phone ringing. She broke into a sprint and almost turned her ankle on the step, thanks to the platform shoes from Grandma Kate’s trunk.
She made it to the foyer extension just before the answering machine picked up in the study—and then she wished she hadn’t hurried.
“Natalie, what took you so long?” It was Joel Baines, whom Natalie had dated exclusively for five years, until a month ago, when Joel broke it off.
At first, after Joel told her it was over, Natalie had been crushed. She’d wandered around the house in a bathrobe, beset by crying jags, wondering what was the matter with her. But then she’d come to her senses and realized that Joel had done her a favor; she’d faced facts. Joel had been with her for two reasons: because it stroked his ego to have a Fortune on his arm, and because she’d made herself so incredibly convenient—always there when he needed her, always ready to do things his way. She didn’t need a man like him in her life.
Unfortunately, for the past few days, Joel had been having second thoughts about his decision to end their relationship.
Natalie hadn’t. “Joel, stop calling me.”
“But, Natalie…”
“I mean it. Listen. Do. Not. Call. Me. Again.”
“Natalie, I was a fool.”
“Joel, you betrayed me.” He had confessed that he’d been unfaithful, just before he told her that he was through with her.
“I never should have told you about my little mistakes,” Joel said. “I can see that now.”
“Just leave me alone. Please.”
“I love you, Natalie. There’s a big fat hole in my life with you gone. If you’ll just—”
“Goodbye, Joel.” She hung up.
And, for a moment, she felt really good. Really, completely in charge of her life and affairs.
But only for a moment. Then, through the door she’d left open when she raced for the phone, she saw her mother’s white Mercedes as it fishtailed into the turnaround by the front walk. Erica Fortune stomped on the brakes and brought the car to a skidding stop, spewing gravel in her wake.
With a sigh, Natalie went out to meet her.
Erica emerged from the car wearing a beautiful white linen suit that should have been a mass of wrinkles, but wasn’t. On Erica Fortune, linen didn’t dare wrinkle.
“Oh, Nat. Thank God you’re here.”
“What is it, Mother?”
Erica smoothed back her shining silvery-blond hair with a slim, perfectly manicured hand. The huge emerald ring that matched her eyes glittered in the sunlight. In her other hand she clutched a rolled newspaper. “Here. Look.” She held out the paper.
Reluctantly Natalie took it and opened it up. It was that day’s edition of the Star Tribune.
“Bottom right,” her mother muttered.
Natalie turned the paper over. And there was her father’s face. Bad Business at Fortune Industries, the headline read.
“I just…I need to talk,” Erica said, giving Bernie, who had been waiting patiently for her to notice him, an absentminded pat on the head. Then she let out a small moan. “Oh, Nat, I just don’t know what’s happening with him. Do you know what that article says?”
Natalie shook her head.
“It dredges up all the old dirt all over again, accusing your father openly of sabotaging his own company. There’s a lot about the total insanity of his selling his personal stock to that awful, incomprehensible Monica Malone.”
Like Erica and Natalie’s sister, Allie, Monica Malone had once been a Fortune Cosmetics spokesmodel—the very first one, decades ago. And along with becoming Fortune’s Face, the woman had become the reigning queen of the silver screen. No one in the family could stand her, but it seemed she was always in the background somewhere, stirring up trouble—and never more so than recently, since Grandma Kate’s death. She’d been buying up stock in the company wherever she could find it. And when it came out six months before that Jake had turned his own shares over to her, no one had known what to make of it—and they still didn’t, because Jake adamantly refused to give a single reason for what he had done.
“And that’s not all that’s in there,” Erica continued. “There’s speculation about the fires at the Fortune labs, a rundown on the threats against Allie, a description of the company break-ins, and if you turn the page you’ll be treated to a chart that shows how far the company stock has fallen. Jake gets the blame for not dealing with anything right.
“Oh, what’s happened to him?” Erica moaned. “I just… I still can’t understand why he would do such a thing. He’s always put his duty to the family and the company above everything else.”
Natalie was scanning the article. She looked up. “I can’t see anything new here. It’s just more of the same old stuff.”
Her mother sniffed. “Yes, and now even more people know all about it, since it’s a front-page story in the Sunday edition.”
Natalie asked carefully, “Mom, what can you do about this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, are you going over to see Dad? Is that it?”
“No. I can’t do that. You know I can’t. Jake and I are hardly speaking.”
“Well, then, maybe it’s a mistake to get all worked up.”
Erica shook her head. “I can’t help myself. I’ve been furious with your father for a long time now. But lately, I… Nat, a woman can’t just forget all about a man she’s spent thirty years of her life with.”
Natalie knew what was really bothering her mother: Erica still loved Jake. And Jake still loved her. Natalie wished they would work through their differences and reunite. But she was not going to get sucked into the family drama this time around. She had spent too many years playing confessor, comforter and caregiver to her family—as well as to the men in her life. And now she was bound and determined to make things different for herself.
“Nat…”
“What?”
“You know, if anyone could get through to your father, it would be you. You’re so reasonable and level-headed, and you always know just what to say to get people to open up to you.”
Natalie looked straight into her mother’s gorgeous green eyes. “Mom, we have talked about this. I won’t play go-between. Not anymore. And that’s that.”
Erica was quiet. Somewhere in the trees beside the house, a bird trilled out a few bars of song. Then Erica nodded. “Of course. You’re right. I know you are.”
In spite of her determination not to play the role of rescuer, Natalie ached for her mother. Within Erica there had always been a deep vein of dissatisfaction, of restlessness, though the world saw only a beautiful
