mother always told me to think of what I say before I say it.”
That had been the source of more than one lecture she’d been forced to endure. Always her own person even when she didn’t know who or what that person might be, Gloria had always felt driven to do her own thing, not to try to conform to anyone else’s image of her. Now, she realized that her image of herself was what her mother had had in mind all along.
Another sign that her homecoming was a good thing. She took heart in that.
“Your mother is a lovely woman. I’ve known her and your father for almost as long as I’ve known Rosita and Rueben Perez.” Her parents’ best friends, Gloria thought, not to mention that Rosita and her mother were cousins, as well. Rosita had worked for the Fortunes, taking care of their children, since what felt like the beginning of time. She supposed, in part, she had the other woman to thank for this opportunity, as well.
Maybe, Gloria mused, she was finally due for some honest-to-goodness good luck.
Rather than resist the way she would have even five years ago, insisting that her mother was meddling, she now gladly left herself open to “be meddled with.” Heaven knew that no one could do a worse job than she had with her life up to two years ago.
Maybe, if she’d left herself open to suggestions earlier instead of resisting them, her life would have laid itself out differently. Better.
This wasn’t the time for reflections, much less regrets, she admonished herself. The past was just that, something to remain in the background. She was here to take advantage of the present and to hopefully, finally, build a very solid future.
This was the new, improved Gloria whose roots were firmly entrenched in the Gloria who had once been, before the drugs and alcohol had interfered with the direction her life was taking.
She offered the older man her best smile, the one her mother claimed lit up her whole face. “She speaks very highly of you, Mr. Fortune. Both my parents do.”
He gestured her toward the chair that was in front of his desk and waited until she sat before he took his own seat. “And they speak highly of you.”
She knew how much heartache she’d caused both her parents. Their loyalty took her breath away. And made her ashamed all over again for what she had done to them. “They do?”
Patrick had five children himself, just like the Mendozas, and he could well guess what she was thinking. Maria hadn’t gone into detail, but he knew there was a black period in Gloria’s past.
She was about Violet’s age, he judged. “Just because our children temporarily ‘mess up,’ doesn’t mean that we suddenly are blind to their good points. Sometimes, that’s all we parents have to hold on to while we ride out the turbulence.”
She smiled ruefully and shook her head, rising to her feet. “I can’t imagine any of your children giving you a problem.”
He laughed, the sound echoing within the large room. “Then I fear that you have far less imagination than I have been given to believe you possess.” He winked at her.
Which was exactly when his son walked in.
Jack stopped just half a step past the threshold, stunned. His father had just winked at what appeared, at least from the back, to be an attractive woman.
She was wearing a trim-fitting jacket and short skirt, the latter of which hugged hips the way, he judged, most men of her acquaintance probably would have wanted to. Her head came up to his father’s shoulder. Since the man was about five-ten, that placed her in the neighborhood of petite. She had deep-black hair that was pinned up. Even so, she didn’t appear to be here on business, not if that wink he’d just witnessed was any indication of what was transpiring.
He’d obviously interrupted something, but his father had told him to be here at this time, so here he was.
Jack couldn’t help wondering if this was the reason for his father’s change in attitude over the past few months. Was he advocating smelling roses because there was now a mistress to receive those roses?
For a second Jack debated stepping out again. But his father looked in his direction.
“So, you’ve finally gotten here.” The greeting was accompanied by a wide smile.
His father didn’t look like a man who’d just been caught in a transgression. But then, Patrick Fortune was the most self-assured man he had ever met. To his recollection, his father had never made any apologies for himself or his actions.
Aware that he was actually a few minutes late, something he abhorred, Jack found himself on the defensive. “I, um, had to catch another elevator car. There was this obnoxious woman—”
The rest of his statement faded into the light blue walls. The woman his father had just winked at turned around and looked at him.
A feeling of déjà vu shot through him with the velocity of an iron-tipped arrow.
He hadn’t recognized the woman’s clothes, or even the color of her hair, but then she turned to look at him and, well, that wasn’t the kind of face a man easily forgot.
Not even if he tried.
Gloria stared at the man framed in the doorway, recognizing him instantly. It was the man who’d been so rude he’d managed to bring out the worst in her at an incredibly fast speed. Mr. Fortune obviously knew him. More than that, he seemed to have been waiting for him.
Why? What did this mean?
Suddenly there was a distinct sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Her fingertips felt moist again, the way they always did when she felt the walls closing in around her.
Was it a premonition?
Holding her breath, Gloria turned away from the younger man in the doorway and looked at Patrick Fortune, a silent, formless prayer echoing in her brain.
Patrick’s eyes shifted from his son to the woman in front of him and back again. He had gotten to his present station in life through hard work coupled with very keen instinct. Instinct that was at times sharper than others’, but even at its worst was never dull.
Right now his instincts told him that there was something going on here between Maria’s daughter and his son that he wasn’t quite aware of. Something he might be able to capitalize on.
He adopted an innocent expression as he looked from one to the other again. “You two know each other?”
“No.” Gloria shot the word out like a bullet.
Jack, Patrick noted, hadn’t taken his eyes off Gloria since he walked in. “We rode up together in the elevator.” The words were ground out.
A slightly puzzled note entered into his expression. “If you rode up together, then why—”
Anticipation had Gloria interrupting. “He got off early,” she supplied.
Jack set his jaw hard. Not adding, as he wanted to, that he’d gotten off because he hadn’t felt like riding up all those floors with an obvious shrew.
This
