Page 46 of A Fortunes of Texas Christmas (Fortunes of Texas)

Amersen stared at her. “Not a good idea.”

“I’m not talking about...Gerald,” she said, faltering a little over his name. “But Graham and Ben and Kieran and—”

“They mean nothing to me,” he said again, cutting through her words as she began rattling off the names of his biological half siblings. “My family is here. You and Papa and Claire. And frankly, I’m sure they have as many reservations about meeting as I do.”

She shrugged lightly. “Perhaps, but remember that they contacted you first... That makes their feelings plain enough, don’t you think?”

“Keaton Whitfield contacted me first,” he reminded her coolly. “And he is another of Gerald Robinson’s...mistakes.”

Suzette sat back in her seat and stared at him, her gaze softening as the seconds ticked by. “You know, I have never considered you to be a mistake. When I found out I was pregnant, I could only think that you were a blessing. And I still do.”

Guilt pitched between his shoulder blades. “Maman, I didn’t mean to—”

“I did love him,” she said, her eyes glittering. “Very much. And I truly believed he cared for me. And despite how things ended between me and Gerald, you were conceived in love. Gerald’s behavior, once I found out I was pregnant, had nothing to do with you—it was about his own obligations and responsibilities. He was married...something I knew when we began our affair. Children are always the innocents in these things, and the Robinson children are just as blameless as you.”

Amersen’s instinctive resentment kicked in. “I think they use the name Fortune now,” he said evenly.

“That’s their prerogative, I suppose. Gerald was Jerome Fortune before he became the man I knew. And blood...blood is hard to deny. They were lovely children—chances are they have grown into good people. People who, despite your reluctance to admit it, are your family. And a family that might be worth knowing.”

Amersen didn’t agree. “You’re my mother. Luc Beaudin is my father. Claire is my sister. That’s all the family I need. Or want.”

“Until you get married and have children of your own, yes?”

He shrugged uncomfortably. “Maybe. One day.”

Her mouth curled. “Something you want to tell me?”

“Not a thing,” he replied, eager to end the conversation.

His mother clearly wasn’t ready to let it go. “You were out of orbit for a whole week—no phone calls, no Instagram, no provocative blog posts. You might want everyone to believe that you were in Texas to see Kate Fortune, but I know you, Amersen...you never fly that low under the radar. Secret business deal or not. If yo

ur low profile wasn’t about running into your half siblings, then it was something else. And I’m guessing,” she said with a grin, “that it has something to do with a girl.”

Amersen jumped to his feet as though he had hot coals in his shoes. Robin. He was tired of thinking about her. Tired of dreaming about her. Tired of comparing every woman he met to her. He was uncharacteristically confused and didn’t understand why he had a knot of rage constantly churning in his gut at the mere idea that she’d brushed him off so easily. He should have been relieved. He should have returned home and gotten back to his life and dated whomever he wanted to and slept with someone else to get the memory of her out of his system. But he didn’t. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t interested in casual dating. And he was even less inclined to have casual sex.

Because he only wanted Robin.

Getting to know her, spending time with her, kissing her, making love with her. It had all seemed disturbingly surreal. And yet, somehow, the most real thing he’d ever experienced.

C’est juste du sexe...

It’s just sex.

It couldn’t be more. He didn’t do more. He didn’t make promises. He didn’t break hearts. He didn’t leave a trail of destruction in his wake.

I am not my father...

The acknowledgment exploded in his head like a nuclear bomb.

“Amersen?”

His mother’s voice brought him back to earth. “I’m fine, Maman.”

She still didn’t look convinced. “You’re a grown man, and I never tell you how to live your life—even if I sometimes don’t approve of your casual approach to things. I’m not going to tell you how to feel about Gerald or your half siblings—or anything else,” she added pointedly. “That being said, if you left unfinished business back in Austin, maybe you need to return and either sign on the dotted line or break the deal once and for all.”

Later, once his mother had left and Amersen thought about her words. Rife with platitudes, certainly—but she had a point. He wasn’t done with Austin. He wasn’t done with the Fortunes. And he wasn’t done with Robin.

Which meant one thing—he was heading back to Texas.

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