Her Sweetest Fortune

A sly look crossed her face. “He’s definitely suave. But he has an edge about him, too. Just enough to keep a woman guessing. Without making him too complex, that is.”

Thom Nichols. Damn it! She was talking about that phony, two-timing womanizer who ate women for breakfast and spit their bones to his Doberman pinscher. But Mason could hardly express his opinion about the man to Sophie. He’d learned long ago that putting down a boyfriend was not the way to score points with a woman.

Clearing his throat, he asked, “Do you really think any man could be as perfect as you’re making this one out to be?”

The long sigh she released troubled Mason greatly. Even if he didn’t have a chance in a million with this woman, he’d hate to see her hurt by lothario Thom.

“Well, I think he’s perfect for me,” she reasoned. “And Valentine’s Day will be here in a couple of weeks. By then I plan to have Mr. Right exactly where I want him.”

She patted the side of her hip, but rather than envisioning Thom standing next to Sophie, Mason was visualizing himself at her side. And suddenly he was determined to make the image come true. She might be thinking of Thom as her Mr. Right, but Mason was going to do everything possible to make her see she was all wrong about the plastic marketing strategist. And that Mason was her real Mr. Right.

Placing the amethyst back on a neat stack of legal papers, Mason straightened away from the desk. “Well, it’s getting really late and I still have a few things to do at home before the morning gets here and everything starts over.”

“You should get yourself a maid,” Sophie suggested. “You’d be surprised by how much she’d ease your workload.”

Mason was thinking he’d much rather have a woman to warm his bed than a maid to clean his house. Preferably one with long brown hair, killer legs and a waist that would fit right between his two hands.

Grinning, he winked at her and started out of the cubicle. “No thanks,” he tossed over his shoulder. “I’ll just eat more spinach.”

* * *

“Have you lost your mind, Sophie? You, of all people, chasing after a man! I just don’t get it.”

She glared at her sister Olivia, who’d made herself comfortable in one of the matching wingchairs in the sitting area of Sophie’s enormous bedroom suite. Even though Olivia had recently moved into a place of her own, she often stopped by the Robinson estate to visit. Sophie had always admired her older sister and often sought her advice on personal matters. Only moments earlier, Sophie had confided her plans to snare Thom Nichols and much to her chagrin, Olivia had immediately exploded with protests.

“No. You wouldn’t understand,” Sophie said, trying to keep the bite of sarcasm from her voice. “You don’t have the same dreams that I do. You don’t care if you ever have a man in your life.”

Sighing, Olivia crossed her legs, as though talking sense to her younger sister was going to be a long, arduous endeavor. “We’re not talking about me, Sophie. This is about you. You making a fool of yourself by chasing after a man.”

Hadn’t their own mother made a fool of herself by living with a man who’d cheated on her for years? Sophie felt like flinging the nasty question at Olivia, but bit it back instead. It wasn’t her place to judge either of her parents for the artificial state of their marriage. For some reason Sophie couldn’t fathom, the two remained steadfastly together. Even so, the connection between her mother and father was about as warm as a trip to Antarctica. And Sophie was determined that she would never settle for such a cold relationship with a man.

“I’m not actually going to chase him,” Sophie corrected as she walked over to the double doors that opened to an enormous walk-in closet. “I’m just going to give him a little nudge—a reminder that I’m in the building and available.”

Olivia snorted. “Thom Nichols believes every woman in the building is available to him. I just don’t see the attraction you have for the man.”

Gasping, Sophie shot a look of disbelief at her sister. “Are you joking? He has to be the sexiest man alive! Well, at least in the state of Texas!”

“We live in a mighty big state, Sophie. Just how would you describe a sexy man? Would you know one if you saw one?”

Momentarily ignoring Olivia’s barbed questions, Sophie snatched several pieces of clothing from the closet and carried them over to a king-sized bed.

“Apparently you need a lesson in identifying a sexy hunk from the regular crowd,” Sophie told her. “He’s tall, dark haired, has a killer smile and walks with just enough swag to let a woman know he’s full of confidence.”

“Hmmp. You mean with just enough conceit to let us know he’s struck on himself.”

Sophie glanced over to see Olivia shaking her head with disgust. Her sister’s cynical attitude irked her and saddened her at the same time. With gently waving hair that was a much darker brown than Sophie’s and beautiful features to match, her older sister could attract any man she wanted, but so far she viewed men and marriage as something worse than a chronic disease.

“Why do you have to be so jaded?” Sophie asked. “I wish now I’d never told you about my plans to go after Thom. It’s obvious you don’t understand how I feel.”

With a rueful sigh, Olivia pushed herself out of the chair and walked over to Sophie. “You’re right, I don’t understand. So why don’t you tell me how you feel about Thom?”

In an effort to gauge her sister’s sincerity, Sophie looked into Olivia’s brown eyes that were incredibly similar to her own.

“Do you honestly want to know?” Sophie asked. “Or are you just patronizing me?”

“I honestly want to know.” She reached over and plucked a black knit dress from the pile of clothing on the bed. “I need to understand why a young, beautiful woman like you feels the need to change yourself just to snag a man. If you have to be someone you’re not in order to make him like you, then you’re deluding yourself that it will ever work.”

Deflated by Olivia’s negative viewpoint, Sophie sank onto the bed. “I’ve had my eye on him for a long time,” Sophie told her. “And the more I’ve watched him, the more I’m sure he was put on this earth to be my one true love.”

Olivia let out a loud, mocking groan, then immediately plopped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it.”

Sophie turned her misty gaze on a far corner of the room and swallowed hard. Not one of her seven legitimate siblings believed she was mature enough to take on a serious relationship with a man, much less think about marriage or a family. They all viewed her as the baby, the one offspring of Charlotte and Gerald Robinson who had been so sheltered, it would take years for her to grow up and acquire a head full of wisdom. Sometimes she even wondered how she’d gotten her job at Robinson Tech. Was it because she was well trained for the job, or because her father was the boss?

“Sure. I know. It all sounds silly to you,” Sophie mumbled.

“Oh, Sophie, don’t be so defensive.” Easing down next to her, Olivia wrapped an arm around Sophie’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t think you grasp yet what love is. And I don’t want you to get hurt while you’re learning.”

Blinking at the tears stinging her eyes, Sophie looked directly at her sister. “I’ll tell you one thing. I know what love isn’t,” she said in a brittle tone. “It isn’t like this sham between our parents! Furthermore, I’d stay a spinster for the rest of my life if it meant avoiding the sort of marriage our mother has endured over the years.”

“Sophie!” Olivia scolded. “How can you say that? Dad has given Mother and all of us kids anything and everything we could possibly want.”

“So in other words, you’re saying Mother stays with Dad because of his money and this.” Sophie waved her arm, indicating the spacious room with its extravagant furnishings. “This high-class lifestyle he can provide her.”

Frowning, Olivia tossed the black dress back onto the bed, then looked toward the door as though she feared their mother might walk in at any moment. “That’s an awful thing to say, Sophie!” she said in a hushed tone. “Mother stays with Dad because she loves him!”

“Really? How could that be when she and the whole world know that Dad has had numerous affairs? You’re telling me that love can actually exist under those conditions?”

“Of course I am,” Olivia insisted. “Why else would she stay if she didn’t love him?”

Sophie had been asking herself that very question for some time now, and the more she did, the more she considered the idea that their mother might be hiding something from the whole family. But since that was only speculation, she was hardly going to mention her suspicions to Olivia. And she definitely wasn’t going to comment about their father anymore tonight. In Olivia’s eyes, Gerald Robinson could do little wrong. She’d chosen to forgive and forget about his philandering. Probably because Olivia happened to be one of their father’s favorites and he doted on her even more than he did Sophie.

Instead she switched the conversation back to her dream man.

“Thom is handsome and dynamic,” Sophie told her. “And I plan to make him mine by Valentine’s Day.”

“Exactly what does your plan entail?”

Sophie walked over to the cheval mirror and twisted her hair into a loose knot atop her head. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to change who I am. I’m only going to tweak the outside a bit. Maybe some highlights in my hair or some new clothes. Some sexy knee-high boots might do the trick.”

“And when you do catch his attention? Then what?”

Sophie smiled confidently at Olivia’s image in the mirror. “Then he’ll begin to look at all of me. Not just the outside.”

With a rueful shake of her head, Olivia warned, “You are headed for disaster, my dear sister. Thom Nichols wants two things from a woman. Sex and money. He’s hardly interested in finding the love of a lifetime.”

Sophie’s lips pressed into an angry line as she turned to face her sister. “Go ahead and be cynical and negative. Do your best to make me look foolish just because I want a man to love and for him to love me!”

Olivia threw up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I give up. I can see this is something you’re going to have to figure out for yourself. And far be it from me to ruin your quest for love.”