Fortune's Secret Heir Read online

  When the plane landed, she figured she’d be lucky if she remembered even a third of what she’d actually read.

  Miraculously, there was a car waiting for her at the small airstrip, driven by one of the Fortune Foundation representatives.

  “We’re so pleased that Robinson Tech is taking an interest in the foundation,” the young man said, greeting her with an enthusiastic pump of her hand. “I can’t tell you what the donation they’ve promised will mean.”

  Once again, Ben was doing things not exactly according to plan. He’d said nothing about making a donation to the foundation. She was becoming less surprised by the day.

  The man who proclaimed his selfishness was proving to be anything but.

  It took no time at all to drive to the elementary school, where a few local news outlets were set up in the cafeteria.

  “They’re still doing the book distribution if you want a peek,” her escort offered.

  She nodded eagerly, far more interested in seeing that than hanging around in the cafeteria with reporters. “Thank you.”

  The children’s books—dozens and dozens—were stacked on long tables in the gym, surrounded by excited kids. In one corner, Amelia Drummond sat on the floor with a darling petite infant girl on her lap, reading from a picture book to the kids circled around her. In another corner, a tall, good-looking man was grinning as he held a book out of reach from a little boy who was bouncing up and down on his feet, trying to catch it.

  And in yet another corner, filling fabric bags with books that she passed out to each child in a line, Ella spotted Lucie Fortune Chesterfield.

  She immediately felt like the country mouse faced with the city mouse. Lucie was taller and thinner than Ella, and positively exuded elegance and grace.

  She also had a surprisingly kind smile when Ella approached her once the line of children had finished.

  “Hello.” She extended her long, slender hand. “I’m Lucie. Do you have a child here at the school?”

  Ella quickly shook her head. Lucie’s hand was cool and smooth. “I don’t have any children.”

  Lucie’s smile widened and she tucked her long brown hair behind her ear. “I thought you looked a bit young.” She had a very distinct English accent that struck Ella as extremely proper. “Are you a teacher?”

  “No, actually, I’m from Austin. My name’s Ella Thomas.” She didn’t figure she had much time, whether or not Ben had promised an exorbitant donation to the Fortune Foundation. “Benjamin Robinson sent me to speak with you.”

  Lucie’s hazel gaze sharpened. “Ben Robinson,” she repeated. “From Robinson Tech.”

  “Yes, he—”

  “Made quite a splash at a party I attended recently with my mother and sister.” Lucie studied her. “You were there, weren’t you?” she said slowly. “With the catering staff?”

  Ella hadn’t remembered seeing Lucie at Kate Fortune’s party. But then there’d been quite a crowd, and once she’d served Ben his Manhattan, she hadn’t been aware of much of anything else. “Yes.” She was afraid the other woman might have some comment about Ella going from being on a catering crew to acting as Ben’s personal emissary, but then realized that Lucie was far too gracious to do any such thing. “I know this is out of left field, approaching you like this, but if I could have just a few private minutes—”

  “Of course.” Lucie came around the table and gestured for Ella to follow her. She stopped only briefly to buss the moppet sitting on her sister’s lap with a kiss, then they finished crossing the gymnasium. “My niece, Clementine. I’m absolutely in love with her. Haven’t been able to make myself go back to London yet.” They entered one of the empty classrooms next door, where Lucie closed the door. “So, what can I do for you, Ms. Thomas?”

  “Ella, please.”

  “Lovely name.” Lucie perched on a corner of the teacher’s cluttered desk. “Wonderfully old-fashioned.” Her tone was friendly. Confiding. Almost as if they were two girlfriends who’d gotten together for a chat. “So, do you think he’s really a Fortune? Your Benjamin?”

  Ella couldn’t call Ben hers no matter how much she wished she could. “Yes, I do.”

  “Which makes him a cousin of some sort to me.” Lucie crossed her ankles. “And family does for family.” She raised her eyebrows slightly.

  “Ben would like to meet Keaton Whitfield,” Ella said, taking her cue. “He’s an architect based in London.”

  “If he wants an architect, surely he could hire the man straight out?”

  Ella hesitated for a moment. Aside from saying he trusted her, he hadn’t given her any other guidance about his situation when it came to dealing with Lucie. “He doesn’t want to hire him,” she admitted. Then just went with her gut. “Mr. Whitfield may be a Fortune, as well.”

  Lucie’s eyebrows inched up a little higher. “Why would your Benjamin think that?”

  “Because there’s a possibility they could be brothers.”

  “Oh, my.” Lucie uncrossed her ankles and sat forward a little. “So he could also be a cousin of sorts to me, as well.”

  Ella nodded.

  “What’s your interest in all of this?”

  “I’m just working for Ben.”

  Lucie’s eyes were kind. But they were assessing, nonetheless. “Is that all?”

  Ella started to deny it. There was no reason for her to admit anything, but there was just something about Lucie. “No,” she admitted, and it was a relief to finally say it aloud. “But that’s all on me. He’s Ben Robinson, for goodness’ sake. I’m—” she twitched her blue skirt “—exactly what I look like. A typical college student who works temp jobs at parties that people like you and him attend as guests.”

  Lucie made a face. “I’d hardly say typical. That Ben Robinson—” she ran the name together in the same way Ella had “—sent you here, after all, on what’s obviously a sensitive personal matter.” She looked away and for a moment, her hazel eyes seemed lost in memory. “And the heart wants what it wants.”

  Ella flushed, not at all comfortable with being so transparent.

  Then Lucie looked back at her and smiled. “Don’t give up, Ella.”

  “On reaching Keaton Whitfield?”

  “That, too.” Lucie’s eyes suddenly twinkled. “I’ll see what I can do to smooth the path between your Benjamin and this architect. He’s based in London, you say?”

  “Yes.” Ella handed over one of Ben’s business cards. “If you have any luck at all, you can reach us at any one of those numbers.” She’d also written down both her and Ben’s email addresses.

  Lucie tucked the card in the pocket of her perfectly tasteful red dress and they left the classroom again.

  The moment she showed her face in the gymnasium, she was hailed and shuffled off along with her sister, presumably to the cafeteria to pose for the press.

  Ella could have hung around, but she’d gotten more than what she’d come for.

  She found the guy who’d picked her up still waiting outside the school and he drove her back to the airstrip.

  Less than a half hour later, she was again in the air and it was still afternoon when she landed again in Austin, where the same driver who’d transported her to the airport took her back home again. Knowing that Ben would still be tied up with the symposium, she called his office and left a message with his secretary, figuring he’d be in touch with Bonita no matter how busy he was.

  On that score, she was correct.

  Ben called her within a half hour and she relayed the results of her meeting.

  “Good work.”

  “Thanks.” She felt strangely tongue-tied. “How’s the symposium going?”

  “Dry, dry and more dry.”

  “Ah. It’s an accounting symposium?”

  He laughed. “Bonita
’s going to email you some documents for you to sign,” he said. “Watch for them.”

  “What sort of documents?”

  “Passport application.”

  Ella’s breath left her chest.

  “Ella?”

  “I’m here,” she managed to respond. “We already talked about this.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not the sort who gives up after the first no. If Lucie gets us an in with Whitfield, I want to be prepared.”

  “It takes weeks to get a passport, doesn’t it?”

  “Not if you have the right connections. And the governor is one of mine.”

  “Right,” she said faintly. Then she swallowed and cleared her throat. “Whether you get me a passport or not doesn’t mean I’m going to go to London with you.”

  “You’ll be safe,” he said smoothly. “Nothing will happen like before.”

  What if I don’t want to be safe?

  She wanted to blurt out the words.

  But of course, she didn’t.

  “You don’t need me to go with you.”

  “Just sign the forms,” he said again.

  * * *

  “You’re looking very wide-eyed, Ella Thomas.”

  “Am I?” She stared at Ben, hardly believing that they were aboard a jetliner that would deposit them at London Heathrow Airport. Their first-class seats weren’t next to each other, but were situated one in front of the other, angled in toward the windows. There was even a flat-screen television in each seat’s area. “The seat goes all the way flat into a bed,” she said, not caring whether she sounded as wide-eyed as she looked or not.

  His lips tilted. For only the second time since she’d met him, he wasn’t wearing a suit, but an untucked black T-shirt over dark blue jeans. He looked younger and even more handsome, if that was possible. “Makes nearly ten hours of flying time a little more bearable,” he assured her. “You’re going to want to sleep. It’ll be just after nine in the morning when we land.”

  She pressed her palm nervously to her belly. “Sure you couldn’t have just talked to Keaton Whitfield on the phone?” She knew the unlikelihood of that even when she said the words, but she couldn’t help it. Everything about the last few days had been more surreal than ever.

  She had a newly minted passport in her messenger bag, procured in what she was certain had been a record amount of time, since it hadn’t even been a week since she’d met with Lucie Fortune Chesterfield. To say the other woman had come through for them was an understatement. She’d contacted Ben that very same day to say she’d paved the way for a meeting with the architect. All Ben had to do was say when he could get to London.

  “You could have already been there to meet with Keaton by now,” Ella pointed out, not for the first time. She glanced past Ben to where the flight attendants were busily settling the last few passengers into the first-class cabin. “Instead of waiting for my passport to come through.”

  “Consider it another history lesson in your travel arsenal. We’ve seen Boston. Now you can see England.”

  She rolled her eyes, laughing a bit despite herself. “I don’t need a first-class ticket to London as a refresher course on the Revolutionary War.”

  “Yeah, well, it never hurts the governor to know Robinson Tech owes him one.”

  She flushed, just thinking about it.

  “Mr. Robinson, if you’ll take your seat, we’re readying for takeoff.”

  Ben glanced at the flight attendant and nodded, then looked back at Ella. “Put on your earphones, order some wine when they ask and relax,” he advised.”

  She gave him a look. “I can do that a lot easier than you can,” she challenged. “You probably won’t even put away your cell phone until we’re over the ocean.”

  He laughed and showed the cell phone in question tucked in the palm of his long-fingered hand. Then he flipped the device into her lap. “Guard it yourself, then.”

  She caught the phone before it slid off her lap onto the floor. Before she could hand it back to him, he’d moved around to take his own seat, and she leaned her head back against her wide plush headrest, hauling in a deep breath.

  Maybe it was a good thing she couldn’t really see him well from here, she decided.

  The flight attendant was moving through the cabin, giving her safety spiel, from which, evidently, even first-class passengers weren’t exempt. Ella listened with half an ear while she ran her thumb across the front of Ben’s fancy phone.

  The second she did, the screen lit up.

  The flight attendant stopped next to Ella. “You’ll need to turn that off now, I’m afraid, Ms. Thomas,” she said with a smile, before moving on again.

  The directive helped alleviate the intense curiosity seizing Ella, considering the phone was practically an extension of Ben himself.

  She quickly leaned forward and held out the phone between her fingers to reach around the side of Ben’s seat. “I don’t know how to turn it off.”

  His hand brushed hers, seeming to linger as he took the phone back from her.

  She curled her fingers against her palm and quickly sat back again, dragging the guidebook to London she’d borrowed from the library out of the cubby drawer where she’d stuffed it before fastening her seat belt.

  She wished she could blame her racing heartbeat on the increasing thrum of the jet engines as the plane moved away from the airport terminal. But it would be pointless.

  Instead, she looked out one of the two windows beside her seat, watching the deepening sunset of the sky outside and wondering what she’d done in her life to end up here at this moment, flying partway around the world with a man she could love for the rest of her life. If only he’d let her.

  * * *

  It was raining when they landed.

  Even though Ella had slept for a few hours on the plane, her nerves had kept her from relaxing entirely. Ben, on the other hand, looked as clear-eyed as he always did. The only change for him was the decidedly sexy shadow of dark whiskers softening his sharp jaw. A shadow he’d shaved off before they even left the plane, much to her chagrin.

  She wondered just how shocked he’d be if she told him how much she liked the look on him.

  They joined the line at border control, where she presented her stiffly new passport for the first time ever. In the next line over, from the corner of her eye, she saw Ben pass over his passport, considerably more well-used than hers. Then they were through and off to collect their luggage. There wasn’t much, since they weren’t planning to stay but a couple of days. Ben simply had the same garment bag he’d used when they’d gone to Boston.

  Ella had upgraded to an inexpensive rolling bag that her mother had insisted on purchasing for her. Ella suspected the gift was as much to make certain that Ella didn’t back out at the last second and refuse to go to London altogether.

  She wasn’t surprised to find that there was a driver waiting for them, holding a neatly printed placard with Robinson on it.

  “Thank Bonita,” he told her when they were in the car driving away from the airport and she asked if he had drivers waiting on call for him all over the world. “She arranges all this stuff for me.”

  “Did she arrange Johnny for you, too?”

  “She scheduled him.” He’d powered up his cell phone the moment they’d landed and he had it in his hand now. “Do you want to call your mother?”

  It was six hours earlier in Austin. “She’d still be at work.”

  He nudged the phone into her hand. “Call her, then. Let her know you’re here safe and sound.”

  Ella’s mother hadn’t seemed worried about Ella traveling with Ben. It was only Ella who was doing that. “Won’t it cost you a fortune on your cell phone bill if I call Texas?”

  He gave her a dry look. “Haven’t we established
my feelings on the issue of cost?”

  Much too aware of the press of his thigh against hers in the back of the car—which was much smaller than anything they’d ridden in together before—she dialed her mother at work. Once Elaine answered, Ella didn’t linger over talking. She was too conscious of Ben hearing every word. She promised to check in again if she had the chance, then held out the phone to Ben again. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime.” He pocketed the phone and looked out the side window at the congested traffic. “We’re not meeting Whitfield until tonight for drinks. That leaves plenty of time if you want to stop and say howdy to the Queen.”

  Ella laughed, as he’d obviously meant her to. “What have you told Keaton? Did you take a similar tack with him as you did Randy?”

  He shook his head. The only indication she had that he wasn’t entirely as blasé as he appeared was the rhythmic thump of his thumb against the seat between them. “I could tell a more straightforward approach was necessary. I told him I had a personal matter I wanted to discuss. Thanks to Lucie greasing the wheels, he agreed.”

  She was suddenly worried all over again. “You don’t think Lucie told him anything more, do you?”

  He shook his head and Ella relaxed again.

  Then Ben looked out the window again, not seeming to want to talk, and so she did the same.

  They arrived at the hotel and even though it was early, they were still checked in. Ella had thought her room in Boston was spectacular. Here, though, her room was actually more of a suite that was even more luxurious. And when she looked out the windows, she saw a park that looked glorious even on a drizzling January day. She could only imagine what Ben’s room was like.

  But then again, she could imagine. And that was one of the reasons why her nerves felt nearly shredded.

  He’d told her to relax for an hour or so, and then they’d meet in the lobby and decide where to go from there.

  Even though the bed looked inviting, she knew better than to lie down and take the snooze she was suddenly almost desperate to have. Instead, she went into the bathroom that was completely outfitted in Carrara marble, from the oval-shaped bathtub to the separate shower, the floors and even the walls. She stripped out of her jeans and sweater, leaving them in a heap on the floor along with her bra and panties, and turned on the shower. Soon, steam was filling the spacious room, and she stepped under the spray, lathering up with the luscious gels and shampoos provided for her.