Fortune's Perfect Match

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Nothing, not one single thing, not for one single moment, was enough to keep her mind off Max.

  So when Wednesday came and went, with still no word from Max, and her father called late in the afternoon asking her to fly back to Atlanta because the Connover deal had hit a snag, she couldn’t find a single reason not to. She caught a red-eye and was in the FortuneSouth offices bright and early Thursday morning.

  But even there, while she sat around the conference table and did her part in reiterating to the Connover folks all the reasons why FortuneSouth was the answer to their woes, she couldn’t forget that Max was taking his instrument exam that day. And when they stopped the meeting for a well-needed break, she avoided her father who clearly wanted to talk to her, and closed herself in her office, telling Samantha that she didn’t want to be disturbed.

  Pride had kept her from calling Max before.

  But not now.

  She dialed the flight school, and paced around the desk in her office, her heart seeming to knock against the wall of her chest as she waited for an answer. She stared out the windows lining the walls behind her desk, not really seeing anything of the view below because visions of daisies were swimming in her mind.

  Then, suddenly, his deep voice was in her ear, and her throat closed up, barely allowing her to get a word out at all. “This is Emily Fortune,” she finally managed, and then wanted to fall through a hole to the center of the earth.

  “Well, hello there, This-Is-Emily-Fortune,” he drawled, obviously amused. “What’s up?”

  She thumped her hand against her forehead, glad that he was on the other end of a phone line and couldn’t see her. “I just wanted to wish you good luck today. You know. With the exam.”

  She heard a faint squeak in the background and all too easily envisioned him sitting at his desk in his usual chair. “Thanks.”

  Emily switched her cell phone from one nervously damp hand to her other and cleared her throat. “Listen, Max, I—”

  “Emily, I’ve—” he said at the same time.

  They both stopped.

  He made a sound that could have been anything from a cough to a laugh. “You first,” he said.

  She swallowed. “I…I didn’t really call to wish you luck. I mean, I did. I do. Wish you luck, that is. Not that you’ll need it.” Dear Lord. She was supposed to possess some ability when it came to words. “I just wanted to tell you that I…I really enjoyed spending last Sunday with you.” She couldn’t hear anything on his end of the line. Not even the faint squeak of his desk chair. She closed her eyes tightly. “It meant a lot to me,” she finally finished.

  “And you’re probably wondering why I haven’t called you since,” he said after a moment.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. Hanging in the breeze, indeed. “Not at all,” she lied. “I know you’re a busy man.”

  “Always that positive spin on things, eh, Emily Fortune?”

  Her knees felt shaky. She sat down on the edge of her desk and stared at her pale reflection in the decorative mirror on the wall across from her. She had circles under her eyes. Probably from too many sleep-interrupted nights jerking wide awake to the realization he’d only been making love to her in her dreams. “Okay,” she said huskily. “Why haven’t you?”

  “Because you make it way too easy for me to forget everything else.” She heard him exhale. “And it has been a crazy few days. I’ve been cramming for the exam every night after work with Brandi and Ross. Guess I’m more worried about it than I expected.”

  “Oh, Max,” she murmured. “You’re going to do brilliantly. I know you will.”

  He gave a half laugh that didn’t sound particularly amused. “I wanted to call. Nearly did about a few dozen times.”

  “Gotta get a buzz going on the internet any way we can about Redmond Flight School?”

  “That’s one reason,” he allowed. “Only Tanner’s been dealing with all the FAA requirements we’ve still got to meet in order to hit the launch for Redmond Charter in a few weeks, so he’s got me handling the reservations that’re already coming in as well as all the other scheduling. That’s kind of put kick-starting the social media thing for a bunch of high school kids on the back burner.”

  “Well, that’s understandable. Business obviously isn’t faltering as a result.”

  “No. But Tanner’s got his plans and he hasn’t forgotten about the website or anything. He doesn’t do anything halfway.”

  She looked away from her reflection. Tanner wasn’t the only one with that particular trait.

  “He’s also decided to hire a receptionist,” Max was saying. “I talked to him about the advantage of having her—or him—have the skills to update the website, keep all that online stuff going once we get it started.”

  “That sounds good,” she said faintly.

  “Right. He agreed. But I just placed the ad yesterday afternoon and had over four hundred resumes in my email this morning.”

  “So you’ve been slammed.”

  “I still should have called.” He was silent for a moment. “It meant something to me, too, Emily. A lot, if we’re being truthful here, and maybe I’m not adjusting to that fact as well as I should.”

  She let out a miserable laugh. “That sounds painfully familiar, actually.”

  “It does?”

  She had to deliberately lighten her hold on the phone because her fingers were cramping. “I told you personal relationships weren’t my forte, remember?”

  “I figured you were being hard on yourself.”

  “Oh, Max.” She looked upward and shook her head. “Maybe you and I are more alike than we thought.”

  “I don’t know, This-Is-Emily-Fortune. That’s a pretty hard one to wrap my mind around.”

  Despite everything, she felt her lips twitch. “You’re going to rib me about that from now on, I suppose.”

  “Hell, yes,” he said immediately. “Otherwise I’ll keep forgetting that you’re not perfect.”

  “If I were perfect I wouldn’t feel knotted up inside when it comes to you.”

  “Good knots or bad knots?”

  “Good.” She hoped. “Listen.” She straightened her spine. The break was only supposed to be for ten minutes, and she didn’t want her father coming to look for her. She ran her palms down the thighs of her slacks. “You’re right. Don’t worry about the website or anything. That’s absolutely not a priority for you right now. Just focus on that exam and go into it with a positive attitude.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He sounded amused. “Anything else?”

  “A little bossy, I guess.”

  “In the nicest of ways.”

  “Now, you’re just being finishing school polite.”

  He laughed softly. “Baby, the only thing finishing school and I have in common is you.”

  Baby. He’d called her that when they’d made love. When she’d felt like her world was spinning out of control. Her gaze fastened on her reflection again, needing to see that she was still in her suit with her hair tied back, and not wearing a peasant blouse with a daisy tucked behind her ear.

  She heard a soft knocking, and looked over to see her assistant waving at her from behind the glass door. Samantha exaggeratedly pointed at her watch.

  Emily nodded and looked down at the toes of her black pumps. “Maybe you’re right about that particular point,” she said into the phone, “but I think I’m right that we might both be too hard on ourselves. And as good as it is to hear your voice, I’ve got a meeting to get back to.”

  “In Red Rock?”

  She shook her head even though he couldn’t see it. “I’m in my office in Atlanta, actually.”

  “Corner office, I’ll bet.”

  She couldn’t deny it. “I had to come back to take care of some things.”

  “When’re you coming home?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, something sweet flowing through her. Home. Did he really think of Red Rock as her home, too?

  “As so
on as I can.” The words were almost a whisper. “It might be early next week.”

  “Call me,” he said. Then his voice dropped a notch. “I’ll pick you up from the airport.”

  Samantha tapped on the glass door again. Emily didn’t even glance at her. “That sounds really good,” she told him. “Will you, um, will you call me tonight? After you’re done with your exam? Tell me how it went?”

  “It might be late. You’re an hour ahead of me.”

  “It doesn’t matter how late,” she assured.

  “Maybe I should call really late. Make sure you’re alone. In bed. Give me a chance to imagine what you’re wearing.”

  She swallowed. Swift heat streaked through her.

  But her office door opened, and her father stood there, looking impatient. Behind him, Samantha gave Emily an apologetic shrug.

  Emily moistened her lips and straightened off the desk. “That definitely sounds like an interesting conversation,” she said crisply.

  Max laughed softly and it was all she could do not to shiver with delight. “Someone’s there, I take it.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So what would you say if I told you that you have the sweetest tasting nipples I’ve ever kissed? And your—”

  She whirled around to face the windows, her eyes feeling like they wanted to roll back in her head. “That’s a hard one to figure,” she interrupted. “I’m afraid I’ll need more time than I have at the moment.”

  He laughed. “Hard is right. Have a good meeting, Emily Fortune. Think of me.”

  The line went dead and she closed her eyes, counting to ten. The problem was nearly all she could do was think of Max.

  “Emily,” John Michael said from behind her. “If you can possibly fit us back into your schedule?”

  She slid her phone back into her pocket and whirled around to face her father with the same bright, confident smile she’d perfected in her bathroom mirror when she’d been only eighteen and he’d warned her that if she messed up as an intern at FortuneSouth, she’d be fired just like anyone else. “Sorry, Dad. It was just something that I needed to take care of back in Red Rock.” She marched past him out the office door.

  “Maybe you ought to be taking care of things that matter here,” he said impatiently, easily keeping pace with her. “You have responsibilities here, Emily. If you aren’t willing to make them your priority, then I’ll find someone else who will.”

  She stopped in her tracks right there in the middle of the corridor, feeling something inside her snapping into place. She looked up at him. “Frankly, Daddy, I’m not interested in these threats of yours. At this point, I’ve just heard too many.” For the first time in her career, she didn’t even care that employees were coming and going all around them and any one of them could overhear. “If you’re going to fire me, then do it and get it over with.”

  At sixty-two, John Michael Fortune still cut an intimidating figure. Well over six feet, with a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair, she’d known more than one employee who’d practically crawled away after earning one of his famous, disapproving looks.

  She certainly was earning one of his looks at that very moment. Could see the steam gathering in his thunderous expression.

  And if she’d wondered what the answer would be if her position at FortuneSouth came down to the wire, she realized that she knew the answer now.

  She lifted her chin a little. “Otherwise, get off my back and let me do my job. If you can’t do that, then I’ll just write up my own resignation letter and neither one of us will have to worry about pleasing each other again.”

  “Emily!” He’d gone from looking thunderous to shocked in the span of a heartbeat. “What on earth would you do without FortuneSouth? This is your life here!”

  She stared at him. FortuneSouth was not her life. Not anymore.

  She looked around him and spotted Samantha, watching openmouthed from her office door. “Type up a standard resignation letter for my father,” she said clearly. “Tell him I’ll give two weeks’ notice and not one day more. I’ll sign the letter after I’m through with this meeting.”

  And then she turned around and headed back to the conference room and the people waiting there.

  It was almost as big a rush as it had been taking off in that little plane with Max.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You did what?” Emily’s mother, Virginia Alice, stared at Emily with horror. Emily had two suitcases thrown open on top of her bed, and was neatly and rapidly filling them with the clothes from her closet.

  Trousers. Blouses. Dresses.

  Everything but suits.

  She’d had enough of those to last a lifetime.

  She eyed the tailored shirt in her hand and tossed it aside, reaching instead for an emerald sundress that was easily ten years old, but at least didn’t look like it belonged in a corporate office. “I resigned,” she told her mom patiently. “Gave Dad a letter offering two weeks’ notice and he tossed it back in my face. Told me if I was going to go, I might as well do it now.” She fit the dress into the suitcase. “Despite the fact that I’ve been able to handle my job at FortuneSouth just fine since I’ve been going to Red Rock, he’s obviously not satisfied with any commitments I make there. He wants me gone and believe me, I’m happy to go.”

  “What commitments?” Her mother shook her perfectly styled silver-haired head. She was dressed as impeccably as ever in a pale pink crushed-silk pants suit, but she looked positively bewildered and had from the moment she’d appeared at Emily’s apartment door. “You mean this plan of yours to have a baby?”

  “That.” Emily turned back to her closet. “And…anything else I might be involved with.”

  “Ah. Shouldn’t that be anyone else?”

  Emily turned and looked at her mother. Speculation had replaced bewilderment.

  “I do talk to Jordana and Wendy nearly every day,” Virginia Alice pointed out. “Just because you haven’t told me anything about this Max Allen you’ve been seeing doesn’t mean they haven’t.”

  Thoroughly nonplussed, Emily sat down on the bed. It was six o’clock in the evening. Max was probably already undergoing his exam now, and Emily’s mother should have been at home, pouring John Michael’s pre-dinner drink just like she’d been doing for years and years and years. “I…didn’t know what to tell you,” she finally admitted.

  Virginia Alice sat on the bed on the other side of the suitcases and crossed her legs. “Wendy thinks you’re in love with him. Why don’t we start there. Are you?”

  Emily opened her mouth, the automatic denial at the ready. Then she lifted her shoulders instead. “How can I be? I’ve only known him a few weeks!”

  Virginia Alice smiled slightly. “I knew I was going to marry your father the night I met him.” Her gaze went toward the industrial-height ceiling of Emily’s loft and she shook her head. “Fell head over heels in love with him the moment he smiled at me and said my name for the first time. Oh, he had such ambition. All he could talk about was starting his own business. Changing the world with it.” Her lips curved. “All I could think about was how ridiculously handsome he was and how soon I could maneuver him into kissing me while letting him think it was all his own idea. That’s the thing about your daddy, you know. As long as he thinks he’s the one that came up with the idea, a person can get him to agree to most…anything. Why, that man was nearly puritanical until he met me.”

  Emily stared. “Mom!”

  Her mother’s cheeks looked a little pink. “Surely you don’t think passion only came into existence with your generation?”

  “Well, no, but I’ve never heard you say such things.”

  Virginia Alice folded her hands demurely. “In my day, a lady just didn’t say them. But that certainly didn’t mean we didn’t think or feel or act on such things. We just…tried to keep those matters private.”

  Emily covered her eyes. She wasn’t certain that she didn’t wish her mother hadn’t continued that particular
practice. First it was Wendy and Jordana. Now their genteel, Southern mother?

  “And of course we had to be smart enough not to get caught with our skirts around our ears and end up having to plan a hurry-up wedding,” her mother was adding.

  “Mom!”

  “Oh, Emily. Stop cringing. You’re an adult. Certainly adult enough to go off trying to have a baby on your own, just you and some—” her mother waved her hand “—anonymous man’s deposit in one of those banks.”

  Emily groaned. She leaned over until her face was pressed against the cool gray of the quilted cotton coverlet folded over the bottom of her mattress. “You’re killing me, Mom,” she muttered.

  Virginia Alice sighed. “I should have talked about these things more when you and your sisters were younger,” she mused. “Been more open about the things that go on between a man and a woman. Maybe you wouldn’t be so uptight now.”

  Emily straightened like a shot. “I’m not uptight.”

  “Reserved, then,” her mother appeased. “Now please. I’d like to hear more about this Max since he’s clearly the only person you’ve ever met who matters enough to you that you’ll fly in the face of your father.”

  Emily shrugged, feeling helpless. “He’s wonderful. He’s smart and hardworking and he really loves to fly.”

  “And how does he feel about this—” Virginia Alice waved her hand again “—baby business?”

  “I haven’t told him,” Emily admitted.

  Her mother’s eyebrows lifted. “Why ever not?”

  “Because things aren’t that settled between us,” she defended. “And…and I didn’t want to scare him off.” She pressed her hand against her belly, imaging the tiny being growing inside her at that very moment. “I don’t even know if I’m pregnant right this very minute.” But she already strongly suspected she was. “That’s a hard thing to tell a man you’ve barely just met!” Particularly one who’d already made it plain he didn’t think children were meant to be part of his life.