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      To

      Kate Ellie Conrad

      Welcome to the world,

      little one

       Chapter One

       March

      Marcos Mendoza knew better than to allow his anger to show on his face. Especially in front of people who were more than family—they were his employers.

      But there was no denying that he was angry. After proving over and over again to his aunt and uncle, María and José Mendoza, that he had the business savvy to run Red, their wildly successful restaurant in Red Rock, Texas, his opinion had been completely discounted. Worse, it had been ignored to the point that neither one of them had even asked him for it.

      If they had, he would have gladly told them that hiring Wendy Fortune was as bad an idea as serving their loyal patrons five-day-old salmon.

      Never mind that the twenty-one-year-old heiress was as beautiful as a Texas June sunrise, that she had long brown hair, sparkling brown eyes and a figure that could make a grown man babble like a two-year-old when it was set off to its best advantage. Marcos knew a flirt when he saw one, and this barely-out-of-her-teens woman was a flirt with a capital F-L. She was also trouble.

      He was well acquainted with her type.

      Marcos had to admit—silently—that a woman as attractive as Wendy would have definitely piqued his interest on an after-hours, social level. But as a non-productive member of his crew, well, that was an entirely different matter.

      He’d been exposed to her type more than once and was well aware of the ingrained flaws that were as much a part of someone like Wendy Fortune as her high cheekbones and her expressive eyes.

      The youngest sibling of the Atlanta branch of the Fortune family wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth—she’d had an entire place setting.

      He keenly resented being saddled with this fluff of an employee just because her parents were friends with his aunt and uncle and had asked the pair to indulge them with this one favor. The productive rhythm at Red was being threatened because the senior Fortunes were desperate to teach their college-dropout daughter some kind of work ethic.

      Let her be a dead weight somewhere else. Not in my restaurant, he thought grudgingly.

      It wasn’t as if the Fortunes didn’t have a great many other businesses scattered around the state and beyond. He’d heard via the grapevine that their darling daughter had already failed miserably at the Fortune Foundation’s office in Red Rock. But why didn’t they send her to one of their other places of business? He’d nurtured and babied Red for the last year as if it were a beloved extension of himself. His ultimate goal was to learn all he could about the business end of running a large restaurant and then, one day, to open up a place of his own.

      He’d worked hard for his opportunities, Marcos thought dourly. Someone like Wendy, a young woman born to privilege and surely demanding more of the same, couldn’t possibly measure up to his standards. Every man had his breaking point—and he had this uneasy feeling that she was going to be his.

      Struggling to keep his intense displeasure under wraps, Marcos faced his aunt and uncle. It wasn’t often that they both came in to deliver news—they obviously knew this was not going to be received well.

      And they were so right, he thought.

      He leveled his question at both of them. “What am I supposed to do with her?”

      Other than the obvious, he couldn’t help adding silently. Wendy Fortune had “party girl” written all over her. He sincerely doubted that the woman even knew what it meant to do real work, which was probably why the foundation, created in the memory of the late Ryan Fortune, had sent her packing.

      “You put her to work, of course, Marcos,” María answered, employing her sharp, no-nonsense voice. She was apparently not happy about this arrangement, either, but indicating as much to Marcos would not help. She’d always believed in making the best of any situation. Complaining about it never helped.

      This time, Marcos couldn’t keep the frown from his lips. “No disrespect intended, Tía, but I do the paperwork on a regular basis and file it away. I have no need for a

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