A Fortunate Arrangement

Gaaa! There it was again.

What’s next, Austin? A chance for us? Is there a chance for us?

“Cheers.” She touched her glass to his and sipped the effervescent liquid.

“Are your sister and her boyfriend still here?” Felicity knew they were was since Savannah had mentioned she was staying in New Orleans until after the ball, but the question was a sure path to get them back on solid ground. Solid ground that wasn’t business.

“They are,” Austin said. “But I don’t know how long they’ll stay.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

And just like that, the murky vibe that had clouded emotions moments ago had dissipated and they were back on track. Austin gave her the rundown on Gerald’s wedding and the safety concerns caused by the other incidents. “Savannah and Chaz are hell-bent on attending even though my parents are against it. My sister has seized on the aspect that Gerald is family and family supports each other in good times and bad. My parents are of the mind that we just learned that Gerald is family. So, it’s not worth the risk.”

“So, you’re related to those Fortunes?” Since he brought it up, Felicity figured there was no harm in asking.

Austin sipped his wine, looking thoughtful. “We are. My dad was raised by my grandmother. She was never very forthcoming about the identity of his father. Until he turned twenty-one and learned that his father was Julius Fortune. You know Miles. So, you can imagine how unimpressed he was about being related to the Fortunes. To prove it, he legally changed his name, but he didn’t seek any connection to his father or his other relatives. It was a point of pride to prove that he could make it on his own. And he did.

“Miles built Fortune Investment from the ground up. He still doesn’t want anything from anybody. I think even without the weird things that have been happening to his extended family, he’d still be reluctant about embracing them. That may be a large part of the reason he doesn’t want to attend his half brother’s wedding. The safety issue is a convenient excuse. I think he just doesn’t want to get that close.”

Austin shook his head and took another sip of his drink. Felicity didn’t speak for fear of breaking the spell.

“You should be proud of yourself that Miles has embraced you the way he has,” he went on. “You’re the first person who isn’t part of his immediate family that he’s ever considered for upper management.”

Austin gave her a pointed look that she couldn’t quite read. Then he looked away, frowning at a spot somewhere in the distance. “My divorce left my dad pretty jaded.”

“What do you mean, it made him jaded? It was your relationship.”

Austin scoffed. “It’s a long, sordid story. Are you sure you’re up for this?”

“Of course I am.” She held out her flute and Austin refilled it.

“When I was twenty-five, Town & Country magazine published an article about the south’s most eligible bachelors,” Austin said. “Yours truly was one of the men they spotlighted. I didn’t know it at the time, but, Kelly, my ex-wife, saw the article and decided she was going to marry me. She didn’t know me. We’d never met, but she knew I was her future husband.”

“That’s frightening.”

“You haven’t heard the half of it,” he said. “Little did I know, but she started keeping tabs on me and followed me to New York City, where I was in town on business for a few weeks. During that time, she orchestrated a serendipitous meeting. She lied and passed herself off as an heiress who was spending time in the city before wintering in Europe, and she wooed me into believing it was love at first sight. I was such an idiot.”

Austin blew out a breath, knocked back the rest of his drink, topped off Felicity’s glass and poured more for himself.

“After a two-week, whirlwind courtship we eloped without telling anyone.” He shook his head at the memory. “She was that persuasive. And at the same time, she had this damsel-in-distress way about her that made me feel fiercely protective of her.

“When I brought my new wife home to New Orleans, my family was stunned and angry to learn that I had gotten married without telling anyone. My mom was crushed that her first child to the altar had eloped and cheated her out of her mother-of-the-groom honor.