Stand-In Bride. Barbara Boswell
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the magazine hits the stands tomorrow, women all over the country will be lusting after my big brother. Mike will be a genuine sex object!” Kristina was exultant.
Julia felt an ominous stirring within her that kept growing stronger. She’d worked for Michael Fortune, the vice president of the Fortune Corporation’s product-development department for fourteen months, plenty of time to know that he would absolutely hate his new status. It was the Fortune family business that was the abiding focus of Michael’s life, not popularity with the opposite sex—though he was certainly sought after by women here in Minneapolis. After this magazine article hit the stands, Julia guessed he would be the object of a nationwide romantic pursuit.
“What do you think Mike will think of this?” Kristina asked, grinning.
Julia decided it would be prudent to keep her true opinion to herself. Who knew what part, if any, Kristina had played in this surefire fiasco? When it came to dealing with the Fortunes, Julia was always cautious. “This list isn’t going to, um, thrill him,” she hedged. To put it mildly! “I think he would’ve preferred to be named one of the top-ten most effective businessmen in the U.S.A.,” she added carefully.
“Business! Business! That’s all that Mike seems to care about!” Kristina suddenly grew agitated and began to stalk from Julia’s desk to the windowless wall and then back again.
Another pacer, just like her brother Michael, Julia noted. All the Fortunes she’d met possessed a boundless, vital energy that seemed to require constant motion. She guessed their family get-togethers must be exhausting—all that high-spirited verve and drive and strong will emanating from each and every member of the clan. To a quiet, retiring person such as herself even imagining the scene was daunting.
“Mike is like Corporate RoboMan or something!” Kristina ranted. “He’s a workaholic, he has no feelings, he has no life! I swear, if you opened up his head, you’d find microchips. Nothing touches him, nobody can reach him.”
She turned and pinned Julia with a laser stare. “Can you remember the last time you saw him react with even a shred of genuine human emotion?”
“Well, there was the time Anne Campell in the research lab brought her twins to Take-your-daughter-to-work Day and the kids decided to conduct their very own experiment with the latest test samples.” The memory still made Julia chuckle, though she’d been careful to suppress her amusement after Michael had made it clear that he failed to see the humor in the situation. “Too bad their addition to the face powder turned skin a creepy, corpselike blue. Michael was livid about it. Doesn’t that qualify as genuine human emotion?”
“But that’s related to business so it doesn’t count.” Kristina dismissed the incident and turned her attention back to the magazine. “This is a good picture of Mike, isn’t it, Julia? Even though he is my brother, I have to admit he looks really, really hot!”
Julia studied the picture of Michael in the magazine. It was a candid shot of him in well-worn blue jeans and a white cotton polo shirt bearing the Fortune company logo. The photo showed a compellingly virile man, whose muscular body would catch the eye of any female with a pulse. The strong features of his face—the well-defined jaw and square chin, the sharp blade of a nose and deep-set blue eyes arched by startlingly black brows, the hard sensual shape of his mouth—guaranteed him a second glance from any appreciative male-watchers.
And even reluctant ones. Julia was aware of her boss’s masculine good looks, though she had never—nor would she ever!—let him know that she considered him an attractive man.
She well remembered her first meeting with Michael Fortune, on the day he’d hired her fourteen months ago after a brief interview. The sight of him had had a physical effect on her that she’d found unsettling. For the first several weeks of her employment, his presence had sent a rush of adrenaline surging through her. Her heart would race and her skin would feel flushed. She was acutely aware of his every gesture, his every move.
Fortunately, she had been successful in hiding her renegade responses from Michael and everyone else in the company. Friends she’d made on the job told her all about his previous assistants, who had fallen hopelessly in love with Michael Fortune and ended up either quitting or getting fired because they were unable to cope with his personal disinterest and his exacting professional demands.
Julia had no intention of joining that hapless number. She’d read countless articles on the futility of office romances and wasn’t about to risk her job by indulging in a silly and hopeless infatuation with her boss.
Gradually, as the weeks wore on, her heart had stopped pounding when she saw Michael. In time, her body temperature was affected by the thermal conditions of the office rather than his presence.
She’d decided she was safely immune from his appeal. She was too sensible, too practical for such schoolgirl nonsense as having a crush on her boss, Julia assured herself.
An infatuation with Michael would’ve been as stupid as it was futile, for she knew he viewed her as something akin to office equipment. She was useful and efficient, like a fax machine, and more reliable than their copier, which was forever breaking down. His attitude toward her hardly fueled romantic fantasies, and Julia gratefully pronounced herself free of any.
“So how does it feel, working for one of the most eligible bachelors in the U.S.A., Julia?” Kristina demanded playfully. “You’re single, and working with him day in and day out puts you on the inside track. Ever think of going after him?”
Julia laughed at that preposterous notion. She was under no illusions as to her status. Though the Julia Chandlers and the Michael Fortunes of the world might occupy the same space for a certain number of hours each day, they basically existed in parallel universes, never to converge outside the office. Julia was wise enough to accept that.
“Don’t worry. Michael is safe from any advances from me.”
“I wasn’t worried, I—” Kristina began, but she was interrupted by the appearance of Michael Fortune himself.
He’d opened the connecting door between his office and Julia’s and paused on the threshold. His blue eyes, alert and piercing, skimmed past Julia and fastened on his younger sister.
“Kristina, I thought I heard you raising your usual ruckus out here.” He arched his dark brows, his voice a laconic drawl. “Let me guess—you’re here to line up allies for another one of your outrageous ad campaigns? Scouting our advertising executives who, even as we speak, are reaching for their bottles of antacid, anticipating the upcoming battle?”
Kristina grinned. “I do have a fairly wild idea germinating, but I’m still working out the details. When I’m ready to present it, you’ll be one of the first to know, because you agree with me that our ad execs are—”
“You were about to say cautious and conservative?” Michael interrupted.
“I was about to say retro and stodgy,” Kristina countered. “How could they be anything else? They’ve been around since the Nixon administration. Their idea of something innovative is disco bingo.”
“Spoken in the hyperbolic, back-stabbing style of a true ad executive. You fit right in that shark pool, Kristina. And I mean that in the most complimentary way.” Michael’s lips twitched. For him that passed as a smile.
Julia watched the byplay between the two, struck as always by the differences between the siblings, something that went far beyond the six-year gap in their ages and their respective sexes.
Kristina was as open and outspoken as Michael was cool, closed and controlled. Though his family found him remote and enigmatic, over the past year Julia had come to regard him as an intensely private person, someone who did not feel the need to express his every thought or share his innermost feelings with one and all. An introvert herself, she thought she recognized some of the same qualities in Michael.
Not that he was quiet and shy, like she was. The notion of a shy, hesitant Michael Fortune was unfathomable. He exuded a confidence and sure sense of conviction