A Fortune in Waiting Read online

  Fortune On The Menu

  Even in a town as eclectic as Austin, Keaton Fortune Whitfield stands out. With his dreamy British accent and his slate-blue eyes, he has captured the fancy of every red-blooded Texas female in town...except one. Francesca Harriman, his favorite waitress at Lola May’s, seems completely immune to his charms. When she’s not on her shift, she’s too busy studying to pay attention to him—which only makes him want her more.

  Francesca has been burned before, and she won’t let the Londoner melt her heart. What would a brilliant, wealthy architect want with a commoner like her? She’s not about to abandon her schooling to become Keaton’s catch of the day. Could a hash-slinging waitress really find happiness with a Fortune?

  MEET THE FORTUNES

  Fortune of the Month: Keaton Fortune Whitfield

  Age: 33

  Vital statistics: We’re not sure which is sexier—his charming British accent, his brilliant mind or those eyes!

  Claim to fame: He’s a world-renowned architect whose genius is exceeded only by his popularity with women. He is also the illegitimate son of philandering millionaire Gerald Robinson, formerly known as Jerome Fortune.

  Romantic prospects: It’s Keaton Whitfield.

  “The one thing you need to know about me is I’m nothing like my so-called father. The media may paint me as a heartbreaker, but it’s not true. I have never made a promise I couldn’t keep. In fact, I’ve decided to avoid women entirely while I’m here in Austin. Francesca Harriman doesn’t count. She’s my favorite waitress at Lola May’s Homestyle Restaurant, and besides, everyone says she doesn’t date. So there’s no danger here. No possibility of falling for her golden curls, that creamy skin, that curvy figure... I simply love puzzles, and Francesca is an intriguing one. Why doesn’t she date? And is there any man who could make her change her mind? Oh, wait. Right. I am avoiding women entirely...”

  THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS: The Secret Fortunes—A new generation of heroes and heartbreakers!

  Dear Reader,

  I’m excited to welcome you back to life with the Fortunes of Texas. There are new adventures and discoveries and many more happy-ever-afters. Much like my heroine, Francesca Harriman, I wasn’t the type of girl to be swept off my feet by a man. But if I had the opportunity, Keaton Fortune Whitfield is exactly the type of man I’d choose. He’s handsome, kind and has the most amazing British accent.

  Raised by a single mother, Keaton never expected to become a Fortune, and he has mixed feelings about Gerald Robinson, the man who broke his mom’s heart. But when he meets Francesca, there’s no questioning his feelings for her. There’s an immediate spark of attraction between them that quickly turns into something far deeper.

  Francesca has been burned by love in the past, so she’s reluctant to believe that a handsome, sexy Fortune could want a regular girl like her. Can Keaton prove to this spunky waitress that he’s the man to sweep her off her feet and make all her dreams come true?

  Thank you for sharing their journey with me!

  All the best,

  Michelle Major

  A Fortune in Waiting

  Michelle Major

  Michelle Major grew up in Ohio but dreamed of living in the mountains. Soon after graduating with a degree in journalism, she pointed her car west and settled in Colorado. Her life and house are filled with one great husband, two beautiful kids, a few furry pets and several well-behaved reptiles. She’s grateful to have found her passion writing stories with happy endings. Michelle loves to hear from her readers at michellemajor.com.

  Books by Michelle Major

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Crimson, Colorado

  Christmas on Crimson Mountain

  Always the Best Man

  A Baby and a Betrothal

  A Very Crimson Christmas

  Suddenly a Father

  A Second Chance at Crimson Ranch

  A Kiss on Crimson Ranch

  A Brevia Beginning

  Her Accidental Engagement

  Still the One

  The Fortunes of Texas: All Fortune’s Children

  Fortune’s Special Delivery

  The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country

  The Taming of Delaney Fortune

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  To Susan and Marcia for everything you do to make this journey such an enjoyable one.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Wild Horse Springs by Jodi Thomas

  Prologue

  Keaton Whitfield watched the snow fall outside the front window of his mother’s cozy flat on the edge of London. The fluffy flakes, cast in a golden hue thanks to the streetlight, floated down for only a few minutes before the night sky cleared again.

  “I can’t remember the last time it snowed on Christmas,” his mother said, coming to stand beside him. “It’s good luck.”

  Keaton wrapped an arm around his mum, pulling her in for a quick hug. She was several inches shorter than his own six foot two and her dark hair was liberally streaked with gray, but she still had the same comforting scent of lavender that he always associated with her. “Everything is good luck to you.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

  “You are my best bit of luck,” she answered and turned to face him. “I’m so glad you chose to spend Christmas with us this year, Keaton.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, Mum.” He thought for a moment of his own empty flat across town. It had been almost two years since he’d headed up the renovation of the building he lived in near the center of the city. His apartment was spacious and new, boasting a state-of-the-art design that had led one London magazine to name Keaton the heir apparent to one of the UK’s most famous architects, Lord Foster.

  But as much as Keaton appreciated the style and amenities of his posh apartment, he’d spent each of the past thirty-three holidays with his mother, having Christmas dinner around the slightly shabby oak table in the house where he’d been raised. Keaton might have earned the finer things in life through his success, but he’d always appreciate where he came from and the woman who sacrificed so much to make sure he had a good life.

  “Yet you’re still set on leaving me?” she asked, a small catch to her voice.

  He turned and glanced down, hating the worry his mother couldn’t quite hide from her gentle blue eyes. Anita Whitfield still wore her hair in the same simple bob she’d had since Keaton was a lad. Delicate lines fanned out from the corners of her eyes, and her mouth pulled down on either side before she forced it into a smile.

  “I’m moving to Austin for a project,” he corrected. “That
isn’t the same thing as leaving you. I’ll be gone for a few months and now that you have a smartphone, we can text or FaceTime whenever you want.”

  “That phone you gave me is so smart it makes me feel like a regular idiot,” she complained, making Keaton smile.

  “You’re getting the hang of it,” he told her.

  She sniffed. “In the past few days, I’ve made more accidental calls with my bottom than by actually dialing any numbers.”

  He pulled his mother in for a hug. “I’m going to miss you.”

  She squeezed him tightly before stepping away. “I hope you know you don’t have anything to prove to your father,” she whispered.

  “Gerald Robinson,” Keaton said through clenched teeth, “is not my father.”

  “Keaton.” Anita cupped his cheek like she used to do when he was a boy. “I know he hurt you.”

  He turned toward the display of his mother’s Lemax Christmas Village. He rearranged the tiny figures in front of Santa’s workshop, setting them together in groups of three or four. As a boy, his mother’s miniature buildings, figurines and holiday landscapes had been off limits, but he’d routinely snuck over to it, setting the small porcelain figurines into family units, the kind he’d never known.

  Until last year, the identity of the man who had deserted his mother when she’d been pregnant with Keaton had remained a mystery. Keaton had been aware, in the inexplicable way of children, that his mother’s heart had been broken by her short-lived love affair. Even as boy, he’d hated the wistful sorrow that filled her eyes when he’d asked about his father. So he’d stopped asking. Instead, he’d channeled his energy into hating the stranger who—to his young mind—was the reason his mum had been forced to work two jobs and still continually scrimp and save in order to support the two of them.

  Now that he knew that man was Gerald Robinson, the ridiculously successful and wealthy technology mogul, he was more determined than ever to prove that he’d been better off never knowing his father as a boy.

  “You were the one he hurt,” he answered. “Gerald Robinson is nothing to me. I don’t have a thing to prove to that man.”

  He said the words with conviction, even though he and his mother both knew they were a lie.

  Anita placed a hand on his arm, squeezing softly. “You’ll do well in America,” she murmured, “and I know it will be lovely to visit with the other Fortunes again.”

  Keaton nodded. As bitter of a pill as it was to learn that Gerald, who had years ago faked his death as Jerome Fortune so that he could start a new life, was his biological father, Keaton had enjoyed getting to know his half brothers and sisters. He’d always envied his mates who came from big families, and being a part of the Fortune clan—despite his feelings for Gerald—filled a bit of the void inside him.

  “You two lovelies had better get seated,” a voice called from the hallway that led to the flat’s kitchen, “Or you’re going to miss the whole of the Christmas feast.”

  Keaton took a breath and smiled, watching his mother do the same. Lydia Miles, one of Anita’s close-knit circle of friends, beckoned to them.

  Keaton might not have had a large family growing up, but he’d never lacked for love. His mother had cultivated a group of women, her own little village of mother hens, and Keaton had been at the center of their sweetly smothering love and attention.

  As he followed his mother into the kitchen, he was accosted on all sides by this brigade of pseudo-mums. They kissed and hugged and pinched his cheek as if, at six foot two, he didn’t tower above the lot of them.

  “I’ve made your favorite pudding,” Mary Jane told him.

  “And I’ve brought prawns,” Lydia added.

  Not to be outdone, Jessa held a plate under his nose. “Don’t forget my pigs in a blanket.”

  Keaton laughed and plucked one of the bacon-wrapped sausages off the tray. “I’m going to need to loosen my belt a notch after this dinner,” he said and popped it into his mouth.

  “Ah, dearie,” Lydia said, patting him on the shoulder. “Word on the street is you have plenty of notches to go around.”

  Keaton promptly choked on the sausage, and the women gathered even closer to take turns gently slapping him on the back.

  “Give him some room,” Anita shouted with a laugh. The other women backed away and his real mother handed him a glass of water.

  “There are no notches on my belt,” he muttered, clearing his throat.

  His mother raised a brow.

  “At least not recently,” he amended.

  Ever since discovering that Gerald might have a whole passel of illegitimate Fortunes from various dalliances with women over the years, Keaton had curbed his own dating life until it was nonexistent. He was careful with women—both their hearts and in the bedroom—and had remained friends with almost all of his ex-girlfriends. But he still wanted there to be no mistaking the fact that he was nothing like his womanizing father.

  Part of why he’d taken the position with the firm in Austin was to work with his half brother Ben on tracking down other children sired by Gerald. Keaton was determined to make it clear that he hadn’t inherited the “ship in every port” tendency of the elder Robinson.

  “Sit down,” his mother said, pushing him into a chair at the head of the table. “We can talk about your plans to settle down while we eat.”

  “I have no plans to settle down,” he argued, earning a round of reprimanding tsks from the other women. “Sorry, ladies.” He grabbed the wineglass that sat to one side of his plate and took a fortifying gulp. “I’m focused on work right now.”

  “Work doesn’t warm you under the covers on a cold winter night,” Lydia mused.

  “And you’re such a lovely chap.” Mary Jane beamed at him.

  Jessa nodded. “A true catch, Keaton. That’s what you are. And those of us who love and adore you aren’t getting any younger.”

  Although he had a feeling he’d regret it, he asked, “Why would you need to get younger?”

  His mother dropped into the chair next to him and took his hand. “We love you, darling. But we want some grandbabies to spoil.”

  Keaton stifled a groan and took another drink, hoping his mother had more than one bottle on the ready. This was going to be the longest Christmas night of his life.

  Chapter One

  “Y’all back away from that poor man or else his supper’s liable to get cold.”

  The two waitresses who had been leaning over the counter at Lola May’s Homestyle Restaurant slowly straightened.

  “Just say one more thing for us,” Emmalyn, the petite blonde, cooed.

  “How about ‘I’ll have mine shaken not stirred,’” prompted the buxom redhead, whose nametag read “Brandi, with an i”—as if customers in Texas needed the clarification.

  “I mean it, you two. Get going.” Lola May, owner and namesake of the diner, swatted at the two young women with the corner of a dishtowel.

  “Another time, luv,” Keaton told Brandi, earning a girlish giggle as she backed away.

  Lola May, who looked every bit of her sixty-plus years but had a mischievous smile that softened her hard edges, rolled her blue eyes at him. She was exactly the image he had of the type of woman who would run a casual, neighborhood diner in Austin, Texas. One part old-school cowgirl mixed with two parts aging hippie.

  Her platinum blond hair, with about a half inch of gray roots, was spiked around her pixie face and each of the past three days he’d been in for dinner, her heavy eye makeup had matched her sparkling earrings. The color du jour was turquoise green and it gave her clear blue eyes an almost otherworldly look when she blinked. The lines across her forehead and fanning out from her eyes could only have been put there by years of stress and hard work.

  He recognized them because they reminded him of
his mother. Although Anita and Lola May on the surface had nothing in common, there was something about the diner owner that helped ease the twinges of loneliness he’d felt since arriving in Austin a week ago.

  The diner was directly across the street from the site of the project he’d come to America to manage, and only a few blocks from the apartment he’d rented. It had been easy to slip into the pattern of having dinner each night at Lola May’s lime-green Formica counter.

  He forced his gaze not to stray to the woman hunched over a laptop in the corner booth. That particular waitress had nothing to do with the reason he’d so quickly become a diner regular. Or so he’d been trying to convince himself for the past week.

  Lola May wagged a red-tipped nail in his direction. “You’ll never get any peace if you keep charming the waitresses with that accent and your cheeky smile.”

  Keaton winked at the older woman. “Well, darlin’,” he drawled in an exaggerated Texas accent, “would it make you happy if I sounded more like a local?”

  “Stick to 007,” she said, barking out a laugh. “’Cause you sure ain’t no John Wayne.”

  He bit back a grin when she slid a plate with a piece of apple pie onto the counter in front of him. “I don’t remember ordering that,” he argued half-heartedly.

  “But you’re going to devour it as always,” she shot back then leaned closer. “You’ve ended every meal here with a slice of my pie. Trust Miss Lola May, handsome. I know what you need.”

  At the word need, Keaton couldn’t help glance to the corner booth.

  “Need and want are two different things, sugar,” Lola May said softly.

  “Everyone flirts with me except her.”

  Keaton didn’t realize he’d spoken the words out loud until Lola May chuckled. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist over Francesca,” she cautioned. “It isn’t that she doesn’t like you, but our girl gives new meaning to the phrase ‘nose to the grindstone.’”

  One side of Keaton’s mouth curved as he watched the gorgeous blonde in the corner blow a wayward curl out of her face before typing furiously on her laptop’s keyboard.