My Fair Fortune

“That’s easy to fix.”

Caitlyn pressed the intercom that connected her to her assistant.

“Janie, please come in here. I need you to make some copies for me.”

Five minutes later, the woman was standing in front of Caitlyn with the papers.

She scanned them quickly, reading on the first page that Alden had, in fact, instructed Brodie to “slice and dice,” as Alden had put it.

Slice and dice.

Get rid of anyone who didn’t do the job past expectations.

She looked up. “This is how my father works. However, since he’s not here, and I’m the Moore Entertainment executive in charge, you’re reporting to me now. And I’m telling you, we will be making some adjustments to this plan, because it doesn’t work for me. The first rule is, you don’t fire anyone until you talk to me. Do you understand me?”

“Every single employee on this team needs to be all in. One hundred percent. If not, we won’t meet our goal.”

“I agree,” Caitlyn said. “That also goes for the two of us working as a team and not against each other. Do you think we can do that?”

He was quiet for a moment. Their gazes were locked, but he seemed to be looking right through her.

“Of course,” he said. “What’s done is done. Let’s put everything behind us and move forward.”

For a moment she wasn’t sure if he was talking about the Clark Ball incident or their Fortune wedding after-party. She certainly wasn’t going to ask or let him think he could intimidate her with innuendo.

“Why don’t we go walk the park? It’s the best way for me to bring you up to speed. Then we can come back and figure out how we need to revise that plan, while making sure we open on time.”

* * *

Brodie considered himself a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. However, when it came to business, he had one hard, fast rule: do not sleep with the clients.

It complicated matters.

He was living the reality of that truth today, and it was throwing him off his game.

He’d been blissfully unaware the night he’d met Caitlyn and had given himself over to the lure of their attraction. How could he resist? How could he have known that their worlds would collide in the most jarring way? In the years since he’d been in business, he’d never found himself in a situation like this.

After dealing with other peoples’ complicated matters on the job all day, every day, he did his best to keep his personal life as unencumbered and hassle-free as possible. Of course, things didn’t always go smoothly. He’d faced the occasional sticky wicket of finding it necessary to extract himself from the casual fling that clung too tightly. And there were uncomfortable cases when he was out with a beauty only to run into the previous evening’s delight. But he prided himself on being up-front with the women in his life. Those who played by his rules stuck around for the fun of it. Those who fancied a different level of commitment usually ran out of patience and moved on.

He couldn’t blame them.

In his circles, everyone knew that Brodie Fortune Hayes wasn’t interested in getting serious. Work was his mistress, his lady love. He had no reserves or residual to give of himself.

As he stepped inside the Hollows Cantina, he had to ask himself if somehow he’d been able to glimpse the future and known that Cait from Chicago would be the person to whom he’d report at Moore Entertainment, would the night of the wedding—Valentine’s Day—have taken a decidedly different turn?

His head—the place he relied on, the one voice that he always knew wouldn’t steer him wrong—trumpeted a resounding yes. But another part of him, a place that was foreign and uncomfortable, begged to differ.

Well, then, that was easy. He was going with his head. It was the only sensible thing to do. Especially since the workday wasn’t over yet.

After he and Caitlyn had wrapped the disastrous day at Cowboy Country, they’d agreed to meet for dinner at The Hollows Cantina, where they would iron out the details of their united front plan.

When he took the job, he’d known good and well that Alden Moore would be difficult to please. The man had a formidable reputation. Little did he know that working with Moore’s daughter would prove to be even more challenging!

It went deeper than the fact that they’d seen each other naked. This woman was different from anyone he’d ever worked with. She was trying to manage a group of hostile employees with warm, fuzzy Kumbaya nonsense. She didn’t seem to realize that people were walking all over her. He was willing to bet that Clark Ball wouldn’t have pulled that bit of insubordinate baloney on her father. If Caitlyn Moore would simply get down from her high horse and listen to him tonight, he just might be able to help her save Cowboy Country.

First, Caitlyn had to run an errand. For that, Brodie was grateful. Her side trip took a bit of the pressure off, since that meant they were driving separately and meeting at the restaurant. Even though their dinner most definitely was not a date, taking separate cars gave them each a little breathing room to process what had transpired...er...on the job.

As far as he was concerned, he was putting their night under the stars behind him. In his head, Cait from Chicago was a different person from Caitlyn Moore, daughter of Alden Moore, the man who could make or break his chance to land the Japanese theme park account.

Brodie was used to flying solo, especially when it came to business. The companies that hired Hayes Consulting trusted him and tended to not interfere. Most had gotten themselves into messes of one kind or another, or their public profiles needed a boost. They hired him to pull them out of the bad and into a better standing in the community.

This job wasn’t difficult.

Even if one might label the circumstances he dealt with...complicated.

He was this close to landing the Japanese account, and that would secure Hayes Consulting’s position in the Asian market. Brodie liked to joke that the Japanese account would put him one continent closer to world domination.

It was a pretty serious joke.

When he walked into the restaurant, the hostess, a woman with long, dark hair greeted him with a bright smile.

“Good evening.” Her lilting voice was bright and solicitous. “Welcome to the Hollows Cantina. How many in your party?”

“There will be two of us.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m a little early. I’ll wait in the bar until my dinner partner arrives.”

“Have you dined with us before?” she asked.

“I have, but it’s been a while. Since February.”

“I thought you looked familiar.”

Her comment gave him pause, and that’s when he realized that she was looking up at him through long, dark lashes. She was an attractive woman, no doubt, but he wasn’t even tempted to flirt with her. Flirting was one of his favorite sports. But he had enough sense to know that Horseback Hollow and London were worlds apart. The last thing he needed was to get himself into another romantic conundrum.

“I’ll just—” He pointed toward the bar area to the left of the hostess stand and started to walk away.

“There’s about a twenty-minute wait for a table,” the woman said. “What’s your name? I’ll add it to my list.”

Really? How strange, he wasn’t even tempted.

Even stranger, he was relieved when Caitlyn chose that moment to enter the restaurant.

“There you are,” Brodie said, realizing a little too late that he’d infused way more enthusiasm into his voice than he would have liked.

“Hello.” Caitlyn cocked a brow. “Did you miss me?”

And that was another thing about her. She was cheeky. She had just enough sass to keep him from labeling her a total pushover. Probably because that sass was mostly directed at him.

The woman was a delightfully aggravating dichotomy. Just when he thought he had her figured out she pulled a U-turn and took off in the opposite direction.