Fortune's Mergers. Bronwyn Jameson

her death, he sent me away to boarding school. He rarely called, never came for visits. What communications we did have were filtered through his secretary. She sent my allowance each month, shopped for all my birthday and Christmas gifts and mailed them to me. After boarding school, I went on to college, and the pattern remained the same.”

      She heard Case rise, felt the weight of his hands on her shoulders, the nudge of his nose against her ear.

      “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

      She blinked back tears at the sympathy in his voice. “Don’t be. I’m not. Not anymore.”

      She stared out the window, remembering the years of neglect, the pain her father had caused her, as well as the means she’d found to finally sever her ties to him completely.

      “The only duty he ever felt toward me was a financial one, and when I was a junior in college, I finally found a way to free him of that obligation.”

      “How?”

      “My writing. I was still in college when I sold my first book.” She felt the same swell of satisfaction she had the day she’d received the call. “The advance check gave me the financial freedom I needed to cut him out of my life entirely.”

      “But you moved back to Sioux Falls,” he said, obviously wondering why she’d return to the place where her father lived. “Was it in hopes of reuniting with your father?”

      “Hardly,” she said wryly. “Sioux Falls is home to me, the only one I’ve never known. He robbed me of that and all that was familiar when he shipped me off to school.” She shook her head sadly. “I guess I’m slow, but it took me a while to realize that I had as much right to live here as he did. When I did, I packed up my things and moved back.”

      “And you haven’t seen him since your return?”

      “No. In fact, the phone call you just heard was the first time he’s attempted to contact me in years.”

      Finding the entire subject of her father depressing, she turned and forced a smile. “Now that you know all the dirt about my family, how about a glass of wine?”

      His gaze on hers, he lifted a hand and brushed her hair back from her face. “I have a better idea.”

      She shivered as he stroked a thumb beneath her eye. “W-what?”

      “This …”

      He bent his head and she closed her eyes in anticipation of his kiss. His lips touched hers once, sweetly, withdrew, then touched again. The tenderness in the gesture, the comfort she found in it, drew tears to her eyes. Lifting her arms, she wrapped them around his neck and gave herself up to the kiss, to him.

      With a low moan, he vised his arms around, drew her to her toes and deepened the kiss. His taste filled her, a heady aphrodisiac that flowed through her bloodstream and turned her bones to jelly. Everywhere his body touched hers tingled with awareness, anticipation. Need.

      His hands seemed to be everywhere at once. Squeezing the cheeks of her buttocks. Sweeping up her back. Framing her face. Her body responded to each and every touch. Arching. Heating. Aching for more. He slid a hand between their chests and covered her breast. Her breath grew ragged, her nipple rigid, as he gently kneaded the mound.

      Unable to breathe, to think, she dragged her mouth from his. “Case, please.”

      He rained kisses over her face, down her neck. “Please, what?”

      She knew what it was she wanted from him, what her body ached for. But she knew, too, that she couldn’t give in to that need.

      She shook her head. “I can’t do this.”

      He drew back far enough to peer at her. “Can’t, what?”

      “This,” she said in frustration.

      “Why not?”

      “I told you before. I’m saving myself for marriage.”

      “No sex until marriage?” he asked doubtfully. “Isn’t that rather extreme?”

      “Well, maybe engaged,” she conceded reluctantly. “But the commitment has to be there. Commitment is very important to me.”

      He studied her a moment, then blew out a long breath. “Yeah, I’m sure it is.”

      “Maybe you should go,” she said miserably.

      Nodding thoughtfully, he gathered his coat from the chair where he’d dropped it. At the door, he stopped and glanced back. “Gina?”

      “What?”

      “What kind do you want?”

      “What kind of what?” she asked in frustration.

      “Engagement ring.”

      “He was kidding,” Gina told Zoie the next morning over coffee. “I mean, there was no dropping to one knee, no proposal. He just asked what kind of ring I wanted.”

      Zoie rolled her eyes. “Girl, you’re dumb as a board. If it’d been me, I’d’ve told him I’d accept nothing less than four carats set in platinum.”

      “I’m not you,” Gina reminded her dryly.

      “What’s so wrong with marrying Case Fortune?” Zoie asked. “He’s easy on the eye, rich as sin. You could do a lot worse, you know.”

      “I won’t marry a man I’m not in love with,” Gina stated firmly.

      “Why not? Women do it all the time. Who knows? You might even grow to love him over time.”

      “And I might not,” Gina argued, then tossed up her hands. “I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation. He wasn’t serious. It was just a joke.”

      “How do you know it was? Did he laugh? Crack a smile? Did he say ‘gotcha, jokes on you’?”

      Gina squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. “Well, no.”

      “What did he do?”

      “He just … left.”

      “Just like that,” Zoie said, with a snap of her fingers. “He proposes, then leaves without waiting for an answer?”

      Gina slid her spine down the chair, wishing she’d never told Zoie what Case had said. “Well, he kind of hesitated a minute, like he was waiting for me to say something, then he left.”

      Zoie thumped the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Girl, you are undoubtedly the slowest, most naive woman to ever walk this earth. When a man like Case Fortune even hints at marriage, you clamp a ball and chain around his ankle and get him to swear to it in blood, before he can change his mind.”

      Scowling, Gina rose to dump her coffee down the drain. “I wish I’d never brought it up.”

      “Who’s going to keep you from screwing up your life, if you don’t confide in me?”

      Gina shot Zoie a frown over her shoulder. “I’m not screwing up my life. I’m merely being cautious.”

      “Same thing. You’ve got to learn to take a few risks. Step out on a limb every now and then. That bubble you’ve been living in might be safe, but it’s got to be lonely as hell in there.”

      “I don’t live in a bubble,” Gina stated indignantly. “And I’m not lonely. I go out. I have friends.”

      “Name two,” Zoie challenged.

      Gina opened her mouth to reply, then closed it, unable to name a single friend, other than Zoie.

      “See?” Zoie said smugly. “If I had a good, strong hat pin, I’d pop that bubble and force you out into the real world and out of that make-believe one you hide yourself in.”

      Gina pushed the vacuum around her