Guarding His Fortune. Stella Bagwell
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considering all the troubles that have been plaguing the Fortunes, I have to insist that you cancel your trip to Texas.”
Her jaw dropped. “Cancel? You must be joking! You don’t just cancel an invitation to study with a group of brilliant graduate students and a professor who has an impressive reputation as being one of the best in his field. There are hundreds of students who’d kill to be in my position!”
“And there’s one person out there who might literally want to kill you just because your name is Fortune,” he shot back at her. “No, Savannah, I’m very serious about this. Austin is full of Fortunes. It’s where Gerald’s business, Robinson Tech, is located. Living there would place you in the thick of danger.”
“But Nolan lives there,” she argued. “If he can, then so can I.”
Miles muttered something under his breath and Savannah knew better than to ask him to repeat it. Frankly, she’d never seen her father looking so stressed. Not even when the stock market took a wild plunge, or a huge investment had gone bankrupt.
“Nolan is a grown man with a family,” he reasoned.
And being twenty-five and a single woman made her incapable of taking care of herself? She wanted to fling the question at her father. But she was smart enough to know that sparring with him in that manner would only send his blood pressure to the boiling point. Miles Fortune was old-school. Women of the family were to be pampered and protected. Men were expected to show strength and wisdom.
“I’m fully grown, too, Dad. And my career, my education are very important to me.”
“Your life is more important to me,” he retorted.
Frustration caused her head to swing back and forth. “But, Dad, I’ve already rented an apartment in Austin and purchased a plane ticket! I’m in the process of packing!”
“Sorry. Cancel everything. When this ordeal with Charlotte Robinson is over, then you may reschedule your studies.”
Reschedule? By the time Charlotte Robinson was tracked down and punished for her misdeeds, Savannah wouldn’t be able to fetch herself an invitation to a dogfight, much less to the university study!
She leaned toward him, her expression beseeching him to understand the importance of her trip to Austin. “Dad, you’ve been a businessman for the major part of your life. More than anyone, you understand that to get ahead you have to strike while the iron is hot. I have to jump at this study now! I won’t have another chance like this.”
His expression was unrelenting. “I won’t have a daughter of mine running around on her own in Austin! You’d constantly be in the crosshairs! You might as well pin a sign to your back with the name Fortune written in bold letters.”
“Dad, for heaven’s sake, most of my waking hours will be spent at the university. I’m sure the security there will be more than adequate.”
Before he could shoot a negative reply at her, Savannah rose from the chair and started out of the study.
“Savannah, I’m serious about this. You’re not going.”
Glancing over her shoulder, she smiled at him. “This is my life. My career. I am going, Dad. And I hope it will be with your blessings.”
“That isn’t going to happen, young lady!”
Her chin high, Savannah walked through the door, then carefully closed it behind her.
* * *
Living in New Orleans all her life, Savannah was long accustomed to hot, steamy weather, even for the first day of April, so when she stepped through the glass doors of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, the oppressive afternoon heat hardly caught her attention. But a man walking straight in her direction had definitely caught her attention. Somewhere near thirty, he was at least six foot three or four with enough muscles to suggest he spent hours in the gym. His tanned complexion and black close-cropped hair coupled with a neatly trimmed goatee and mustache conjured up an image of dark and deliciously dangerous.
And the danger grew even closer as he stopped a few steps in front of her. “Miss Fortune?”
She instinctively glanced around the busy entrance to make sure the dreamy hunk of a man wasn’t addressing someone else. “That’s right,” she finally answered. “How did you guess?”
A faint, almost cocky grin lifted a corner of his masculine lips and for a brief moment, Savannah couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sexy sight of straight white teeth, an unyielding jaw and chocolate-brown eyes fringed with thick black lashes.
“I’m Chaz Mendoza and it’s my job to be a good guesser.” He gestured to a sleek black car parked at the curbside of the sheltered portico. “I’m here to take you to your destination. Are those your bags?”
The question snapped her out of her survey of his chiseled features, and she glanced over her left shoulder to where a valet was pushing a cart loaded with the luggage she’d just collected from the baggage carousel. “Those are all mine.”
Before she could ask him if the university had sent a car to collect her, the man was already directing the baggage attendant to the trunk of the waiting car.
Standing to one side, Savannah allowed her gaze to wander discreetly over the driver. The navy short-sleeved polo shirt and tight jeans he was wearing showed off every hard muscle of his brawny physique. Everything about him exuded authority and strength.
Chaz Mendoza. The name sounded very familiar, but try as she might, she couldn’t recall exactly where she might have heard it. And she knew for certain she’d never met him before. He was the type of man a woman didn’t forget.
Oh, well, she thought, he was hardly any business of hers and she’d not traveled all the way to Austin to have her focus derailed by a man. Even if he was scrumptious eye candy.
He slammed the trunk shut on her baggage and the sound pushed her out of her musings. She quickly opened her handbag and handed several bills to the valet.
The lanky young man thanked her with an appreciative grin, then hurried off with the empty cart.
Savannah looked at the driver. “I was expecting to catch a taxi to my apartment. This is certainly nice of the university to provide me with a ride. Funny, though. I don’t recall giving anyone the arrival time of my flight.”
“It probably just slipped your mind. I think right now, we’d better be on our way. This parking spot is limited to a few minutes.” He cupped a hand beneath her elbow and escorted her around to the passenger side of the car.
After he’d helped her into the plush bucket seat and joined her in the car, Savannah gave him the address of her new apartment.
“If the address isn’t recognizable to you, I have a navigation map on my phone,” she offered as she snapped the seat belt in place.
He quickly belted himself in and merged the car into the slow moving line of traffic exiting the airport. “Thank you, but my car is equipped with a navigational system. I’m familiar with that particular part of the city anyway.”
“Oh, that’s good,” she told him. “I hope I’ll soon learn my way around. Of course, I need to pick up a car of my own before I start trying to navigate the city streets.”
He glanced in her direction and Savannah found herself looking directly into his brown eyes. The connection rattled her for a brief moment before she purposely turned her attention to the traffic in front of them.
“So you’re not familiar with Austin?” he asked.
His voice was slow, and warm, and just rough enough to cause goose bumps to rise along the back of her arms. Or was that the cold air blowing from the vents on the car dash? Either way, her reaction to the man was making her feel more than foolish.
She took a deep breath and blew it out. “No. I’m from New Orleans.”
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