Fortune's Secret Heir Page 11

  Ella looked bemused. “No, but—”

  “Give me three minutes,” Serena said, and sailed off again.

  Ella looked up at Ben. “She’s not going to bill something exorbitant from one of the shops here to my room, is she?” She pulled a pair of bright red knit mittens from her pockets. “Because I’ve got these and I don’t need—”

  “She’s not going to bill anything to you,” he promised. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her so she was looking out the front entrance, where the light snowfall that had begun was visible. “And you do need.”

  She’d gone stiff and still the second he’d touched her, and he pulled his hands away, swearing inwardly at himself.

  “What about you?” She pointedly looked at his bare head. “You’re not wearing a hat.”

  “But I have this.” He pulled a short muffler from his pocket and flipped it around his neck, shoving the ends under his turned-up collar. He hadn’t even pulled his gloves from his other pocket when Serena returned with a thick, long scarf hanging over her arm and a matching knitted cap. In red that perfectly matched Ella’s mittens.

  “I had a feeling,” she said humorously when she noticed Ella’s mittens. “Will these do?”

  When Ella hesitated, probably worrying in her accountant-to-be head about costs or consequences, he took the scarf from Serena and twined it around Ella’s neck. The vivid color echoed the flush in her cheeks when he was finished. “They’ll do well,” he answered, and tugged the cap briskly down over Ella’s shining hair. “Keep the coffee hot,” he told the concierge before taking Ella’s elbow and nudging her toward the hotel entrance.

  The second they left the building, he heard Ella suck in a breath. “Wow. The air is—”

  “Cold. Hence the scarf and hat.” He eyed her, trying to think like a protective boss and not a lustful man. But it was damn hard when her eyes were sparkling blue and her nose was turning pink already from the cold.

  His usual driver, Johnny, was just pulling up to the front of the hotel and without waiting, Ben ushered Ella to the car, pulling open the rear door himself. “Don’t get out, Johnny.” Ella climbed in and he gestured for her to slide across the backseat so he could follow.

  “Nothing like a warm spell, eh, Mr. Robinson? Where can I take you in my city on this fine day?”

  “Drop us at Newbury Street. We’ll walk as long as Ms. Thomas here doesn’t turn into a Popsicle.”

  “Sure thing, sir.” Johnny steered the car away from the hotel into the busy afternoon traffic coursing down Atlantic Avenue. “Another stop at the chocolate shop?”

  “Johnny’s been driving me on every trip to Boston for the past five years,” Ben told Ella.

  “Six,” Johnny quipped from the driver’s seat. “I drive Mr. Robinson Senior when he comes to town, too.”

  “Lucky you,” Ben drawled.

  “Your pop’s an all-right fella,” the driver said on a chuckle. “Always treats me right. Same as you, sir. Haven’t seen your mother in a while, though. How is Mrs. Robinson these days?”

  “She’s well, Johnny. I’ll tell her you asked.”

  “Used to have me drive her to the stationer’s on Boylston that she liked. She’d give me heck for my driving, though.”

  As if to prove the reason, he gunned the car between a Mercedes and a big red tour bus, and Ben saw Ella’s red mitten latch onto the armrest.

  “Snow slows things down a bit.” Johnny continued chatting and Ella’s eyebrows rose as she gave Ben a look.

  She soundlessly mouthed, Slow?

  Ben grinned. “This is Ms. Thomas’s first time in Boston, Johnny.”

  “That so?” The car whipped around a corner. “Well, then, it’s no wonder you wanted the water taxi earlier.”

  Ben leaned down toward Ella’s ear. Trying not to notice her fresh scent was as productive as trying not to breathe, so he didn’t bother. “Johnny gets more talkative the later in the day it gets,” he murmured.

  She turned a little toward him, and pulled in an audible breath when the car swayed again. “Does his driving get better, too?” she whispered and pushed the red cap farther back on her head.

  He couldn’t help himself. He carefully moved a lock of lustrous hair away from where it had fallen over her eyes. It wasn’t as tempting as her full lips, just a few inches from his own, but it was a close second.

  And just as foolish, considering the way her eyes widened and clung to his.

  “Johnny’s as good as it gets.” His voice felt oddly strangled. “He’s been driving Boston’s streets for thirty years.”

  “Thirty-seven,” the man said from the front seat, reminding Ben that the driver still missed nothing. “Longer’n either one of you have been on this beautiful big earth.” He gestured to one side toward the snow-covered park they were passing. “There’s the Common. You can ice-skate on the frog pond this time of year, if you’re interested.”

  “I’ve never ice-skated in my life,” Ella admitted on a laugh.

  She finally turned her head to look out the window, and Ben breathed a little easier.

  “It looks beautiful covered in snow,” she went on. “I imagine it’s really spectacular when it’s not.”

  “Aye, truer words were never spoken,” Johnny said and gestured again. “The Public Garden’s there. Some folks think they’re one and the same, but the Common’s a whole lot older. We Bostonians love ’em both, all the same.” As he drove, he kept pointing out local points of interest and soon enough, he’d turned onto Newbury Street and worked the luxury car into a minuscule space along the curb. He hopped out with the agility of a man half his age and opened the sidewalk-side door, offering his hand to help Ella from the car.

  When Ben joined her, Johnny clapped his bare hands together. “I’ll pick you up at the other end of Newbury, then?”

  Ben nodded. He figured the driver would while away the time with his usual book of crossword puzzles and the tablet computer Ben had given him on his last visit to Boston. “That’ll be good, Johnny. Thanks.”

  The driver tipped an imaginary cap and climbed back into the car. A second later, he was whipping out into traffic again.

  And that left Ella and Ben alone.

  Or as alone as they could be while shoppers walked briskly along the sidewalks, despite the snowflakes falling on their heads.

  “So.” Ella clapped her mitten-covered hands together a few times and tugged her hair free from where it was trapped beneath the thick scarf around her neck. “Where’s the chocolate place you need?”

  He took her hand and tucked it around his arm. “Watch out for ice,” he said, as if that was good enough reason to walk essentially arm in arm down the wide sidewalk. “It’s down a little ways. If you see any shops you want to go into before then, just say the word.”

  She looked bemused as she gestured toward the designer label sign on the store right next to them. “I’m pretty sure the only thing I can afford around here is the air we’re breathing.”

  “It doesn’t cost anything to window-shop.” He grinned. “At least that’s what my little sister Zoe has told me. Ironic, since she’s the apple of our father’s eyes and has been spoiled more than any of us. I seriously doubt she’s ever actually window-shopped.” Since Ella didn’t seem interested in approaching the store, he began walking. Sooner or later, they’d be bound to encounter something that sparked her interest.

  “How many years are between you and the rest of them?”

  “A few minutes between me and Wes.”

  Her nose wrinkled a little as she displayed her winsome, toothy smile. “And the others?”

  “Sophie’s the youngest at twenty-two. The rest of us are sprinkled in between.”

  “Eight kids in eleven years. It still boggles my mind. It must have been chaos in you
r house growing up.”

  “Not really.” He thought about the size of the Robinson estate. “If you tried, you could go days without running into someone else.”

  She looked up at him, dashing a snowflake away from her eyelashes. “Did you try?”

  “A few times.” He stepped closer to her to allow a jogger more room as he ran past. “Then I went off to college and when I finished, I never moved back in. I certainly never missed the place, that’s for sure.”

  She looked as if she wanted to say something, but instead, she tugged a little on his arm as she headed closer to the windows of the art gallery they were nearing. She angled her head and studied the multiarmed metal structure in virulent green that was the lone piece displayed in the window. “What do you suppose that’s supposed to represent?”

  “Hard to say. A morning-after hangover?”

  She chuckled and shook her head, continuing on.

  “Could also be my mother’s feelings where my father is concerned,” he added.

  She looked up at him again through her lashes. “They’ve been married a long time.”

  “Thirty-five years.”

  Her steps slowed again as they passed a nail salon, but she wasn’t looking in the windows. She was still looking at Ben. “Do you think she knew about, ah—”

  “His affairs? She’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know. And my mother is none of those things.”

  “She must be very devoted to him.”

  “I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out the dynamics of their marriage.”

  “A marriage that still produced eight children,” she pointed out. “Obviously something works between them.”

  “Yeah, but thinking about my parents’ sex life isn’t something I want to spend too much time doing,” he said drily.

  “But you’re following up on the results of your father’s sex life,” she countered. “I mean, obviously I’m benefiting, considering what you’re paying me, but I still think all of this must be very difficult for you.” She stopped and pulled her arm away from his, turning to face him. “I understand what you said before—about everyone deserving to know their roots and the importance of truth and all that—but there’s a cost to you, too.”

  “You haven’t been noticing very well that cost isn’t something I worry too much about.”

  Her chin went up a notch. “I notice that your voice goes all smooth like it just did when you don’t want to talk about something.” She gave him a small smile and took several steps up the sidewalk until she reached another window—this one baying out in a half moon that was filled with featureless mannequins wearing summery dresses. “Always seems so strange to me that the clothes being promoted like this never match the season when a person is buying them.”

  He studied the back of her red-capped head and the thick, glossy hair streaming down her shoulders. “Yes, there’s a cost,” he said abruptly. “For the most part, at best, my brothers and sisters are pissed that I’m pursuing it. At worst, they’re downright furious.” His sister Zoe in particular thought he’d gone out of his tree. But then Zoe was their father’s favorite and they all knew it.

  Ella turned to face him, her expressive eyes looking soft. “But the truth is more important than their feelings?”

  “The truth is everything. You said yourself you’d choose truth even over your desire for security.”

  “Yes, but—” She shook her head and surprised the hell out of him when she tucked her hand once more around his arm, sending something warm through his chest. “The way I see it, you have two issues here. Your father’s original identity.”

  “His real identity.”

  “In your opinion.” Her tone was reasonable. “A man in your father’s position, I’d think he must have had good reason to remake himself and leave Jerome Fortune behind. Isn’t it possible that he considers Gerald Robinson to be his real identity?”

  Somehow, Ben found his footsteps falling in line with hers as she led the way along the increasingly snowy sidewalk. “He can be whoever the hell he wants to be. But there’s no excuse good enough for lying to us about who he was.”

  “I’ve never been in your position, so I’m in no position to disagree. But, anyway, that’s one issue. Finding any children he might have had outside of his marriage with your mother is the other issue. And it doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not he is Jerome Fortune.”

  “What’s your point, Ella?”

  “I’m not sure I know what my point is.” Her steps slowed again. “But hasn’t there ever been something in your life that you’d rather not share with anyone else? Something so intensely private it’s nobody’s business but your own?”

  Henry.

  Once Stephanie had reappeared in Ben’s life with the blond-haired toddler in tow, he hadn’t tried to keep the boy secret. But since she’d taken him away again, he had no desire to bare his feelings about the matter.

  Not with his family.

  Not with Ella.

  “My father is driven and abrupt and temperamental,” he said instead. “He’s built a business that employs thousands. But he’s been lying to his own family our entire lives. Just because he provided for us doesn’t mean he was a good father. It sure in hell doesn’t mean he’s been a good husband.

  “There aren’t two issues, Ella. There’s only one. His lying. And if I accomplish nothing else, it’s going to be that it all stops. I’m not going to be like him!”

  He didn’t even realize that he’d started walking faster, practically dragging Ella along with him, until her tennis shoe slid on a patch of ice lurking beneath the thin layer of snow.

  He caught her beneath her arm before her foot went completely out from under her and even through her mittens, her fingers latched around his arms. Her lips were way, way too close. All he’d have to do was lower his head—

  He pulled the emergency brake on the thought. “Are you all right?”

  She didn’t answer the question, though. Just posed one of her own. “Is that the real problem you’re trying to solve, Ben?” Her voice was breathless. “That you’re afraid you’re just like your father?”

  Chapter Nine

  She felt him go rigid, and for a long moment, Ella feared she’d gone too far.

  Then the sudden storm clouds faded from Ben’s eyes and his voice turned smooth again. “I am like my father. Always have been. Something a nice girl like you would do well to remember.”

  Even through her mittens and his overcoat, she could feel the tension in his muscles. “That sounds like a warning.”

  “I said you were intelligent from the get-go.”

  She moistened her lips, even though doing so just made them colder. “I felt a lot safer with Randy’s flirting than I do right now.” She could not fathom the insanity that made her admit it aloud. Maybe it was the way she couldn’t drag her eyes away from his.

  “Much as I disliked seeing him flirt with you, you were definitely safer.”

  Her chest felt so tight it was hard to breathe. She imagined she could see her own reflection inside his eyes. “Ben—”

  He took a step back and pulled her hand once more through his crooked arm. “It’s getting cold standing here, and Bonita’s chocolates are waiting.”

  She figured that the famed street would be spectacularly beautiful during warmer months. And it wasn’t without charm now, with snowflakes drifting around them, dusting the buildings and the snow-plowed street with a fresh coat of white.

  Maybe someday she’d visit Boston while the trees were green and the flowers were in bloom.

  But now she was here with Ben.

  She exhaled and fell into step with him again.

  They eventually reached the chocolatier’s shop, which was set down a short staircase from the st
reet level and was smaller inside than she’d envisioned. But the very air was sinfully redolent of chocolate confections and she couldn’t help but admire the beautiful displays behind the glass-fronted cases. “I’m gaining weight just looking.”

  A woman wearing a pristine white apron and a black bow tie appeared and Ben gestured at one of the larger boxes on display. “Give me one of that size and fill it with anything chocolate that has a nut in it. It’s for my secretary and she doesn’t touch chocolate without nuts. Nothing fruity, either.”

  The clerk plucked an empty box from under her counter and tucked shimmery white tissue paper in it before deftly beginning to fill it with chocolates of every size and shape.

  “Your secretary is a lucky woman,” Ella said drily, because she’d noticed the tastefully discreet prices listed under the confections.

  “Indeed, she is,” the clerk agreed. She stopped near Ella to select several glossy rounds topped with walnut halves. “Would you like a sample of anything?”

  “Oh.” Ella shook her head. “I couldn’t.”

  “Sure, she could.” Ben stepped next to her, touching her shoulder as he leaned over to examine the displays.

  “Your husband is right.” The clerk’s hand hovered over the trays of precisely arranged chocolates. “Perhaps a white ganache or an almond praline?”

  Ella opened her mouth to correct the clerk, but Ben’s hand moved to the back of her neck, scorching even through the scarf, and the words caught in her throat.

  “Give her one of those Manhattan truffles.”

  She almost did a double take at the quick wink he gave her. Instead, she just felt heat course down through the rest of her from the source at the back of her neck, and when the clerk set a silver foil cup containing a glossy round truffle on top of the glass, she quickly sank her teeth into it, biting off half.

  Dark, heady chocolate dissolved blissfully on her tongue, but it was nothing compared to having Ben slip the other half of the truffle out of her fingers and pop it into his mouth.

  She actually felt faint and considered tearing off her coat to run into the snowy outdoors for relief.