Kate spoke again, her voice calm. Maybe even genuinely curious. “How did you get in this evening?”
“Courtesy of your lax security guard.”
“Hmm.” She gestured at a closed door when they approached it and he pushed it open, following her through to another hallway. The door swung closed behind them, muting the sounds of the party. “I’ve never been a fan of gate-crashers.”
“Then you should’ve done better due diligence in rounding up all your precious Fortunes when you decided to dangle this whole Fortune Cosmetics deal in front of them,” he said evenly.
She stopped next to another closed door and looked up at him, her expression calculating. “Is that what you want, Benjamin?” It was clear she didn’t believe that was actually his name. “You want a chance at running part of my company?”
He laughed abruptly, even though the only bit of humor he’d felt in months had been courtesy of Ella Thomas just a few minutes earlier. “I don’t need to run anything of yours,” he assured her. “Nor do any others in my family. We’re not money-grubbing imposters. We have no need of your wealth.”
Kate lifted a brow. “For most of my life, people have been trying to get a piece of my wealth by fair means or foul.”
His jaw tightened. “Gerald Robinson. Robinson Computers. Robinson Tech. Names mean anything to you?”
She gave him an impatient look. “Everyone in the free world has heard of them. What’s that to do with—”
“I’m Ben Robinson. I’m COO of Robinson Tech and Gerald Robinson is my father. And he is Jerome Fortune.”
“Jerome died in a boating accident.”
“And I’m telling you he didn’t. After leaving the Fortune family—” or getting kicked out, which Ben considered likely, knowing Gerald the way he did “—my father obviously reinvented himself. Rather well,” he added ironically. “Gerald Robinson is a creative visionary who went on to make his own fortune. No pun intended. What possible reason would we have for lying about anything to you?”
“If it isn’t money, then what do you want?”
Henry.
The name flashed through his mind like quicksilver, too smooth and too rapid to stop.
“Respect. Acknowledgment.” His lips twisted.
“If what you say is...accurate—”
Her hesitation made Ben wonder what word she’d originally thought to use. True?
“—then why doesn’t your father contact me directly? A man of his standing? He certainly could have done so without need of a simple party invitation.”
“There was nothing simple about your party invitation.”
She inclined her head a few inches, ceding the point. “Why wait all this time to reach out? If he’s really Jerome Fortune, why leave his family to grieve his death in the first place?” She folded her arms, giving him a chilly, expectant smile.
If he’d had an answer for her, he’d have given it.
But the truth was, he’d only recently learned that “Gerald Robinson” had never really existed. Not since his little sister, Rachel, confronted Gerald with her discovery of his true identity. And for reasons known only to their father, he was insistent on leaving the past buried.
Ben was sick to death of people lying to him, and in this one thing, he would get the truth out. Even if he had to drag the Robinsons into the light kicking and screaming.
“You and I actually do have something in common,” he finally said to Kate instead of answering. “We believe in family.”
She pursed her lips, studying him. “I’m not going to say I believe you. But I’m curious enough to want to meet your father for myself.”
“I can arrange that.” His father would have a fit, but Ben would handle it. He’d lie, if he had to, to get Gerald to the meeting.
And that thought just showed again how like his old man he really was.
“Come to the Robinson estate next week.” He realized he sounded as autocratic as her. “After your events this weekend have concluded, of course.”
Her arms were still crossed and she tapped one finger against her silver sleeve. Then she finally inclined her head. “Make the arrangements. I won’t tell you how to get the information to me. Clearly you already know how to reach me.” She opened the door beside them and cool night air rushed in. “Now, I’ll just say good-night, Mr. Robinson. Because, as you know, I have guests waiting.”
Summarily dismissing him, she turned on her heel and walked away.
Ben figured it was only a matter of time before the security guards came to check that he’d exited. But having gotten what he’d come for, he had no reason to stay.
He went out the door and it closed automatically behind him. When he tested it out of curiosity, it was locked.
“Crazy old bat,” he muttered under his breath.
But he didn’t really believe it.
Kate Fortune was many things. Of that he was certain.
But crazy wasn’t one of them.
He looked around, getting his bearings before setting off to his left. It was dark, only a few lights situated here and there to show off some landscape feature. But he soon made his way around the side of the enormous house and to the front, which was not just well lit, but magnificently so. He stopped at the valet and handed over his ticket to a skinny kid in black shirt and trousers.
He tried to imagine Ella dashing off the way this kid was to retrieve his car, parked somewhere on the vast property. He couldn’t quite picture it.
But in his head, he could picture her quite clearly.
Not the red hair. That just reminded him of Stephanie. But the faint gap in her toothy smile and the clear light shining from her pretty eyes.
That was all Ella.
A moment later, when the valet returned with his Porsche, Ben got in and drove away.
* * *
Ella Thomas checked the address she’d been given by the temp agency against the small black address printed on the side of the tall building. She hadn’t made a mistake.
She moistened her lips and stepped back a few paces on the sidewalk to look up again at the narrow, four-story building sandwiched between one of Austin’s newer skyscrapers and a decades-old deli. Aside from the doorbell next to the paneled door and a pair of chairs she could see on the narrow, second-floor balcony, there was nothing about the building’s exterior to indicate it was a home. The door was a solid slab of dark gray and there were two oversized, frosted windows, through which she could see nothing.
Rosa at the agency had told Ella the personal-assistant
