was a calculated and accurate assessment, and almost immediately, the tension Ben felt under his hand eased. Knowing he’d succeeded, he let his hand drop from the guard’s shoulder and stepped through the opened doorway into the house, even before the guard waved him along. He wasn’t surprised at being passed through.
Whether a result of being Gerald’s firstborn or being the chief operating officer of the company his father had founded, there were few people Ben encountered who didn’t tend to see things the way he wanted them to.
He bypassed the long table set to one side of the high-ceilinged foyer, where guests were finding their name tags, breaking up the tidy rows in which they’d been arranged, despite the efforts of the two young women dressed in plain black dresses who were clearly assigned the job of assisting.
The tags were fancy. Gold. Preprinted. But even so, they looked wholly prosaic among the proliferation of tuxes and jewels. Nevertheless, he found them handy as he made his way deeper into the palatial house, following the directions provided by even more party attendants. Because the tags assigned faces to names that, up until now, had been only that.
Names.
James Marshall Fortune of JMF Financial out of Atlanta. His older brother, John Michael Fortune, who’d founded the telecommunications giant, FortuneSouth. One of their sisters, Ben knew, was the Lady Josephine whom Diamond Necklace had been so excited to spot. There were power brokers, movers and shakers in attendance, as well as folks like Mr. Smarty Pants and Diamond Necklace, who’d struck him as pretty salt of the earth.
Yet all of them—save the help—had been invited because in one way or another they were part of the Fortune family.
His lips tightened and he tamped down the resentment that had been seething inside him for longer than he wanted to think about.
Invited.
But not Ben. And none of his seven siblings, either. He’d only learned about the party in the first place because he’d had the family under a microscope ever since his sister Rachel dropped her little bombshell.
He finally arrived in a soaring room cleared of typical furniture in favor of round banquet tables draped in heavy gold silk and topped with crystal and candles. He wound through the exalted invitees, who’d begun clustering in small groups of twos and threes around the open areas of marble floor, and stopped near one of the three bars set up in the corners of the room. He chose the bar at the far rear because, from that position, he had a good view of all entrances into the room.
He’d been intent on gaining access.
Now that he’d done so, he was pretty much flying by the seat of his pants. He intended to speak to the party’s hostess. One way or another. How he accomplished that...well, that was yet to be decided.
“Good evening, sir. What can I get you?”
He hadn’t been interested in a drink. Just the right spot. He glanced over his shoulder at the young woman behind the bar. She was dressed in the same nondescript tailored black sheath all the other female party attendants wore, yet he found his attention lingering on her. The display of bottles on the table behind her slender hips said there was no limit to what libation a person might desire.
He might as well fit in. There didn’t seem to be a guest there who didn’t have a glass in their hands, either obtained from one of the bars or from one of the attendants circulating through the room with gold trays and crystal flute glasses. “Dry Manhattan.”
He caught the quick dismay in her expression before she nodded. “Certainly.” She quickly turned to face the array of liquor bottles, her hand hovering but not exactly reaching.
She had auburn hair. And once upon a time he’d had a weakness for redheads.
But no more, he reminded himself. Plus, no matter how her curves filled the dress, she looked like she wasn’t even old enough to be serving alcohol, anyway. The dark red tresses were pulled back in a high, youthful ponytail that revealed the pale skin at her nape above the collarless black dress. She had a cluster of faint freckles there that struck him as ridiculously young.
And she was wearing a Mickey Mouse watch.
“Use the Bushmills,” he advised. “Two bottles to your right. There. The twenty-one year.” Some might consider using that fine a whiskey in a cocktail a waste, but Ben took perverse pleasure in doing so.
The bartender sent him a grateful smile and plucked the bottle from its neighbors, turning back to face him and the bar again. Her cheeks were a little flushed, her guileless blue eyes chagrined. “I don’t usually tend bar,” she admitted softly. “I was actually supposed to be doing valet tonight but the usual bartender had a family emergency. I’ve done all sorts of things for the temp agency, but this one is new territory. Please don’t hold that against anyone but me.”
It had been too long since he’d been amused by anything a female said, redheaded or not, and he leaned his elbow on the bar and watched her slender fingers uncap the bottle, trying not to imagine how their light touch would feel. “Like the host? Is she as terrifying as everyone claims?”
The girl’s eyes met his for a millisecond before flitting away. “I haven’t met her, actually. I just meant—” she lifted a shoulder left bare by her dress and the long tail of her ponytail slid behind her back “—you know. The catering company hired for the party.”
It was clear as day that she didn’t have a clue what to do with the whiskey. He could have taken pity and told her to just pour him a shot and be done with it. Whiskey like that was meant to be sipped, anyway. Perhaps with a drop of water, but nothing else. Or he could have changed his order to a beer; there was a healthy display of good labels on that score, too.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he assured her. He reached across the bar top and picked up a clean pilsner glass. “This’ll do to mix it in. Fill it with ice.”
Her fingers brushed his as she took the glass and she sucked in her full lower lip, leaning to one side to scoop ice from some hidden source beneath the bar into the glass. He dragged his eyes away from the smooth skin of her throat, revealed when her collar pulled slightly to one side.
“Now a shot of whiskey,” he directed when she straightened and looked expectantly at him again. “Half as much of vermouth. Dry.”
That bottle she clearly knew.
“Dash of bitters.” He pointed and she quickly reached.
“Now stir. Gently,” he added, reaching over to guide her hand. Her gaze met his again in a here-and-gone second and the long crystal stirrer she’d snatched up immediately slowed.
He smiled slightly and let go of her hand.
“I use a martini glass, right?”
“Right. Just strain out the ice.” He glanced over his shoulder, surveying the room quickly to verify he wasn’t missing anything or anyone. When he looked back, she was pouring the last drop into the glass. “And a lemon twist.”
She quickly dropped a curl of lemon rind inside the cocktail and set the glass atop a small napkin in front of him. “My first Manhattan.”
He lifted the glass. “Firsts are always memorable.”
Her
