed a wedding card for her a few months ago, remember?”

“I remember signing the card. I have no knowledge of the candlesticks, nor do I care to.”

“Well, Caroline said that she loves them.”

“Good. Since you’re in sync with her tastes, I’ll put you in charge of buying Baby Valkov its welcome-to-the-world gift when the time comes.”

“I’d heard that Caroline was expecting a baby,” Julia murmured.

Everyone in the company knew, because Caroline Fortune Valkov was visibly pregnant. From what Julia heard through the company grapevine, Fortune’s vice president of marketing and her research-chemist husband were as blissfully happy as the card Michael had signed wished them to be.

“That seems to be the way it goes.” Michael looked grim. “Get married and then have a kid, for all the wrong reasons. Of course, some people do it backward—get pregnant and then get married—but the part about the kid being conceived for all the wrong reasons still applies. Doubly so in the shotgun-wedding cases.”

Julia was nonplussed. They’d never had a discussion like this one. And while she had been uncomfortable discussing his family members, she was even more unsettled by his starkly pessimistic views regarding their future. “You don’t believe your cousin and her husband are having a child because they love each other and want to create a family together?”

He’d given her an almost pitying glance, as if she’d just confessed that, as a twenty-six-year-old, she still firmly believed in the existence of Santa Claus.

“Love has nothing to do with it, Julia. The kid could be an accident, the result of a night of too much wine and an overload of hormones. Or if the pregnancy was actually planned, maybe Caroline believes a child will give Nick more incentive to stay with her—and the Fortune Corporation, of course. He is a valuable asset to the company, and Caroline is too good a businesswoman not to realize it. As for Nick, perhaps he sees a child as a way for him to stake a permanent claim on the Fortune money.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Julia said rather boldly. She’d seen the couple together, and their love for each other was obvious, even to an outsider like herself.

Michael shrugged. “Couples have been using children to serve their own agendas from time immemorial, Julia.”

“It’s not always that way. Don’t you think anybody has a baby for the right reasons?” Julia had been unable to keep herself from asking.

Michael had given that cynical laugh-growl and turned his attention back to the papers on his desk, not bothering to dignify such a naive question with an answer.

Having heard about Sheila Fortune, who according to Kristina had produced three children for monetary gain, Julia better understood Michael’s scornful pessimism.

Understood, but did not accept. Julia believed in love and marriage and the children who resulted from such a union. She’d been one herself, and she intended someday to have a loving union like the one her parents had shared. To have children who were loved and wanted by two parents who cherished each other.

She thought back to those wonderful days when her family had been together—Mom and Dad, she and her younger sister, Joanna. A lump lodged in Julia’s throat, and she blinked away the tears that suddenly filled her eyes.

The Chandler family’s time together had been brief, making the happy memories particularly poignant and bittersweet. Her father’s unexpected death from the complications of appendicitis had occurred when she was seventeen. Tragedy had struck again three years ago when a car accident claimed her mother’s life and grievously injured poor Joanna.

Thinking of her younger sister rallied Julia, and she forcefully shook off the aura of gloom threatening to envelop her. Joanna was twenty years old now and in a superior rehabilitation center, working hard to overcome the effects of her devastating injuries from the crash.

Julia was filled with a quiet pride as she visualized her little sister fighting to overcome the odds stacked against her. With the help of a program tailored specifically for her recovery, consisting of grueling regimes of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, music therapy and recreational therapy, Joanna never wasted time feeling sorry for herself.

And until Joanna was well again and able to live an independent life, Julia had put her own hopes and dreams on hold. Her job at the Fortune Corporation was all-important because her generous salary enabled her to pay Joanna’s considerable expenses at the rehab center. Julia didn’t protest about the long hours that workaholic Michael Fortune demanded because there was nothing and no one in her life as important as Joanna and their daily phone calls and weekend visits.

A happy marriage to a man who loved her as much as she loved him, and their much-wanted, much-loved children, had to wait. But when the time was finally right, Julia was certain she would find him. Or maybe he would find her.

Two

“Another bag of mail for the eligible bachelor!” Denny, the clerk from the mail room, sang out, heaving an industrial-size plastic sack into Julia’s office. Three other sacks just like it took up most of the floor space. “There’s more coming in. We had to clear this out to make room.”

“Mr. Fortune will be thrilled to hear it,” Julia murmured wryly.

“Not!” Denny chuckled, pleased with his own joke. “We heard he’s furious about all this. But me and my buddies sure don’t know why. If I had hundreds and hundreds of letters from hot babes craving my bod, you can believe I’d be in paradise!”

Julia glanced at the short, perspiring overweight young man, who was somewhere in his twenties and looked ten years older. There would never be hundreds of letters from hot babes craving his body. Maybe not even one.

“Mr. Fortune doesn’t like the attention the magazine article has brought him,” Julia explained tactfully.

For the past five days, ever since the magazine had hit the stands listing Michael Fortune as one of the top-ten most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A., she’d had versions of this same conversation with Denny whenever he arrived with another sack of mail.

Usually the mail clerk shuffled out immediately afterward, but this morning he seemed to be in a chatty mood. He lingered by her desk.

“We had to bring two more people into the mail room to handle all this extra stuff.” Denny stared at the bulging sacks with a proprietary air. “I was put in charge of them, since I’ve been in the department for five years. We call ourselves the ‘Fortune bachelor team.’”

“Ah,” said Julia. Were congratulations in order? She wasn’t quite sure.

“Yep, we open every letter addressed to Mr. Fortune that don’t have the special company code on it.”

She nodded. To distinguish Michael’s usual business correspondence from the mountain of letters inspired by the eligible-bachelor list, Julia had notified all his colleagues and associates nationally and worldwide to use a special code.

“We even open the letters marked Personal. Mr. Fortune said to especially open those ones.” Denny leaned forward and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Those are usually the ones with the really good stuff in ’em.”

Julia winced.

“You wouldn’t believe what we’ve been finding, Miss Chandler!” Denny exclaimed exuberantly. “Women send Mr. Fortune panties with their phone numbers written on them! And we’re not talking plain old underpants, either. These panties—”

“I hope you’re donating any suitable items of clothing to charity,” Julia interjected, before he could go into detail.

“Miss Chandler, no respectable charity would want them panties, I can tell you that,” Denny said with alacrity. “And then there’s the pictures being sent in! Wow!” His face reddened and he began to breathe heavily. “Mr. Fortune said we could have whatever is in the envelopes, so we divide up the pictures. Sometimes we trade ’em. Chuck actually bought one off of Jonesy for ten bucks! He offered me twenty for a really great one I got, but no way I’m selling!”

Julia’s forced smile became even harder to maintain. She glanced at her watch, a time-honored cue of dismissal. “Uh-oh, I’m running late and have to—”

“But my favorites are the videos the women send in!” Denny did not pick up on her cue. He was not interested in being dismissed. “Picture this, Miss Chandler. Women wearing these real sexy getups or else lying naked on rugs or on beds with candles lighted and music playing while they tell Mr. Fortune how and what they’re going to—”

“I really have to—to get this document to Mr. Fortune for his signature.” Julia jumped to her feet, almost knocking over her desk chair. “It’s extremely urgent.”

“Well, tell Mr. Fortune we followed his orders. There are only letters in the bags. We took care of the other stuff for him.” Smirking, Denny lumbered from the office.

The other stuff. Julia imagined Denny and his cronies slavering over their newfound panty, photo and video collections, and shuddered.

The door to Michael’s office opened, and he stood on the threshold, grim faced. His dark blue eyes focused immediately on the latest sack of mail. “Oh, Lord, not more!”

“Denny wanted me to assure you that he and his crew have removed, uh, any accompanying paraphernalia, and that these sacks contain only letters.”

“Only letters!” Michael echoed tightly. Exasperated, he ran his hand through his dark, thick hair, tousling it. “Do you have any idea of the content of those letters?”