Summer of Love Marie Ferrarella (easy books to read in english TXT) 📖

“Why? Did I forget to remove a tag?” Lila asked nervously, looking down at her gown and then trying to look over her shoulder to see if there were any telltale tags hanging from the back.

“No, you didn’t forget to remove a tag, silly. It just has that first-time-off-a-hanger look.” Looking past Lila, Lucie raised her hand and waved.

“Who are you waving at? Chase?” Lila asked, referring to her friend’s husband. Scanning the immediate area, Lila tried to get a glimpse of the rancher.

“Chase is off talking to Graham about that pet project of theirs, the center for military equine therapy,” Lucie said. She was talking about Graham Fortune, the man who not only had taken over Fortune Cosmetics but also owned the successful Peter’s Place, a home where troubled teens were helped to put their lives together. “No,” Lucie told her, a very satisfied smile playing on her lips, “I was waving at the person I said would have been disappointed if you’d decided not to attend tonight.”

Before Lila could ask any more questions, she suddenly found herself looking up at someone she’d never expected to see.

Everett. In an obligatory tuxedo.

At that moment Lila realized Everett in a tuxedo was even more irresistible than Everett in jeans.

Face it, the man would be irresistible even wearing a kilt.

“What are you doing here?” Lila asked when she finally located her tongue and remembered how to use it.

“You know, we’re going to have to work on getting you a new opening line to say every time you see me,” Everett told her with a laugh. “But to answer your question, I was invited.”

Lucie stepped up with a slightly more detailed explanation to her friend’s question. “The invitation was the Foundation’s way of saying thank-you to Everett for his volunteer work.”

“Disappointed to see me?” he asked Lila. There was a touch of humor in his voice, although he wasn’t quite sure just what to make of the stunned expression on Lila’s face.

“No, of course not,” Lila denied quickly. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I thought you were still back in Houston.”

“I was,” Everett confirmed. “The invitation was express-mailed to me yesterday. I thought it would be rude to ignore it, so here I am,” he told her simply, as if all he had to do was teleport himself from one location to another instead of drive nearly one hundred and seventy miles.

“Here you are,” Lila echoed.

Everything inside her was smiling and she knew that was a dangerous thing. Because when she was in that sort of frame of mind, she tended not to be careful. And that was when mistakes were made.

Mistakes with consequences.

She was going to have to be on her guard, Lila silently warned herself. And it wasn’t going to be easy being vigilant, not when Everett looked absolutely, bone-meltingly gorgeous.

As if his dark looks weren’t already enough, Lila thought, the tuxedo made Everett look particularly dashing.

You’re not eighteen anymore, remember? Lila reminded herself. You’re a woman. A woman who has to be very, very careful.

She just hoped she could remember that.

“Since your last name practically sounds like Fortune,” Lucie was saying to Everett, flanking him on the other side, “maybe you’d like to meet a Fortune or two—or twelve,” she teased.

He turned to look at Lila. “Is that all right with you?”

The fact that he asked surprised her. “Why would I object?” she asked, puzzled.

Bending over, he whispered into her ear. “I thought, looking like that,” he paused to allow his eyes to skim over her from top to bottom, “maybe you’d want me all to yourself.”

She wasn’t sure if it was what he said, or his warm breath in her ear that caused the shiver to run rampant up and down her spine.

Whatever it was, it took everything Lila had not to let it get the better of her. She knew where that sort of thing led her. To heaven and then, eventually, to hell as a consequence.

That wasn’t going to happen again, she silently swore.

Clearing her throat, Lila ignored the last part of what he’d said and crisply answered, “Yes, it’s fine with me.”

Lucie smiled. “Then let the introductions begin,” she announced, taking charge.

Lucie led off with her husband, Chase. The latter was a genial man who struck Everett as being very down-to-earth, considering the fact that he was an extremely wealthy man.

It was while Everett was talking to Chase that he was introduced to Graham Fortune Robinson. Graham, Everett was told, was one of Jerome Fortune/Gerald Robinson’s eight legitimate offspring. Again, rather than behaving as if he was spoiled or indifferent, or extremely entitled—all traits that Everett had seen displayed by many of the wealthy people he’d grown up with—Graham Fortune came across as only interested in the amount of good he could do with the money he had.

The man, like so many of the other Fortunes who were there that evening, had a keen interest in philanthropy, Everett concluded.

While he was being introduced to and talking with various members of the Fortune clan, Everett found himself exploring the subject that was so near and dear to Schuyler’s heart: that perhaps there was some sort of a family connection between the Fortune family and his own. Was “Fortunado” just a poor attempt by someone in the previous generation to either connect to the Fortunes, or to clumsily try to hide that connection?

Everett’s radar went up even higher when, after Lucie said that her connection to Graham went beyond just bloodlines, Graham joked that it seemed like everyone was related to him these days.

Everett forced himself to bite his tongue in order to refrain from asking Graham if, by that comment, he was referring to the Fortunados.

The next moment, Graham cleared up the possible confusion by saying that he was referring to the fact that numerous illegitimate Fortune offspring had been located over the past couple of years. Apparently, many years ago the prodigious patriarch Jerome Fortune had deliberately disappeared. When he had resurfaced, he had changed his