Her Sweetest Fortune. Stella Bagwell

loud, mocking groan, then immediately plopped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it.”

      Sophie turned her misty gaze on a far corner of the room and swallowed hard. Not one of her seven legitimate siblings believed she was mature enough to take on a serious relationship with a man, much less think about marriage or a family. They all viewed her as the baby, the one offspring of Charlotte and Gerald Robinson who had been so sheltered, it would take years for her to grow up and acquire a head full of wisdom. Sometimes she even wondered how she’d gotten her job at Robinson Tech. Was it because she was well trained for the job, or because her father was the boss?

      “Sure. I know. It all sounds silly to you,” Sophie mumbled.

      “Oh, Sophie, don’t be so defensive.” Easing down next to her, Olivia wrapped an arm around Sophie’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t think you grasp yet what love is. And I don’t want you to get hurt while you’re learning.”

      Blinking at the tears stinging her eyes, Sophie looked directly at her sister. “I’ll tell you one thing. I know what love isn’t,” she said in a brittle tone. “It isn’t like this sham between our parents! Furthermore, I’d stay a spinster for the rest of my life if it meant avoiding the sort of marriage our mother has endured over the years.”

      “Sophie!” Olivia scolded. “How can you say that? Dad has given Mother and all of us kids anything and everything we could possibly want.”

      “So in other words, you’re saying Mother stays with Dad because of his money and this.” Sophie waved her arm, indicating the spacious room with its extravagant furnishings. “This high-class lifestyle he can provide her.”

      Frowning, Olivia tossed the black dress back onto the bed, then looked toward the door as though she feared their mother might walk in at any moment. “That’s an awful thing to say, Sophie!” she said in a hushed tone. “Mother stays with Dad because she loves him!”

      “Really? How could that be when she and the whole world know that Dad has had numerous affairs? You’re telling me that love can actually exist under those conditions?”

      “Of course I am,” Olivia insisted. “Why else would she stay if she didn’t love him?”

      Sophie had been asking herself that very question for some time now, and the more she did, the more she considered the idea that their mother might be hiding something from the whole family. But since that was only speculation, she was hardly going to mention her suspicions to Olivia. And she definitely wasn’t going to comment about their father anymore tonight. In Olivia’s eyes, Gerald Robinson could do little wrong. She’d chosen to forgive and forget about his philandering. Probably because Olivia happened to be one of their father’s favorites and he doted on her even more than he did Sophie.

      Instead she switched the conversation back to her dream man.

      “Thom is handsome and dynamic,” Sophie told her. “And I plan to make him mine by Valentine’s Day.”

      “Exactly what does your plan entail?”

      Sophie walked over to the cheval mirror and twisted her hair into a loose knot atop her head. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to change who I am. I’m only going to tweak the outside a bit. Maybe some highlights in my hair or some new clothes. Some sexy knee-high boots might do the trick.”

      “And when you do catch his attention? Then what?”

      Sophie smiled confidently at Olivia’s image in the mirror. “Then he’ll begin to look at all of me. Not just the outside.”

      With a rueful shake of her head, Olivia warned, “You are headed for disaster, my dear sister. Thom Nichols wants two things from a woman. Sex and money. He’s hardly interested in finding the love of a lifetime.”

      Sophie’s lips pressed into an angry line as she turned to face her sister. “Go ahead and be cynical and negative. Do your best to make me look foolish just because I want a man to love and for him to love me!”

      Olivia threw up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I give up. I can see this is something you’re going to have to figure out for yourself. And far be it from me to ruin your quest for love.”

      “You’ll see,” Sophie countered with conviction. “By Valentine’s Day I’m going to have my man.”

      “I hope you do get the right man—for you, that is. And I hope by Valentine’s Day you’ll begin to see the whole picture. Presently, this crush you have on Thom is giving you tunnel vision.”

      Sophie frowned with confusion. “What is that supposed to mean?”

      “The only man you see in front of you is Thom. You might allow yourself to look around a bit. You might find out that Mr. Right is someone else.”

      Sophie scoffed. “I’m not shopping for high heels. I know what I want when I see it. I don’t have to keep looking for another man. Thom is perfect for me.”

      A wan smile on her face, Olivia leaned forward and kissed Sophie’s cheek. “It’s getting late. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

      As Sophie watched her sister leave the bedroom, a tinge of sadness began to push her frustration aside. A few kind words of encouragement from Olivia would have been far nicer than a prediction of failure. She’d made it sound like Sophie didn’t have enough sense to differentiate between a skirt chaser and a gentleman.

      Sighing, Sophie sank onto the edge of the bed and plucked a family photo from the nightstand. The framed image was one of the few pictures that included all her brothers and sisters. With their busy lives taking them in all directions her whole family wasn’t often together. But this particular photo had been taken at their parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and everyone, including Charlotte and Gerald, looked happy. Yet that had been eleven years ago, long before anyone knew about Gerald’s hidden identity or his affairs.

      A year ago, her older brother, Ben, had been instrumental in uncovering the truth. Their forceful father, one of the most famous tech moguls in the world, wasn’t really Gerald Robinson. He was Jerome Fortune, a member of the famous Fortune family. As if that wasn’t enough of a stunner, during the investigation, Ben had found a thirty-three-year-old illegitimate son of Gerald’s named Keaton Whitfield living in London.

      Since that time, their newly discovered half brother had moved to Austin and started building a rapport with all his siblings. Sophie had to admit she liked Keaton and didn’t begrudge his place in the family. Yet the whole revelation of her father’s other life had shaken her to the core.

      All at once she’d had to accept the fact that her father had never been the man she’d believed him to be. And as for her mother, who could possibly know why Charlotte had hung around for all these years? It sure as heck wasn’t for love as Olivia had suggested.

      Face it, Sophie, your parents are phonies and so are you! The only reason you have an important position at Robinson Tech, or anything else for that matter, is because of your name. It certainly hasn’t come from your brains, or beauty, or hard work. The sooner you realize the truth, the better off you’ll be.

      Disgusted with the degrading voice in her head, she put the photo back and squeezed her eyes shut.

      If her parents were shams, then their marriage was even more of a joke, Sophie miserably concluded. So what did that make their children? Mere symbols of a fake love? Moreover, what did it make Sophie?

      Her lips pressed into a determined line, Sophie looked over at the clothes she’d tossed onto the bed. In one aspect, Olivia had been correct. The outside of her wasn’t nearly as important as the inside. Yes, she wanted to look just as attractive as her sisters and all the other beautiful women of Austin. But she also wanted everyone to see she was more than just the youngest child of a famous and wealthy family. And she was hardly a fool for wanting the same genuine sort of love that her siblings Ben, Wes, Graham, Rachel and Zoe had found, she thought.

      By Valentine’s Day, Thom was