Fiance by Fate (3 page)

“Being closer to your family was something I thought would be nice for you, Jack. I even entertained the idea you’d
like
to be home again.”

Jack looked away. A part of him
had
only agreed to come back because he thought he was going to get that promotion. And now, he’d turned his life upside-down for nothing. “I do like being home again. It’s not that, but—”

“Maybe you could even find a nice girl and settle down here now. Sabrina Cassidy—”

“Sabrina Cassidy?”
He didn’t mean to snap at his dad, but just the sound of that woman’s name had his blood pressure skyrocketing. “What does she have to do with anything?”

Sabrina was one of the internal wholesalers at Brenner Capital, which meant she worked as an assistant to one of the senior wholesalers who, like himself, did the actual traveling to brokerage firms. She was an excellent worker but the kind of woman who thought she was always right. Jack had even secretly dubbed her “Little Miss Perfect.” Unfortunately, most times she
was
right—which was one of the reasons why his father adored her. Jack, however, did not share that feeling.

His father raised his eyebrows. “I wasn’t going to suggest you settle down with her—although you could do worse.”

“Well, forget it. She’s engaged already anyway.”

“Rumor has it she’s not engaged anymore. But someone as smart and hardworking as she is would be a huge step up from the supermodel airheads you seem so accustomed to parading around with. It wouldn’t hurt to look for a woman with some family sensibilities. You know, I would like grandchildren someday,” he added with a smile.

“You already have grandchildren.”

His father’s jaw tightened. “Not from
you
.”

Jack heaved a frustrated sigh. He hated to burst his father’s bubble, but it had to be said. “Look, Dad, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to suddenly get married and have kids just because it will look good to the Board and will somehow make me a better executive. Not going to happen. Plus, I don’t have time for a family. It’s not in me. I like—no,
love
—the way things are right now.” He’d given that life up to move back here. He paused and grinned without guile. “I’d love it even more if I was the National Sales manager.”

“There’s more to life than this company.”

Jack remained silent. There was no use arguing about it. He wasn’t about to change his father’s or the stockholders’ minds, so it seemed a moot point.

“Jack, no one is forcing you to get married. But I think there are other ways—like keeping your personal life out of the spotlight, for one—that could highly influence them. Once I’m convinced you’re ready to get serious and start acting like a responsible man, I can go to the stockholders and we can talk again about that promotion. Fair enough?”

Jack stared at his father. Just like that, he felt as if he were a teenager who broke the neighbor’s window with a baseball and now had to figure out how to make amends. It was humiliating, to say the least. He was a grown man—and dammit, he already was a responsible man. “Dad, you have to hear me out. I think if you went to the Board now and—”

His dad raised a spread hand. “I don’t want to hear anything else from you. Go out there and
show
me instead.”

Knowing all too well his father’s adamant look, Jack wisely shut his mouth. Without a glance back, he stormed out of the penthouse.

Great.
Just great. He came back to town and the first thing that happened was his personal life going under a microscope.

There’s more to life than this company.

No. Not for him there wasn’t. Work filled Jack’s life and had never let him down through all these years. He couldn’t give up on it now. It was his lifeblood. But he needed this company not only for himself, he also needed it for his father. Jack had already failed his mom. He couldn’t fail his dad, too.

Jack hadn’t realized how his reputation with women had preceded him—or that it would be perceived as something bad. Women were a weakness to him, but not so much that he couldn’t change. He could. He
had
to. Desperation was not an emotion he was used to feeling, and he didn’t like it one bit. Who knew what his father’s health was really like? The Board could even force him to retire early. Time could be running out. Jack needed to change people’s opinion of him. And fast.

Perhaps his father had a point. Maybe it was time for him to settle down and…

No
. The thought made him queasy, but it also made him wonder. Maybe he could convince his father and the stockholder board to reconsider quicker than he originally thought if it
looked
like he was ready to settle down. All he needed to do was find himself a nice, girl-next-door type of girlfriend.

Or at least a fake one.

Chapter Two

Sabrina spent a good fifteen minutes searching her kitchen cabinets for coffee and almost wailed when the only thing she came up with was chamomile tea. How was this possible? She usually had a perfect methodology to her grocery shopping. Yet somehow her organization and timing had failed her. Monday morning and she was completely out of coffee. Talk about bad luck.

For a split second she actually entertained the idea of going to the third floor of her apartment building and borrowing some from David. Having her fiancé living above her had been extremely convenient when they were dating. A little awkward now that they were broken up—even if temporarily.

But she figured going up there could accomplish two things: 1) she could get the coffee she so desperately needed and 2) she could ever so casually bring up the topic of seeing him with that woman on Saturday night and find out who she was. Just to make sure she understood where things stood between them.

It seemed like a good plan until she glanced at the clock. At seven thirty in the morning, David would already be at the hospital. So she went with her next, if not always reliable, option: her landlady, Mrs. Metzger.

Sabrina walked two doors down and knocked. Mrs. Metzger wasted no time and quickly stood opposite her with a wrinkled nose and an almost pained expression. “Honey, a little eye shadow would do wonders for you,” she said in way of greeting.

Sabrina brought a hand up to her face. She’d forgotten she hadn’t put on any makeup yet. “I’ll get right on that. But in the meantime, do you have any coffee I could borrow? I’m, uh, kind of desperate here.”

Helen Metzger lived alone with her cat, Theo. The woman was attractive and in good shape for sixty-eight, if you could get past the high platinum beehive hairstyle and the George Hamilton tan. Her husband had been in real estate and had owned various properties along the north shore area. When he had passed away almost five years ago, she had sold them all, except for this one apartment complex in the old shore town of Swampscott. The woman had grown children of her own, but she’d recently appointed herself Sabrina’s surrogate mother when she’d heard how Sabrina had grown up never knowing her parents.

“Oh heavens, no,” Mrs. Metzger said, laying a spread hand over her heart. “Never touch the stuff. Palpitations,” she whispered.

Sabrina’s shoulders slumped. Strike two. Her day was on quite a roll. “Okay, thanks anyway, Mrs. Metzger.”

She was about to turn away, but her landlady grabbed her arm. “Hold on, hon.” The older woman looked around anxiously, then licked her bright pink stained lips. “I need a favor.”

“A favor?”

“I’m having the apartment painted this weekend, and I was wondering if Theo and I could stay with you while it’s being done. Those paint fumes give me terrible migraines.”

“Oh, uh…” It’s not as if Sabrina didn’t like the woman—in fact, Mrs. Metzger was one of the few friends, besides David, that she had in the building. But she was a bit eccentric. “Why don’t you stay with one of your sons?” she asked.

Mrs. Metzger looked appalled at the idea. “Are you kidding? The holidays are coming up soon enough as it is. That will give me all the family time I can stand for the next couple of months.”

“At least you have a family to spend the holidays with,” she murmured, feeling that familiar sickness settle in her stomach.

Mrs. Metzger patted her arm. “I’m sorry, hon, I wasn’t thinking. But if you knew my little devil grandchildren, you’d understand.”

The truth was Sabrina would never understand. Her landlady’s attitude toward her sons was unfathomable. Sabrina would give anything to have a family. Growing up, she had been placed in some very nice foster homes, but in the end it never seemed to matter. Just when she was starting to grow attached to them, she’d be plucked out and moved to another family. After a while, she’d closed off her heart to them. It hurt too much to be abandoned like that over and over again. Always alone. Unconnected. Unloved. Even when she tried so hard to be perfect. She didn’t think she could survive if she lost David now, too. Not when she was so close to finally having it all.

Sabrina’s vision blurred with unshed tears, but she quickly blinked them away. “Of course you can stay with me,” she told the woman. “David won’t be coming by anyway. He’s been keeping himself pretty busy lately.”

The older woman nodded sympathetically. “I know.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I know
exactly
how he’s been keeping busy. I saw the doctor and his new friend the other night.”

“Really? When? Did they go up to his apartment?”

The woman pursed her lips in thought. “Briefly.”

“Oh, well, that must have been business then.” She hoped.

Mrs. Metzger patted Sabrina’s shoulder. “Look, I was thinking, why don’t you spend Thanksgiving with the boys and me? I mean, just in case you haven’t made up with David by then.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Metzger, but no thank you. I’m sure I’ll be spending Thanksgiving with his family.”

“You know, hon, not all men are like my Wally. Some men are never ready to settle down.”

“Oh, David is,” she stressed. She and David would talk for hours about what their children would look like and where they would live someday. Surely a man who wasn’t ready for marriage wouldn’t bring up topics like that. “But most of all, he loves me,” she added.

That
was no assumption. David did love her. He told her he did whenever he spoke to her, even since their separation. So why wouldn’t she hold out hope that they’d eventually get back together?

The woman shrugged. “If that’s what’ll make you happy.”

Sabrina smiled, remembering the words of Madame Butterfly and clinging to them like a life preserver. “Don’t worry. Everything will work out in the end. You’ll see. David and I being together is…fate.”

Sabrina’s smile faded as she turned away and walked back into her empty apartment. It seemed so lifeless with David’s things gone. No more of his ties carelessly hung over the back of her chairs after he’d come straight to her place after work. His lumbar back pillow he needed whenever they watched TV together wasn’t taking up room on her sofa anymore. He’d even taken back his Keurig coffee machine. The only reminder she had of him was his niece’s guinea pig. Sophia started suffering with terrible allergies not long after she got him, so Sabrina offered to take care of him for her. He wasn’t much company as far as pets went, but he was better than nothing.

She had to remind herself that David had only been gone a month. Not that long, yet to her, it seemed like years. Maybe she was foolish to wait for him. But he was still everything she ever wanted—stable, family-oriented, handsome, kind.

She walked over to her coffee table and picked up the only picture she had of her parents. She studied their smiling faces and wished she could remember them. They had died in an automobile accident when she was very young. But she had a feeling they still watched over her, even in some small way had a hand in her meeting David. After all, there were too many coincidences to ignore.

Sabrina placed the picture back down, hoping they’d give her another sign soon. She had told Mrs. Metzger that she and David being together was fate, and that wasn’t a lie. She believed it wholeheartedly. But, then again, she had to.

Because the idea of ending up alone was something far less imaginable.

…

Brenner Capital Investments was located on the thirty-second floor in One Financial Center, adjacent to Dewey Square in Boston. It consisted of a sizeable open space of about twenty desks where internal wholesalers sat and answered telephones or emailed questions about their mutual fund products and assisted the senior wholesalers who were out traveling on the road to the actual brokerage firms. Several private offices were on hand for wholesalers in the area to use when they weren’t traveling, and, of course, there was a huge private office for the founder and chairman of the firm, Mr. Leonard W. Brenner.

As Sabrina approached her desk, she glanced over at her girlfriend, Chris, and had to suppress a laugh. Chris’s desk looked as if somebody declared war on it and her thin blond hair was already half out of her hair clip. Unfortunately, Chris looked as she always did first thing in the morning—like her day had just ended.

“Good morning,” Sabrina called out.

Chris beamed at her and made her way over. “You’re saying that now. Wait until you check your email.”

Sabrina frowned at her computer. Why did the higher-ups wait to drop bombs on Mondays? “I can’t look. Just tell me.”

“Brace yourself.”

Sabrina placed her hands on her desk. “Officially braced.”

“Jack Brenner has been transferred back to Boston. He’s in the corner office now.”

Sabrina groaned even though she was hardly surprised at the news. When the National Sales Manager position opened up, she had assumed Jack would be given the job. All Jack had to do was go to Daddy and he’d be given anything he wanted. The man never followed protocol. He never paid his dues as an internal wholesaler first as everyone else had. He was automatically placed as senior above those who’d worked longer in the company. And now the spoiled prodigy son was back, expecting everyone to bow down before him.