Sweet Fortune

presently involved. That meant she was in a very treacherous position. There was no denying her own interest in him, and on those occasions when he made her the sole focus of his attention, she was in serious danger of succumbing entirely.
    A moth dancing around a flame .
    Jessie closed her eyes and conjured up a picture of the man who had become her nemesis during the past two months. His personality was strongly reflected in his physical characteristics. He was built along lean, powerful, curiously graceful lines. His long-figured swordsman's hands went well with his austere, ascetic features.
    She had tried to tell herself in the beginning that there was no fire beneath the cold, polite surface of the man, but she had known she was fooling herself right from the start. The problem was that, just as with warriors and saints, the fire in Hatch would never burn for any woman. It burned for an empire—the kingdom he planned to build on the cornerstone of Benedict Fasteners.
    Hatch had the full support of Vincent Benedict and the entire Benedict family for his ambitions. He had dangled an irresistible lure in front of all the Benedicts: in exchange for a chunk of the small, thriving regional business that was now Benedict Fasteners, he would take the company into the big time. Benedict Fasteners was a company based quite literally on nuts and bolts. It designed and manufactured a wide variety of products used in construction and manufacturing to hold things together. It had the potential to grow into a giant in the industry, a conglomerate that could dominate a huge market share. All it needed was a man of vision and enterprise at the helm.
    Everyone in the family was convinced that Sam Hatchard was that man.
    Of course, the only one who had really needed to be convinced was Vincent Benedict, the founder of the firm. And he had taken to Hatch immediately. The relationship that had developed between the two men was as profound as it was inevitable. Jessie had sensed it from the first moment she had seen her father and Hatch together in the same room. Hatch was the son her father had never had. Which might make him an excellent choice to take Benedict Fasteners into the big time but definitely made him lousy husband material, Jessie thought grimly.
    Sam Hatchard was thirty-seven. Jessie had concluded that it would probably be another thirty years, if ever, before he mellowed. She was not about to give him that long. She was surely not that big a fool.
    But the terrible truth, the heavy burden that weighed her down these days, was the knowledge that although she was running from Hatch, she was not running fast enough, and she knew it. The moth in her was strongly tempted to play with fire. Hatch had sensed the weakness and he was deliberately using it. It was no big secret. Everyone in the family was using it.
    In one of the saner corners of her mind, Jessie was well aware that if she allowed herself to fall into Sam Hatchard's clutches she would be condemning herself to a marriage of unbearable frustration and unhappiness. She would be repeating the same mistake her mother had made in marrying Vincent Benedict. She would be tying herself to a driven man, a man who would never find room in his life for a wife and a family.
    The end result of all her wallowing about in such a morass of conflicting emotions was, naturally, chaos for Jessie. For the last month, as Hatch's subtle pursuit gradually intensified, she had found herself dancing closer and closer to the flame, unable to resist, yet unable to surrender to what she knew would be disaster. It was ridiculous. She had to put a stop to the bizarre situation.
    She had to learn to just say no.
    The phone rang in her ear. Jessie started and jerked back in the chair. She automatically stretched a hand out toward the receiver and then hesitated, letting the answering machine take the call. There was a click, a recorded message of her own voice saying that the office was closed but that all calls would be returned as soon as possible, and then her friend Alison Kent came on the line.
    Ever since Alison had become a stockbroker, her voice had taken on the upbeat cadences of a professional cheerleader. Jessie could almost see her old friend wearing a short skirt and waving a pom-pom as she made her cold calls.
    “Jessie, this is Alison at Caine, Carter, and Peat. Give me a call as soon as possible. I've just found out about an incredible opportunity in a new fat-free