Fortune's Heirs: Reunion: Her Good Fortune / A Tycoon in Texas / In a Texas Minute

“Rough time?”

“You know, personally.” Patrick’s words came out at a faster clip, as if he was running short on time. “It’s too complicated to talk about now, but I thought that you of all people might be sympathetic.” He then issued the only instructions he was about to give on the matter. “Help her get on her feet. Not be taken advantage of, that sort of thing.” And then, apparently because he didn’t want Jack to think that he was dealing with someone lacking in business sense, he added, “Don’t get me wrong—Gloria’s savvy. But two heads are always better than one.”

“Unless they belong to the same person,” Jack muttered under his breath, hating this corner he was being painted into.

About to walk back to Gloria, Patrick stopped and turned around to look at Jack. “What?”

Jack waved away his words. He might as well make the best of this. The sooner he got down to it, the sooner he’d be finished. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Knew you would,” Patrick said, moving toward the door.

Reaching Gloria, Patrick beamed and led her back into the office. Then he glanced at his watch. “I’m afraid I’m running a little behind.”

“Meeting?” Jack asked, instantly alert.

“In a matter of speaking.” Patrick’s expression softened slightly. “Telephone conferencing.”

Apparently hoping for a last-minute reprieve or, at the very least, a stay of execution while he was included in this conference, Jack was quick to ask, “Is it anyone that I know?”

“Intimately.” The word hung in the air between them for a second before Patrick added, “I promised to call your mother.” His eyes shifted to Gloria. “I have to run, Gloria, but I’m leaving you in very capable hands.”

From the look in Jack Fortune’s eyes as he turned toward her, Gloria had more than a passing suspicion that he wanted to use those very capable hands to wring her neck.

Unconsciously she squared her shoulders, standing almost at attention by the time he reached her. The closer he got, the more tension telegraphed itself through her body.

And the closer he got, the handsomer he looked.

There was no doubt about it, she thought, attempting to remain impartial in her judgment, Jack Fortune was one of those men that the term “drop-dead gorgeous” had been invented to describe.

The kind of man she might have once fallen for before introductions were even completed.

Lucky for her she’d done a great deal of growing and changing since those days. Lucky, too, that he’d managed to put her off so completely with the very first words that had come out of his mouth. If anything, it had been a matter of annoyance at first glance.

And if there was one thing she was utterly sure of, it was that Mr. Jack Fortune posed no threat to her state of mind or the pact she had made with her sisters. If for some reason her hormones decided to go berserk and she was tempted to renege on that pact, it wasn’t about to be with a man who used his tongue as a carving knife at Thanksgiving.

For one thing, she’d seen warmer eyes on a mackerel lying on display at the fish market than the ones that were turned on her now.

She was acutely aware that they were being left alone in this cavern of an office suite. Patrick Fortune waved to her as he took out his cell phone and slipped away into a private alcove where he could rendezvous with his wife of more than forty years.

Must be nice, she thought, to love someone that much, to want to remain married to them for so many years. Like her parents. Too bad it was never going to happen to her.

But she had her business to keep her busy, she reminded herself. And so it was time to get back to that business.

She looked at Jack. “You’re not happy about this, are you?”

“Whether I’m happy has nothing to do with this,” he told her coldly, eyeing the purse she had tucked under her arm. It was one of those flimsy clutch things big enough for a change purse, a driver’s license and a set of keys. She obviously hadn’t brought any papers with her that he could look over. It figured.

“Since you don’t seem to have anything with you, why don’t we make an appointment for another time?”

She looked at him blankly. Maybe he should be speaking in monosyllabic words.

“Sometime when you have something with you for me to look over.”

“‘Something’?”

He took a breath, then spelled it out for her. Slowly. “Blueprints for the space you’ll need. Inventory of the items you’ll need on hand. Everything from shipping boxes to Bunsen burners. Cash-flow projections,” he added for good measure, wondering if she was following him at all.

“I don’t use a Bunsen burner,” she informed him tersely.

Jack looked down at her, then found himself caught in the fire in her eyes. He was about to say something else when he suddenly became aware that her very trim figure was just inches away from him and that something quite apart from a business meeting was going on here. It was as if all the pores in his body had suddenly opened up and were inhaling her very feminine, very unsettling perfume.

The woman was female with a capital “F.”

The very last thing he wanted in his life.

With effort, he steered himself back to his indignation. “Do you even have any idea what it takes to set up a business?”

She bit her lower lip. “I—”

He made himself look at her eyes instead of her mouth. Like a man sitting in the middle of a boat that had suddenly broken apart, he felt compelled to clutch at something for survival. In this case, he needed to drive her away. “Did anyone tell you that most businesses fail in their first year?”

She hated his high-handed tone and it took effort for her not to turn on her heel and just walk out.

She could feel her nails digging into her palms as she struggled to rein in the temper she had inherited from her mother. This pompous ass was actually talking down to her, treating her as if she was some kind of a kindergarten dropout. Just because his last name was Fortune didn’t give him the right to act as if she was some kind of mental incompetent.

Because she owed it to Patrick not to kill his son, she forced a smile to her lips. “Then I guess we have nothing to worry about.”

“Meaning?” Jack demanded, the word scratching his throat as it climbed out. Jack felt like a man who was losing his mind. Part of him wanted to walk out and slam the door on this woman. And another part of him wanted to find out what full lips with a slash of pink lipstick tasted like.

“Meaning this isn’t my first year.”

Flipping open her purse, she took out a folded magazine article. Very precisely she unfolded it, then handed it to him.

“I’ve been in business for two years now. My store was located in Denver.” She took the article—clipped from a local Denver Sunday supplement; a story featuring her unique designs—out of his hand, noting that he hadn’t even glanced at it. He kept his eyes on her. “I’m not a virgin, Mr. Fortune.”

Chapter Four

It took Jack longer than he would have liked to pull himself together. “Bragging, Ms. Johansen?”

Gloria raised her chin, a bantam rooster unafraid of the fox.

“It’s Mrs. Johansen—or it was.” She was seriously thinking of changing her name back to simply Mendoza but for now she kept that to herself. “But since we’re going to be working together, I think you should call me Gloria, Jack.” She looked him in the eye as she deliberately emphasized his name. “And what I’m saying—” God, it was hard to talk to this man without clenching her teeth and pushing the words out “—is that I had a good business going in Denver.”

“Then why move?”

If there was one thing that got the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up straight, it was having to explain herself. She’d resisted the truth when the questions had come from her parents and she liked them a whole lot better than she did this intrusive man.

But she needed this boost. The Fortune backing meant a great deal in these parts and she was not about to turn her back on that just because Patrick Fortune had had the distinct misfortune of siring one very mean-spirited son of a gun.