Fortune's Surprise Engagement. Nancy Thompson Robards

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      Olivia was the only one who remained. She’d been sitting alone for a solid five minutes staring at the tray of drinks the bartender had delivered shortly before the mass exodus. Maybe her sisters were coming back? Maybe she could use some company until they did. Alejandro stood, slid his phone into his shirt pocket and went over to Olivia.

      “Is the party over already?” he asked.

      She blinked up at him as if he’d startled her out of deep thought—or deep, stubborn brooding, based on her irritated expression. That full bottom lip of hers stuck out a little more than he remembered from when he saw her at his brothers’ weddings.

      As she gazed up at him, she pulled it between her teeth for a pensive moment before she spoke.

      “May I ask you a question, Alejandro?” She slurred her words ever so slightly.

      “Sure.”

      “Do you believe in love?”

      “Is that a trick question?” He laughed and cocked his right brow in a way that always seemed to get him out of tight spots and trick questions like this one.

      Answering questions about love qualified as a very tight spot, because the last thing he wanted to do right now was get into a debate about affairs of the heart with a woman who’d had too many Fuzzy Handcuffs. In his experience, drunk women pondering love were usually vulnerable women, especially when their sisters were all married or in the process of getting hitched.

      “No, it’s not a trick question,” Olivia said. “In fact, it’s a fairly straightforward yes-or-no query. You either believe in love or you don’t. So what’s it going to be, Alejandro? Yes or no?”

      Wow. Olivia Fortune Robinson was a force. An intense force. And he could see that she wasn’t going to let him off the hook without a satisfactory answer. The problem was, he didn’t want to talk about love.

      He’d been a believer once—but that was a long time ago. Another lifetime ago, when things were a lot simpler. So simple, in fact, that he’d never had to ponder love’s existence. He’d just had to feel; he’d simply had to be.

      He hadn’t thought about love for a very long time. It had been even longer since he’d felt any emotion even remotely resembling it. In fact, these days he didn’t feel anything. But he definitely didn’t want to conjure ghosts from the past, because they haunted him randomly even without an invitation.

      “You’re not going to answer me, are you?” Olivia said.

      He smiled to lighten the mood. “That’s some heavy pondering for such a festive occasion. Where did everybody go? And more important, are you going to drink all those Fuzzy Handcuffs all by yourself? Because if your sisters left you to your own devices, what kind of gentleman would I be to let you drink alone?”

      She gestured with an unsteady wave of her hand.

      “Don’t worry about me. I’m used to drinking alone.” She grimaced. “And even though I might be a little tipsy, I’m not so drunk that I don’t realize how pathetic that just sounded. Please, sit down and save me from myself.”

      “If you insist,” he said and lowered himself onto the cowhide-patterned love seat that was set perpendicular to her chair. As he made himself comfortable, she shifted her body so that she was angled in his direction and crossed one long, lean, tanned leg over the other.

      Damn.

      If he’d been a weaker man he might have reached out and run a hand up the tempting expanse, past where skin disappeared under that sexy little black slip of a thing that was riding a little too high on her toned thighs—not in a trashy way, because there wasn’t a trashy thing about her. Olivia Fortune Robinson seemed to have mastered the art of classy-sexy, which was a very beautiful fine line to walk.

      And he was also treading a very fine line, because Olivia Fortune Robinson was so very off-limits, since she was practically family.

      He lifted a drink off the tray and handed it to her, then he took one for himself and raised it to hers. She looked him square in the eyes as they clinked glasses.

      “You know, they say you’ll have seven years of bad sex if you don’t look the person you’re toasting in the eyes as you say cheers,” she said.

      “I guess that means we’ll have good sex,” he said, still holding her gaze.

      “Will we?” She sipped her drink.

      He knew she was baiting him and he also knew she was probably drunker than she realized. The drinks were more powerful than they looked. The kind that went down easily and, before you knew it, knocked you flat on your ass. Probably not so dissimilar from the effect that Olivia Fortune Robinson had on men.

      “Are you hungry?” Olivia asked.

      “For food? Or did you have something else in mind?”

      She tilted her head to the side. “You’re a naughty boy, aren’t you, Alejandro?”

      Her words were unwavering and unabashed.

      He shrugged.

      “I made a dinner reservation for four at the Driskill Grill,” she said. “It seems my sisters can’t make it. The only thing worse than drinking alone is dining alone in a fancy restaurant. What do you say, Alejandro? Will you let me take you to dinner?”

      “That depends on what you expect in return,” he said. “Are you going to feed me and then try to take advantage of me?”

      “Absolutely.”

      This was fun. Much more fun than poring over facts and figures of the Hummingbird Ridge purchase.

      When he was fresh out of college, would he have found bantering with a clever woman preferable to dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on the details that would make his hard-won business dream a reality? Then again, he hadn’t eaten and he was starving.

      “In that case,” he said, “how can I refuse?”

      He knocked back the last of his drink. It was a lot stronger that it appeared.

      “Good,” Olivia said, handing him another drink from the tray. “The reservation isn’t until eight o’clock. We have time to finish our cocktails.”

      They clinked glasses, locking gazes again before they sipped and settled into an uncomfortable silence. Alejandro was way too aware of how damn sexy she looked in that black dress, too intent on that full mouth that kept commanding his attention, speaking to the most primal needs in him.

      He didn’t do well with silence.

      “Is this your favorite kind of drink?” he asked.

      “Me? No. I’m all about champagne. This drink was made especially for the brides-to-be.”

      “I don’t mean to be nosy, but is everything okay with your sisters?”

      She shrugged. “I’m sure they’re fine. That reminds me. You didn’t answer my question. Do you believe in love? I’m guessing you do. Because what else СКАЧАТЬ