Stand-In Bride

“A fairly good idea,” Julia admitted. She felt a totally unexpected, strange and disconcerting impulse to smooth his hair back into place, and she clasped her hands in her lap, as if to physically prevent herself from acting upon it. “From Denny. He’s extremely enthusiastic about your bachelor-list mail.”

Michael groaned. “This is a nightmare!”

He entered her office and began to pace. It wasn’t easy, since the big mail sacks took up most of the room. Nevertheless, Michael wound restlessly among them.

“Ever since that damnable magazine hit the stands, I haven’t had a moment’s peace. I’m hounded unmercifully day and night by women. I’ve had to get an unlisted phone number. I have to sneak out of my apartment at odd hours and go skulking in and out of the building like a criminal on the run. I don’t dare go to a restaurant or a store or—or anywhere. Women come up to me and tell me the most incredibly intimate things, like their bra size or what they’ll do if I—”

He broke off abruptly, a dark red flush staining his neck. Julia was both amazed and amused. Was Michael Fortune blushing?

“I guess it’s a good thing Denny and his pals have taken custody of the pictures and videos your, er, fans have sent,” she murmured. “According to Denny, who’s become something of an expert in the field, they’re way beyond an R rating.”

“Don’t be flippant, Julia!” Michael reprimanded sternly. “You have only to think about what has happened in the last five days to recognize what an upheaval that list has caused, not only to me personally but to the company!”

“There was definitely an upheaval when the company’s entire computer system had a seizure because all the voice-mail boxes were overloaded with messages for you,” Julia agreed.

“The whole system was down for hours on three separate days!” Michael was beside himself. “How can we possibly conduct business under those conditions? It’s a catastrophe!”

“It certainly isn’t business as usual,” Julia affirmed mildly.

Michael’s eyes glowed like blue flames. “When I told Kristina that having my name on that list constituted an atrocious invasion of privacy, I had no idea how bad it would actually be. The phones and fax machines are jammed with messages from women demanding to meet me. Every radio and TV station in Minneapolis and St. Paul calls at least once a day to schedule an interview with me. The newspapers—both in and out of state—want pictures and interviews, and those syndicated TV tabloid shows have actually sent people to try to get me to consent to appear on their programs. And then there are the talk shows who want to get the ten of us from that wretched list into their studios with an entire audience comprised of single women!”

“That could get ugly,” Julia said dryly. “I have visions of the ten of you being torn limb from limb by your overly enthusiastic prospective brides.”

“It’s not a far-fetched scene. After living through this, I can well believe that there are hundreds of women out there crazy enough to do anything to snare a man!”

“If it’s any consolation, I’m sure the other nine eligible bachelors are being harassed, too.”

“It isn’t any consolation at all!” Michael growled. “The situation is intolerable. I can’t live this way. Bad enough that I can hardly focus on my work with all the distractions and interruptions, but the entire company has been disrupted by this—this army of zealous women who—” Abruptly, he stopped talking, stopped walking and turned to face her. “I just don’t get it, Julia. Why are they doing this?”

“The magazine said the ten eligible-bachelor picks were the ‘Prince Charmings of the ’90s’,” Julia said thoughtfully. “I guess they tapped into all the fairy-tale magic that surrounds—”

“Fairy-tale magic!” Michael gave a derisive snort. “Prince Charming! Give me a break! What woman in her right mind wants to be a sniveling simp like Cinderella?”

“I agree the Prince Charming concept is outdated, and I’ve always thought Cinderella was passive to the point of being dysfunctional.” Julia grinned. “But these letter writers aren’t passive, they’re assertive, and they probably find the prospect of being Mrs. Michael Fortune—”

“There is never going to be a Mrs. Michael Fortune,” Michael promised fiercely. “But even if I did have the slightest inclination to marry, I would never choose a wife by drawing a letter out of a sack. What sane man would? So why do these women bombard us with mail?”

“Hope springs eternal, I guess.”

“There is hope and there is delusion, Julia. These letters fall firmly into the latter category.”

“Well, all those women who wrote in can’t be delusional, so maybe it’s, uh, ambition that is motivating them,” Julia suggested gamely.

“I’m quite familiar with that particular ambition.” Michael’s lips twisted in a cynical grimace. “This entire debacle simply proves what I’ve always known—that women are obsessed with money and will do just about anything to get it.”

“That’s a very depressing point of view, not to mention a vast over-generalization,” Julia said, in defense of every member of the female sex who was not a money-grubbing fortune hunter. Or Fortune hunter.

“Sure.” He laughed coldly. “Whatever, Julia.”

He leaned against the wall and folded his arms in front of his chest. “Did you hear that my mother was the one who sent in that picture of me? She admitted it and didn’t even apologize for doing it. The magazine contacted her, told her about the article, and she express-mailed the photo the next day. Charged the mailing expenses to my dad, of course.”

Julia nodded. She’d heard. She also knew that Nate Fortune had refused to pay and had sent the bill back to Sheila, prompting a visit by her to company headquarters.

Julia knew all about it because Sheila and Nate Fortune had had a screaming match in the corridor of the legal department. Everybody who worked there had heard every word, and news of the scene quickly spread throughout the company.

“Kristina was also right about my mother’s reason for sending my picture into the magazine.” Michael stared broodingly at the floor. “Mother actually said she hoped that the daughter of a ‘sinfully rich billionaire’ would become aware of my existence and contact me.”

His piercing blue eyes met Julia’s, and she shifted uneasily under his gaze. He seemed to be waiting for her to comment.

“I don’t know very much about the daughters of sinfully rich billionaires.” She chose her words carefully, determined to be tactful. “But I don’t think choosing a husband from a magazine list is, uh, quite their style.”

“As if that would deter Mother! She also delivered her standard lecture on the importance of acquiring one’s own immense personal fortune, by whatever means possible. I’ve been hearing that one since I was in kindergarten.” He gave Julia a hard stare. “Did your mother talk to you like that?”

“When I was in kindergarten, my mother and I talked about my dolls and the Easter Bunny and things like that. I can’t remember any advice about financial planning for the future.”

“What? No counsel on how to land a rich husband? No advice on ways to hold out against a prenuptial agreement or on the number of carats requisite in the diamond engagement ring to be purchased by the sucker on the hook? I thought all mothers indoctrinated their daughters about the necessity of marrying into wealth, from the time they were in the cradle.”

“Did your mother have discussions like that with your sister?” Julia asked curiously.

“Of course. For all the good it did. Poor idealistic Janie! She was determined to find true love without money and only succeeded in getting abandoned by the father of her child when he learned she was pregnant. I don’t know what upset our mother more—the fact that Jane slept with a man who wasn’t wealthy enough to be sued for a seven-figure child-support settlement or the fact that Sheila was going to be a grandmother. She still finds it difficult to admit her grandmother status.”

“But Cody is such an adorable little boy,” Julia murmured. She’d seen pictures of Jane’s six-year-old son.

“And my brother Kyle’s little girl, Caitlyn, is an adorable child, too. That doesn’t mean Mother wants to be Cody’s and Caitlyn’s—or anybody’s—grandmother.”

“Sheila Fortune isn’t exactly my idea of a grandmother,” Julia admitted quietly.

“She isn’t anyone’s idea of a grandmother, hers included. However, she does believe in carrying out what she calls her ‘maternal duty,’ and that included sending a picture of me to the magazine. Naturally, there is always an element of self-interest in Sheila’s maternal actions. For example, if that list happened to net me an heiress, I’m certain Mother would arrive at my door, demanding her cut.”

Julia’s lips quirked. “Sort of a finder’s fee.”

“Exactly.” Michael actually smiled—for a split second or two. Then he sighed heavily. “I just want all of this to be over. I’m sick and tired of feeling trapped. I want my privacy back. I want my life back!”

“The magazine comes out weekly, and a new issue will be on the stands in a couple of days,” Julia commented, her voice soothing. “I think you can expect the level of interest to drop then.”

“I hope you’re right,” Michael muttered, stepping deftly around a bulging sack. “Call maintainence and have them dispose of all these bags immediately. And instruct the mail room to stop using this office as a dumping ground. From now on, any superfluous correspondence addressed to me is to be taken directly to the garbage.” He retreated into his office, slamming the door behind him.

He’d begun slamming doors three days ago. Julia sank back in her chair, oddly unsettled by the long personal conversation she’d had with her boss.

It was apparent that this bachelors-list business was really taking its toll on him. The door-slamming, the personal revelations, even the brief flashes of dark humor—all were cracks in Michael’s previously impenetrable armor of control.

She thought of Denny and his cronies in the mail room, enjoying a vicarious thrill at the overwhelming attention that Michael found repugnant. A psychologist could have a field day analyzing the situation.

Maybe someday when she was a psychologist—Julia always thought when, never if—she would write a paper entitled “One Man’s Curse, Another Man’s Blessing,” exploring the topic in detail.

Someday. Julia allowed herself to daydream about the future for just a few moments—a future in which Joanna would be completely recovered. Though the doctors at the rehab center were cautious about Joanna’s prospective ability to attend college, Julia liked to picture her sister as a future student at the University of Minnesota, right here in town at the Twin Cities campus. Julia had earned her own undergraduate degree in psychology there and…had completed one year of graduate school, the first steps toward her goal of becoming a clinical psychologist and working with troubled children and adolescents. A goal Julia intended to achieve. Someday.

But she never lingered very long in the fantasy world of the future. She’d learned that it was far safer to live in the present than to dream of tomorrow. As a survivor of sudden devastating losses, she was well aware that everything could change in an instant, painfully and irrevocably altering one’s life in the most profound and unimaginable ways.