her father said, jarring her from her musing. “But you’re our only chance to hang on to the company, to hang on to the very life-style that we have. If you don’t marry him, we’ll lose everything.”
When she said nothing, he added, “At least consider it, sweetheart. Thinking you don’t know Lyle well enough is something that’s easily rectified. Just make it a long engagement. Take your time getting to know him. You might discover that you really like him. You could even fall in love with him—you never know. And he’d be a good provider. You’d never lack for anything.”
No, she’d certainly never lack for anything, Renee thought. Except maybe for love. Except maybe for that heady, dizzying sensation that turns a person upside down and inside out, never knowing for sure if it’s day or night, and frankly never caring.
Oh, but, hey, other than that…
Not that Renee had ever experienced such a sensation. To be honest, she wasn’t convinced such an emotion even existed. Although she was only twenty-three, she’d never come close to falling in love. In fact, the whole starry-eyed, hot-summer-night romance thing eluded her. Her friends who had succumbed to what they called love had generally wound up making fools of themselves at best or suffering the depths of despair at worst. So it could be that lacking love in a relationship might wind up being a good thing in the long run.
And it wasn’t that she disliked Mr. Norton. On the contrary, in spite of his smarminess and ingratiating tactics, she had no choice but to admire him for becoming the massive success he was at such an early age. At twenty-six, he was only three years older than she, yet he’d accomplished infinitely more than she had. In fact, he’d made his first million when he was twenty-three. Renee didn’t even have a job. And in a few short years, Lyle had gone on to build a corporate empire that wouldn’t be easily toppled. Renee, if she was lucky, might be doing something by the time she was twenty-six that wasn’t immersing frozen French fries into a deep-fat pit.
Of course, she knew she shouldn’t sell herself short. She had, after all, just earned her MA in liberal arts. And along with her BA in humanities, that was going to make her perfectly suited to—to…
Well, now that Renee thought about it, there wasn’t a whole lot she would be suited to. Except, perhaps—thanks to all those years of etiquette schooling—being a first-rate hostess and a fine conversationalist. Which, now that she thought more about it, might be exactly the kind of training she needed to be a corporate wife to someone like, oh, say…Lyle Norton.
So what if he didn’t wreak havoc with her heart? The least Renee could do was try to get to know him better and consider the man’s proposal.
Hey, as her father just said, he was quite a catch, a man who would take good care of Renee—financially, at least. She supposed, to her father, that was the most important thing. Always the businessman—that was her dad. As much as she knew he loved her, he would be just as concerned about making sure she was provided for economically as cared for emotionally.
Then again, maybe there was something to be said for that, too….
Renee sighed fitfully as she ran her hand through her hair again. It had been a long day, and her maid of honor duties had left her feeling too tired to argue. So she glanced down, caressing the delicate red blooms of her bouquet instead of meeting her father’s gaze. And quietly, reluctantly, she said, “Okay, Daddy. I’ll consider everything you’ve said. I’ll think about marrying Lyle Norton.”
And she would, too, she promised herself as her father kissed her on the cheek and made his way into the crowd of celebratory guests at her friend Kelly Sinclair’s wedding. She’d think about it very seriously. But not here. Not where Kelly had just marked the beginning of a union with her new husband, Mac Fortune, and the baby they were expecting next month. Not where there was so much warmth and promise of good things to come.
Renee glanced toward the floor-to-ceiling windows in the conference room of the Fortune Corporation, a conference room that had been transformed for the ceremony, thanks to a miracle-worker wedding planner. A red velvet carpet eclipsed the floor, satin ribbons hung from the sides of the conference chairs, and at the front of the room, the dais was nearly obscured by pots and sprays of flowers—delicate baby’s breath, red, red roses and sweet-smelling gardenias. The lighting was soft and buttery, the music muted and joyful.
And outside, as if cued to do so, snow fell in a flurry of fat, furious flakes, turning the night sky into a magical sight. Something about the dreamy dance of white satin snow against the black velvet backdrop made Renee smile. Snow buffed all the hard edges from everything, softened whatever it touched, made beautiful what might otherwise be an ugly scene. Snow was quiet. Peaceful. Soothing. Sneaking outside to watch the snow fall, she thought, might help to clear her head.
The wedding party was small—no more than thirty people—so she figured she could slip out unobserved. Kelly and Mac, the newlyweds, were still mingling, and because it was New Year’s Eve, no one seemed anxious to get home.
Renee saw her father engaged in what appeared to be a very intense conversation with Stuart Fortune, and she knew it would be a while before he felt like leaving. So, confident that she could steal away without being missed, she eased out the conference room door.
For a long time, she simply sat in Kelly’s office gazing out the window at the snow. She thought about how she and Kelly had become fast friends in Girl Scouts so many years ago, about Lyle Norton and about her father’s hard work. She even tried to recall snippets of memories about her mother. But mostly, Renee thought about love. About whether or not it really existed, about the different forms it might take. And she wondered…
Well, she wondered about a lot of things.
And she began to grow restless.
She’d been in the Fortune Building often enough with Kelly that she knew her way around fairly well. At the end of the corridor outside was a small terrace that offered a spectacular view of the Minneapolis skyline. She and Kelly had met there to share lunch on a number of occasions, along with a handful of other employees who brown-bagged it. It was the perfect place to which to retreat while pondering the dilemma her father had posed.
So she donned the ivory cashmere coat she’d left in Kelly’s office earlier. There was nothing she could do about her shoes, but the high-heeled pumps would keep her feet warm enough for the little time she would be alone outside.
However, she discovered as she stepped through the sliding glass doors that led to the terrace, she wouldn’t be alone outside. Protected from the snow by a generous overhang, a tall, dark figure leaned against the bricks not ten feet away from her, one knee bent, his foot braced against the wall behind him. He had one hand curved under the bowl of a champagne flute that was filled nearly to the brim with bubbly golden wine, the other shoved deep into his trouser pocket. His head was tipped back, and he was staring at the sky, but he didn’t seem to be seeing much of anything.
Garrett Fortune, she realized. Mac’s best man. She’d barely exchanged a dozen words with him, but the sight of him standing there alone, a tall, dark silhouette against a swirl of white, ignited a spark of heat inside her that quickly blossomed into a near forest fire. She didn’t know why he should wreak such havoc with her senses. But all through the rehearsal last night and all during the wedding this evening, Renee’s every instinct had homed in on him as if he were a beacon of salvation in the blackest night.
And although he had barely acknowledged her, there had been moments when she’d caught him eyeing her in a way that left her feeling oddly flustered. Bereft. Hot. The man roused a yearning inside her unlike anything she’d felt before.
It
