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An Officer and a Millionaire by Maureen Child

“What are you up to? Why are you here, in my bedroom?

“Why are you telling everyone in town that we’re married?”

“Your bedroom,” she muttered, inhaling so sharply her towel opened wide and swished silently down her body.

Hunter got one more good look at full, high breasts. His own body sat up and howled. Then she muttered a curse, grabbed the towel and wrapped herself up again.

“Your bedroom? That’s a good one. I’ve been living in this suite of rooms for a year now, and funny, but I don’t remember seeing you.”

“A year? You’ve been pretending to be my wife, living in my house, for a year?”

What the hell was going on around here?

Mr Strictly Business by Day Leclaire

“If it makes you feel better,” Gabe said, “I’ll simply explain that you and I are an item again.”

Alarm flared to life in Catherine’s eyes. “Excuse me?”

“After all, it won’t be a complete fabrication. In fact, it won’t be a fabrication at all.”

She tensed. “What are you talking about?”

“You never asked my price for helping you.”

She inhaled sharply before lifting her chin. “How foolish of me. I’d forgotten what a pirate you are, Gabe.”

“That’s me,” he agreed lazily. “A pirate to the bone.”

“So what’s your price? What do you want?”

He gave it to her hard and straight. “You. I want you, Catherine. Back in my life. Back in my apartment. And back in my bed.”

An Officer and A Millionaire

by

Maureen Child
Mr Strictly Business

by

Day Leclaire

MILLS & BOON®

www.millsandboon.co.uk

An Officer And
A Millionaire

By

Maureen Child

Maureen Child is a California native who loves to travel. Every chance they get, she and her husband are taking off on another research trip. An author of more than sixty books, Maureen loves a happy ending and still swears that she has the best job in the world. She lives in Southern California with her husband, two children and a golden retriever with delusions of grandeur.

Dear Reader,

In An Officer and a Millionaire, you’ll meet Hunter Cabot, Navy SEAL. Hunter’s a loner and he likes it that way. His only family is a grandfather he rarely sees. Until he gets a sixty-day leave, goes home and discovers that he also has a wife he’s never met.

Margie Donohue is a loner, too—the only difference is that she’s tired of being alone. She’s looking for a place to belong. When her “husband” shows up unexpectedly though, she may be forced to give up the home she’s finally found.

I hope you enjoy Hunter and Margie’s story—I had a lot of fun writing it! Please visit my website at www. maureenchild.com and let me know what you think of the book!

And happy reading!

Maureen Child

To Desire Readers, You’ve made all of this possible with your loyalty and your enthusiasm for what we do! Thank you all.

Chapter One

Hunter Cabot, Navy SEAL, had a healing bullet wound in his side, thirty days’ leave and apparently a wife he’d never met.

On the drive into his hometown of Springville, California, he stopped for gas at Charlie Evans’s service station. That’s where the trouble started.

“Hunter! Man, it’s good to see you! Margie didn’t tell us you were coming home.”

“Margie?” Hunter leaned back against the front fender of his black pickup truck and winced as his side gave a small twinge of pain. Silently then, he watched as the man he’d known since high school filled his tank.

Charlie grinned, shook his head and pumped gas. “Guess your wife was lookin’ for a little ‘alone’ time with you, huh?”

“My—” Hunter couldn’t even say the word. Wife? He didn’t have a wife. “Look, Charlie…”

“Don’t blame her, of course,” his friend said with a wink as he finished up and put the gas cap back on. “You being gone all the time with the SEALs must be hard on the ol’ love life.”

He’d never had any complaints, Hunter thought, frowning at the man still talking a mile a minute. “What’re you—”

“Bet Margie’s anxious to see you. She told us all about that honeymoon trip you two took to Bali.” Charlie’s dark brown eyebrows lifted and wiggled.

“Charlie…”

“Hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to say a thing, man.”

What the hell could he say? Hunter shook his head, paid for his gas and, as he left, told himself Charlie was just losing it. Maybe the guy’d been smelling gas fumes for too long.

But as it turned out, it wasn’t just Charlie. Stopped at a red light on Main Street, Hunter glanced out his window to smile at Mrs. Harker, his second-grade teacher, who was now at least a hundred years old. In the middle of the crosswalk, the old woman stopped and shouted, “Hunter Cabot, you’ve got yourself a wonderful wife. I hope you appreciate her.”

Scowling now, he only nodded at the old woman—the only teacher who’d ever scared the crap out of him. What the hell was going on here? Was everyone but him nuts?

His temper beginning to boil. He put up with a few more comments about his “wife” on the drive through town before finally pulling into the wide, circular drive leading to the Cabot mansion. Hunter didn’t have a clue what was going on, but he planned to get to the bottom of it. Fast.

He grabbed his duffel bag, stalked into the house and paid no attention to the housekeeper, who ran at him, fluttering both hands. “Mister Hunter!”

“Sorry, Sophie,” he called out over his shoulder as he took the stairs two at a time. “Need a shower; then we’ll talk.”

He marched down the long, carpeted hallway to the rooms that were always kept ready for him. In his suite, Hunter tossed the duffel down and stopped dead. The shower in his bathroom was running. His wife?

Anger and curiosity boiled in his gut, creating a churning mass that had him moving forward without even thinking about it.

He opened the bathroom door to a wall of steam and the sound of a woman singing—off-key. Margie, no doubt.

Well, if she was his wife…Hunter walked across the room, yanked the shower door open and stared in at a curvy, naked, temptingly wet woman.

She whirled around to face him, slapping her arms across her naked body while she gave a short, terrified scream.

Hunter smiled. “Hi, honey. I’m home.”

“Who—what—how—who—”

“Now, honey,” he drawled the words out, completely enjoying watching the shock ripple across her features, “is that any way to greet your husband?”

“I—I—”

He had her nervous—that was for damn sure, he told himself. Easy enough to see by the way her eyes darted from one side of the room to the other, as if looking for an escape route.

Well, there wasn’t one. She wasn’t going anywhere until he had some answers. But that wasn’t to say he couldn’t make her as uncomfortable as possible. No better than she deserved for pretending to be his wife, for God’s sake.

The shower area was directly behind her, and steam twisted in the air like fog. A quick glance around the once familiar bathroom allowed Hunter to notice the jars and bottles of lotions women seemed to be unable to live without. Plus, the black towels he preferred had been replaced with navy-blue. Not to mention a vase full of flowers in the corner of the marble vanity counter.

Looked as though she’d made herself damned comfortable in his home, too. Which meant she’d been lying to his grandfather. Damn it. Fresh anger churned in his gut, and he had to fight to contain it. This naked, curvy, all-too-delectable woman had been lying to a lonely old man. Probably wormed her way into his affections and was no doubt stealing him blind to boot. Well, her game, whatever it was, was up. He didn’t care how good she looked naked. Well, he cared, but not enough to let himself get sidetracked.

He took a step closer and caught the delicious scent of her. Jasmine, if he wasn’t mistaken, and something inside him stirred. It had been a while since he’d had a woman. He’d been too busy with mission after mission and hadn’t wanted to bother. But now, with a naked, wet, terrific-smelling woman within arm’s reach, his body was snapping to attention despite the fact that he was as furious as he was aroused.

She was watching him as though she were a rabbit and he a cobra.

So, she was perceptive as well as a liar.

“What, no kiss?” he asked, moving in even closer. If she dropped one arm, he’d have another look at her high, full breasts. “Didn’t you miss me, honey?”

She jerked a quick look behind her, saw no help there and whipped her head back around to glare at him. The action sent tiny droplets of water flinging from the ends of her dark red, curly hair, and they hit Hunter’s face like raindrops.

“You just keep your distance, you…pervert.”

“Pervert?” He snorted a laugh and wiped the water from his face with one hand. “I’m just a husband trying to greet his wife.”

“There’s no greeting going on here. At all.” Sidestepping fast, she snatched a navy-blue towel off the closest rod and wrapped it around herself in the blink of an eye.

Too bad. Hunter had enjoyed the view and the glimpse of peaked pink nipples he’d had just before she’d covered up. If nothing else, his “wife” had a body designed to make a man want to spend some time exploring those curves.

Now, though, she was managing to look down on him even though she was a full foot shorter than he was. The ice in her emerald-green eyes was enough to give a lesser man frostbite. But Hunter had the fires of righteous anger on his side, so he wasn’t moved. Meeting her stare with an icy glare of his own, he demanded shortly, “Who the hell are you?”

“Who am I?” She whipped her head to one side, and her soaking wet hair swung back and out of her eyes, spraying Hunter with another spill of droplets. Frantically, she tucked one end of the towel into the valley between her breasts. But she was breathing so hard, the terry cloth shield she was obviously depending on didn’t look any too stable. “I’m in my bathroom taking a shower, minding my own business when—Oh, God.” Her eyes widened. “You’re…I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you right away. But you scared me and—”

He flicked another lazy glance at her now scantily clad body. “Babe, if I scared you, you had it coming. Imagine how it felt for me to find out from every-damn-body in town that I have a wife.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake…”

“That about covers it,” Hunter snapped, taking another step toward her. His voice was deceptively quiet. “See, I’ve got a month’s leave coming. Decided to head home, do some recuperating, check in with my grandfather…” He walked a small, tight circle around her and enjoyed the watchful look in her eyes as she slowly turned in place to follow his progress.

“Imagine my surprise when everywhere I go in town, people are telling me how excited my wife is gonna be to see me.”

“Well, I’m not. Excited,” she added, as if he’d missed that. “More like irritated,” she said. “Annoyed, really.”

“Now that’s a damn shame.” Hunter stopped directly in front of her and did his best to loom. Wasn’t difficult. Since he was taller than his “wife,” forcing her to tilt her head back to look up at him was all too easy. “You think you’re annoyed?”

“Wouldn’t you be, when a perfect stranger sneaks into your shower like a scene out of the movie Psycho? All that was missing was that hideous, screechy violin music.”

If she had been scared, she’d recovered now, Hunter thought. “I’m not the one in the wrong here, babe. You’re the liar. You’re the intruder.”

“Is that right?” She sniffed, plopped both hands on her towel-covered hips and started tapping one bare foot against the bathroom rug.

“Straight up, that’s right. You know damn well we’re not married, so why don’t you tell me what your scam is? And how the hell did you convince my grandfather to let you into the house?” The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. “Simon’s nobody’s fool, so you must be the queen of con artists.”

“Con artist?” She slapped both hands against his chest and shoved. He didn’t even sway in place. But her towel slipped a notch. He had hopes of another good look at her.

“If you think you’re scoring points by acting all outraged,” Hunter told her, his gaze dropping briefly to the slippage of her towel, “you’re wrong.”

She fumed silently for a second or two, and Hunter could have sworn he actually saw the wheels in her brain turning, calculating, figuring.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she muttered.

“Oh, that’s a good one, babe. I’m the one who’s not supposed to be here?”

“You didn’t tell Simon you were coming.” She scowled at him. “And stop calling me ‘babe.’”

“I’ll call you whatever I damn well please. And you’re lucky I’m not calling the cops.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“As for my not letting Simon know I was coming, I consider that a good thing,” he told her, meeting those hard green eyes with a cold look that should have frozen her on the spot. “Hard to catch a liar and a cheat if she knows you’re coming.”

“I am not a—you’re really a very irritating man, did you know that?” She cocked her head to one side, and her wet hair hung in a curtain behind her. “No one in town ever mentioned that part of your personality. But then,” she added, “you’re scarcely here, so they’ve probably forgotten.”

“I’m here now,” he pointed out, ignoring the slight twinge of something uncomfortable. No, he didn’t get back to Springville very often. He spent most of his time on base or being shipped out for various highly secret operations. Was he supposed to take a rare weekend off and drive all the way upstate only to turn around and drive back down again? He didn’t think so. Besides, how he lived his life was none of this woman’s business.

“This isn’t about me, babe.” He used the word deliberately and enjoyed watching her cringe at it. “Let’s get to the real questions. What the hell are you up to? Why are you here? In my suite? Why are you telling everyone in town that we’re married, and how the hell did you fool my grandfather into believing you?”

“Your suite,” she muttered, inhaling so sharply she loosened the towel enough that it opened wide and swished silently down her body.

Hunter got one more good, long look at full, high breasts, perky pink nipples and soft brown curls at the apex of her thighs. His own body sat up and howled. Then she muttered a curse, grabbed the towel and wrapped herself up again.

“Your suite? That’s a good one. I’ve been living in this suite for a year now, and, funny,” she added with a touch of sarcasm, “but I don’t remember seeing you.”

Screw her snide tone. He was concentrating on the words. “A year? You’ve been pretending to be my wife, living in my house for a year?”

Had it really been that long since he’d been home? Damn, guess it had been. But he’d talked to Simon every couple of weeks over the last year, and the old man had never once mentioned the woman masquerading as Hunter’s wife. Not one syllable. Not a noun. Nothing. What the hell was going on around here?

Had she done something to his grandfather? Threatened him in some way? Hard to believe. Simon Cabot was as tough as three old boots. But he was older now. Maybe…

Hunter moved in even closer, riding a tide of fury that had the edges of his vision blurring. He looked down at her and had to admire the fact that she didn’t back up. She didn’t cower, even though she was far smaller than he, not to mention naked and all kinds of vulnerable. Her eyes flashed at him as if daring him to try to hurt her. It was almost like watching a toy poodle transform into a pitbull.

But admiration aside, he had to know what she was up to. “Play time’s over, honey. Whatever scam you’ve been running, you’re done. And if I find out you’ve stolen so much as twenty bucks from my grandfather, your cute little ass is going to wind up behind bars.”

Steam was slowly sifting out of the room, and the air was chill enough to bring goose bumps to her still-damp skin. If she was feeling the cold, though, she ignored it. Lifting her chin, she said, “I’m not going to continue this conversation naked.”

“Well, you’re not leaving this room till I get some answers.”

“I should have known you were a bully.”

“Excuse me?” He actually felt his glower darken.

“Is this a military thing? You barking orders and expecting us poor civilians to jump into line? Well, I don’t take orders from you. And you should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Ashamed of myself? You might want to back off, babe,” he said, and it came out as more of a growl, “I’m not the one pretending to be something I’m not. I’m not the one living in someone else’s home under false pretenses. I’m not the one—”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, I’m not going to stand here and be insulted.” She pushed past Hunter, giving him a straight-armed shove that caught him so off guard he actually stepped aside. He could have stood his ground, but then, he’d never been the kind of man to use his muscle against women.

His quick movement brought a twinge of discomfort from the still-healing wound in his side, and he automatically lifted one hand to it. Then he watched her storm out of the bathroom, somehow managing to look regal while wrapped in a towel. She left damp footprints on the thick, soft green carpet, which muffled the sound of her passage, and headed directly to his chest of drawers.

Wryly, he asked, “Going to be wearing some of my old boxers and T-shirts, are you?”

She shot him a surly look over her shoulder. “I moved your ratty old clothes to the bottom drawer a long time ago.”

“Ratty?”

“What would you call T-shirts with more holes than fabric?”

“Mine.”

She ignored him now, digging into an open drawer. Pulling out a pale blue lacy bra and a pair of panties to match, she hurried over to the huge walk-in closet, stepped inside it and closed the door behind her.

So he wasn’t going to be watching her dress. Not that he wanted to. Fine. That was a lie. He wouldn’t have minded another look at her figure. After all, he was human, wasn’t he? And male, with an appreciation for a nicely rounded woman. And whoever the hell she was, he already knew she had some great curves.

Instantly, his mind filled with that last glimpse he’d had of her. Pale flesh, rigid pink nipples and a bottom that made a man want to grab hold and squeeze.

Scowling at the thoughts crowding his fevered mind, he shut them down resolutely. A Navy SEAL was nothing if not disciplined.

“Why are you here, anyway?” Her voice came from the depths of the closet.

“This is my home, babe. I belong here.”

She snorted. That came through loud and clear. He also heard clothes hangers rattling and a hard thud followed by her muffled yelp.

“What’re you doing?” he demanded.

“Breaking my toe,” she snapped.

Hunter glowered at the closed door; then while he half listened to the sounds she made, he let his gaze slide around the room he’d grown up in. He’d been so distracted by the whole “wife” thing earlier that he hadn’t really noticed how different the room was.

The walls were green, not beige. The carpet was green, not brown. There was a lacy quilt covering the king-sized bed he’d picked out himself at seventeen and a mountain of frilly pillows stacked against the headboard. Filmy white curtains fluttered at the windows that overlooked the garden at the rear of the mansion, and the French doors leading to the balcony boasted the same girly curtains as the windows.

How had he not noticed? He, whose very survival often depended on his observational skills? “What the hell have you done to this place?”

She stepped out of the closet then, and he whipped around to look at her. She wore a yellow T-shirt over a pair of worn, faded jeans that hugged every luscious inch of her and a pair of sandals that added about three inches to her measly height. Her green eyes were narrowed, her full mouth grim, and she’d somehow managed to fluff her wild mane of curly hair into a damp jumble of softness. When she folded her arms across her chest, his gaze locked on the wide, gold band on her ring finger.

Damn it.

Margie stared right back at him while she tried to ignore the rush of something hot and tempting inside her. His blue eyes were filled with suspicion he didn’t bother to hide, and tension practically rippled off him in waves. Hunter Cabot was a lot…bigger than she’d expected. Not just tall. Big. His shoulders were wide, his chest and arms looked as though he spent most of his time lifting weights and even his long legs were thick and muscled beneath the black jeans he wore.

Impressive. And a little—no, a lot—daunting. But she wasn’t about to let him know how nervous he made her. After all, she hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Well?” He glared at her again. He really was very good at that. “Who the hell told you that you could move into my room and turn it into some female lair?”

The best defense, Margie had always believed, was a good offense. A lawyer she’d once worked for had taught her that, and she’d always found it to work.

“Your grandfather did,” she answered with plenty of heat of her own. “You remember, the lonely old man you never visit?”

“Don’t you start on me about my grandfather. You don’t have the right.”

“Really?” She marched right up to him, every step fueled by the anger she’d harbored for Hunter ever since she first came to work for his grandfather. “Well, let me tell you something, Captain Hunter Cabot, I earned the right to defend your grandfather the night he had his heart attack and I was the only one at his bedside.”

He flushed. Anger? Or shame?

“Why were you at his bedside, anyway?”

Margie huffed out an impatient breath. She shouldn’t be having to explain any of this. Simon had promised her that he would talk to Hunter before he came home. But this surprise arrival had thrown everything off.

“I’m Simon’s executive assistant.”

“His secretary?”

“Assistant,” she corrected. “I was here. With him, when he had the heart attack. We tried to find you, but, big surprise, you were nowhere to be found.”

“Just a damn minute…”

“No,” she countered, stabbing her index finger at him, “you had your say; now it’s my turn. You’re never here. You hardly call. Your grandfather misses you, blast it. Why, I can’t imagine—”

“That’s none of your—”

“Not finished,” she snapped, interrupting his interruption. “You’re so busy running around saving the world you don’t have time to be with your grandfather when he might have died? Like I said before. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Chapter Two

There, Margie told herself as Hunter’s mouth snapped shut and his blue eyes flashed. He might have had the upper hand since the moment he’d found her naked—oh, dear God—in the bathroom. But now, it was as it should be: him having to defend himself.

The room was so suddenly quiet that she could hear them both breathing. Sunlight streamed in through the open French doors and lay in a golden slash across the spring-green carpet. A slight breeze ruffled the curtains and carried with it the scents of roses and columbine from the garden just below her bedroom. Normally, she loved this room, found it peaceful, relaxing. Today, not so much.

“I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,” he said tightly. “I’m off doing my job, serving my country. I’m not the one here taking advantage of a lonely old man.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice was stiff and so was her spine.

“I don’t know,” he mused. “Seems pretty clear to me. You were his secretary and somehow convinced him that we got married. How you did it I don’t have any idea, but I’m going to find out.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” she said. “I just threw a ring on my finger, said, ‘Guess what, I’m married to your idiot grandson,’ and Simon believed me. Tell me, do you think your grandfather is really that foolish? You must, which means you’re not letting logic get in your way at all.”

“Logic?”

“Never mind, it’s probably something you’re unfamiliar with.”

A long minute ticked silently past as they stared at each other, but Margie was determined not to be the one to speak first. Her patience finally paid off.

His mouth worked and his features tightened until he looked as uncomfortable as any man could be before he said grudgingly, “About Simon’s heart attack. I suppose I should…thank you, for being with him that night.”

“You think?”

“I was on a mission,” he added as if she hadn’t spoken, “I didn’t find out about his heart attack until I returned. Then the crisis was over. I called him, if you’ll remember.”

“Very touching,” she snapped, remembering the pleased look on Simon’s face when his grandson had finally called to check on him. “A deeply personal phone call. Yet, you still didn’t bother to come and see him.”

“He was fine,” Hunter argued. “Besides, my team shipped out again almost immediately and—”

“Oh, I’m not the one who needs to hear your explanation,” she told him, “It’s Simon you should be talking to. Besides, I didn’t stay with Simon during his illness for your sake.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” It felt…odd, to be standing in the same room with the man she’d been legally married to for a year. Hunter Cabot had for so long lived in her mind only that having him here in person was more like a dream than the reality she’d been living with.

Strange, but in all the times she’d imagined her first meeting with Hunter Cabot, she’d never once thought they’d be embroiled in a huge argument right off the bat. But he’d started it, calling her a thief! So she didn’t regret any of the things she’d said to him. His features were still tight, but there was something else in his eyes besides anger now. Something she couldn’t quite read, and that was a little unsettling.

“Where is my grandfather now?”

“Probably in his study,” she muttered. “He spends most afternoons there.”

He nodded and left without another word to her.

Margie’s breath whooshed out in a rush as soon as he was gone and she hurriedly walked to the bed to plop down on the edge of the mattress. Staring down at her hands, she looked first at the wedding ring she’d picked out herself, then noticed her hands were shaking. Not surprising, really. Not every day she had a huge, gorgeous, furious man walk in on her in the shower.

“Naked. He saw me naked.” That really wasn’t the way she’d wanted to meet her husband for the first time. Especially because she still hadn’t found a way to lose those ten pounds she didn’t need, and her hair looked hideous, and she didn’t have any makeup on and—she groaned and slapped one hand over her eyes.

“For pity’s sake, Margie, it’s not like makeup would have transformed you into supermodel territory anyway.” She knew exactly what she looked like. Her mouth was too wide, her nose was too small and the freckles spattered across her cheeks defied all known foundations. She was not the kind of woman a man like Hunter Cabot would ever notice. “But then, it doesn’t matter what you look like, now, does it? It’s not as though you’re really married to the man.” Legally, yes. Really, no.

She flopped back onto the bed and stared up at the cool green ceiling. She hadn’t planned to meet her husband for the first time until after his grandfather had explained the whole situation. And it would’ve worked out just like it was supposed to have done if Hunter hadn’t shown up two weeks early, for pity’s sake.

So if you thought about it, this was all his fault.

But as Margie blindly stared at the ceiling, she had to admit that that knowledge didn’t make her feel any better.

Hunter moved through the familiar halls with a long, determined step, but no matter how fast he walked, he couldn’t leave that woman behind him. Her voice kept time with the hard thumps of his boot heels against the floor.

Lonely old man. Almost died. Ashamed.

Muttering curses under his breath, Hunter silenced that voice and hit the bottom of the stairs. Slapping one hand to the newel post, he made a sharp right turn and continued down the carpeted hall toward the last door on the left.

He opened the door without knocking and stepped inside. This room at least remained the same. Unchanged. Dark paneling on the walls, polished to a high gloss, gleamed in the sunlight pouring through the windows. Dark brown leather armchairs and sofas were sprinkled throughout the room, and behind the wide, mahogany desk where his grandfather sat, floor-to-ceiling bookcases displayed everything from the classics to fictional thrillers.

But Hunter’s gaze locked on the smiling old man slowly pushing himself to his feet. “Grandfather.”

“Hunter, boy! Good to see you! You’re early,” he added, coming around the edge of the desk with careful steps. “Didn’t expect you for a couple of weeks yet.”

Hunter walked to meet the man who had always been the one constant in his life. When he was twelve years old, Hunter’s parents died in a car accident and he’d come to live with his paternal grandfather. Simon had stepped into the void in his grandson’s life and had always seemed to Hunter to be larger than life. Strong, sure, confident.

Now, though, Hunter noticed for the first time that the years were finally catching up with his grandfather. Something cold and hard fisted around Hunter’s heart as he hugged the older man and actually felt a new frailty about Simon. He swallowed back the questions crowding his throat and demanding release, and he forced himself to be patient.

Stepping back, the old man waved one hand at a chair and said, “Sit, sit. Are you sure you should be walking around with that wound in your side?”

“I’m fine, Grandfather,” Hunter said, reassuring Simon as he took a seat in the chair opposite him. He could wait for answers about the woman upstairs. For a moment or two, anyway. “Wasn’t more than a scratch, really.”

“They don’t put you in the hospital for four days with a scratch, boy.”

True, but he didn’t want Simon worrying anymore than he could help. Hunter had caught a bullet on his last mission, but it had been more painful than life-threatening. Now all that remained was an ache if he moved too fast and a scar from the hastily maneuvered field surgery he’d had to perform on himself, since he’d gotten separated from his team members.

Smiling, he said only, “They don’t let you out of the hospital after only four days if it’s serious.”

“That’s good, then. You had me worried, boy.”

“I know. Sorry.”

Simon waved the apology aside. “Nothing to be sorry for, Hunter. It’s your job, I know that.”

He still wasn’t happy about Hunter’s decision to join the military, though. Simon had wanted him to take over the Cabot family dynasty. To sit behind a desk and oversee the many different threads of the empire Simon’s father had started so long ago. But Hunter had never been interested in banking or any other kind of business that would tie him to a nine-to-five lifestyle. He’d wanted adventure. He’d wanted to do something important. Serving his country filled that need.

“Still,” Simon was saying, with a touch of an all-too-familiar scheming note to his voice, “you’re not going to be able to do this job forever, are you?”

Hunter scowled to see a calculating gleam in his grandfather’s eyes. He hated to admit even to himself that he’d been thinking along the same lines lately. Frankly, since he was shot. Five years ago, it wouldn’t have happened and he knew it. He’d have been quicker. Spotted the ambush sooner. Been able to get to cover fast enough to avoid the damn bullet that had nailed him.

But his career choices were not what he wanted to talk about. And since he couldn’t think of an easy introduction into the subject at hand, he simply blurted out, “Forget my job for the moment. Grandfather, that woman upstairs is not my wife.”

Simon crossed his legs, folded his hands together atop his flat abdomen and gave his grandson a smile. “Yes, she is.”

“Okay, clearly this is going to be tougher than I thought,” Hunter murmured and stood up. Rubbing one hand across the back of his neck, he reminded himself that the woman had had a year to worm her way into Simon’s affections. It was going to take more than a minute to make him see the truth. “I’ve never met that woman, Grandfather. Whatever she’s told you is a lie.”

Simon smiled and followed Hunter’s progress as he paced back and forth. “She hasn’t told me anything, Hunter.”

He stopped and shot his grandfather a hard look. “So you just let anybody who claims to be my wife move in and take over my suite?”

Simon chuckled. Probably not a good sign.

“You don’t understand,” the old man said. “She didn’t lie to me about being married to you, because she didn’t have to. I’m the one who arranged the marriage.”

“You did what?” Hunter stared at his grandfather in complete disbelief. He didn’t even know what to say. What the hell could he say?“ You arranged—you can’t do that.”

“Can and did,” Simon assured him, looking altogether pleased with himself. “The idea came to me after that heart attack last year.”

“What idea?” Hunter walked back to his chair and sat down, his gaze pinned on the older man grinning at him.

Simon’s white eyebrows lifted. “Why, the answer to my problem, of course. There I was, in the hospital. There you were, off only God knew where, and there was Margie.”

“Margie.”

“My assistant.”

“Your—right. She told me that.” Assistant turned granddaughter-in-law, apparently.

“Very organized soul, Margie,” Simon mused thoughtfully. “Always on top of things. Knows how to get things done.”

“I’ll bet.”

Simon frowned at him. “None of this was Margie’s doing, boy. This was my idea. You remember that.”

Hunter took a tight grip on his rising temper and forced himself to speak slowly and calmly. It wasn’t easy. “What exactly was your idea?”

“I needed family here!” Shifting in his chair, Simon lifted one arm to the chair arm, and his fingers began to tap on the soft leather. “Blast it, decisions had to be made, and though I’d told Margie what I wanted, she didn’t have the authority to make the doctors do a damn thing. Could have been bad for me, but I was lucky.”

Instantly, Hunter’s mind filled with images of Simon lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines that monitored his heart, his breathing, while doctors bustled and a short, curvy redhead tried to issue orders. He hated like hell that he hadn’t been there for the old man when he’d needed Hunter most. But feeling guilt didn’t mean he understood how he’d ended up with a wife!

“So, you could have given her power of attorney,” Hunter said.

“Might have,” his grandfather allowed, and his tapping fingers slowed a bit. “But I didn’t. Instead, I convinced Margie to marry you.”

“You—”

“It was the easiest way I could see. I want family around me, boy, and you’re not here.”

More guilt came slamming down on Hunter until he was half surprised he could breathe under the weight of it. Still…“You just can’t marry me off without even mentioning it.”

“I’ve got two words for you, Hunter,” his grandfather said, “—proxy marriage.”

“Proxy? How can you even do that without my signature?”

“I got your signature,” Simon told him with a sly smile. “And if you’d bother to read the Cabot financial papers I send to you for your signature, you’d have noticed the proxy marriage certificate.”

Damn it. Simon had him there. Whenever the packets of papers arrived for him, Hunter merely signed where indicated and sent them back. The family business wasn’t his life. The Navy, was. And he kept his two worlds completely separate. No doubt his slippery grandfather had realized that and exploited it. Admiration warred with irritation.

“Ah, good. You realize I’m right.” Simon’s fingers quickened, and the tapping on the old leather came fast and furious, belying the old man’s attempt at a casual pose. “I stood in for you in the marriage ceremony. I knew that since you couldn’t get home for my heart attack, you wouldn’t have been able to get home for your own wedding—”

“—not that I was invited…”

“—my friend Judge Harris did the deed, and we kept it quiet. I sent Margie off on a week’s vacation once I got better, and we put out that you and she eloped.”

“Eloped.”

“Worked out fine. Figured there was no rush in telling you.”

“Especially since I didn’t want a wedding.”

Simon frowned at him and Hunter remembered being thirteen years old and standing in this very study, trying to explain why he’d hit a baseball through the study window. The same sense of shame and discomfort he’d felt then washed over him now. The only difference was he was no longer a kid to be put in his place.

“How’d she talk you into this, Simon?”

In answer, his grandfather pushed himself out of the chair, drew himself up to his full height and gave Hunter a look that used to chill him to his bones. “You think I’m some old fool taken in by a pretty face and a gold-digging nature? You seriously believe I’m that far gone, boy?”

“What else am I supposed to believe?” Hunter stood up too and met Simon’s hard stare with one of his own. “I come home for a visit—”

“After two years,” Simon threw in.

“—and you tell me you arranged to marry me off to someone I’ve never met just so you can have family close by?”

“You can watch your tone with me, boy. I’m not senile yet, you know.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You were thinking it.” Simon turned, walked to his desk and sat down behind his personal power center. From that very chair, Simon had run the Cabot family fortunes for more than five decades. “And I’ll tell you something else. Margie didn’t want any part of this. It was all my idea.”

“And she went along out of the goodness of her heart.” Sarcasm was so thick in Hunter’s tone that even he heard it.

“’Course not. This was business, pure and simple. I’m paying her five million dollars.”

“Five—” Hunter sucked in a gulp of air. “So she is in it for the money. And you said she’s not a gold digger?”

“She damn well isn’t, and you’ll figure that out for yourself after you spend some time with her.” Simon picked up a pen from the desk and twirled it absentmindedly between his fingers. “Had to browbeat her into taking the money and doing this for me. She’s a good girl and she works hard. She’s done a lot of good for this town, too, and she’s done real well by your name.”

“How nice for me.” Hunter shook his head at the sensation of a velvet-lined trap snapping shut around him.

“You should be grateful. I picked you out a wife who’s a hard worker, and she’s got a big heart as well.”

“Grateful.” Hunter moved in, leaned both hands on his grandfather’s desk and ground out tightly, “What I’ll be grateful for is a damn annulment, Simon. Or even a divorce. As soon as possible.”

Disgusted, his grandfather muttered, “I should have known you wouldn’t appreciate this.”

“Yeah, you should’ve.”

“If you’d open your eyes and see her as I do, you’d change your tune.” Simon looked so damn smug, so self-satisfied that Hunter felt a surge of temper rise up and grab the base of his throat. For his whole damn life, Simon had been the one he could count on. The man who had taught him what duty and honor meant. The one who’d instilled in Hunter a sense of right and wrong. Now, he was blithely explaining how he’d set Hunter up with a marriage he didn’t want all for Simon’s own convenience.

“My ‘tune’ doesn’t need changing,” Hunter told him. “Just why the hell should I ‘appreciate’ having a wife I didn’t want in the first place? One you’re paying.”

“I told you. She didn’t want the money. Had to talk her into accepting it.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll bet she was really hard to convince, too. Five million dollars? Damn it, Simon, what were you thinking?”

“You weren’t here,” the older man said softly. “I’m getting on, Hunter, and you weren’t here. Margie is.”

Again, he felt that soft, swift stab of guilt—then he buried it. “She’s your secretary.”

“She’s more than that.”

“Sure, now,” Hunter allowed.

“You don’t know her,” Simon said, and his voice was whisper soft. “She came here to build a life for herself and she’s done it. And she’s been a good wife to you—”

“I haven’t been here!”

“—and a good granddaughter to me.”

All right, he could at least admit that much to himself, Hunter thought. Gold digger or not, the curvy redhead had at least apparently been good to Simon. When Hunter had finally heard about his grandfather’s brush with death, guilt had gnawed him for not being there when the old man had needed him. But the nature of his job meant that he couldn’t always be around. He lived and died according to orders.

So, knowing that Simon hadn’t been alone during that frightening time in his life was good. And for that, he could be grateful. Not that he’d be telling that to the curvy redhead with the quick temper.

“Margie deserves your respect,” Simon warned, lifting one finger to point at him.

“For marrying a man she never met to keep her boss happy.” Hunter nodded sagely. “Yeah, that spells respect to me.”

Simon scowled at him. “You never did know enough to listen to me.”

“I listen. I’m just not interested in what you’re saying. I don’t want a wife.” All right, he’d been doing some thinking about his future lately. Maybe he’d even considered getting married, for about thirty seconds. But thinking about doing something and actually doing it were two wildly different things. And if he did eventually decide to get married, he’d be the one picking out his own damn wife, thanks.

“You could do worse,” Simon grumbled.

“Yeah? I don’t know about that. A woman who has to be paid to marry me pretty much sounds like the bottom of the barrel.”

“Shows how much you know about anything,” Simon said, and his fingers tapped restlessly again. “Margie’s the cream of the crop.”

“Not much of a harvest around here, then,” Hunter murmured, then louder, added, “I won’t stay married to her.”

Simon blew out a breath. “No, I didn’t suppose you would. Though you should know Margie feels the same way you do.”

Hunter wasn’t so sure. She may have had the old man fooled but not him. With five million dollars at stake, a woman might be willing to do just about anything.

“She’s been good to me, and I won’t have you embarrassing her.”

“Oh yeah. Wouldn’t want to embarrass anybody.”

His grandfather sighed dramatically, then kept talking as if Hunter hadn’t said a word. “She’s planned a big party for my eightieth birthday, and I don’t want anything spoiling that, either.”

“A hell of a lot of demands flying around here,” Hunter said under his breath.

“So, until the party’s over, I expect you to act like the husband everyone in town knows you are.”

“Excuse me?” He hadn’t expected that.

“You heard me. People in Springville like Margie. They respect her. And I’m not going to stand by and watch you make her a laughingstock. You’ll be leaving again, no doubt—” He paused as if waiting for confirmation.

Hunter nodded. “I have to report back in about a month.”

Another frown. “Well, I’ll still be here and so will Margie, hopefully, so I don’t want her life ruined because you were angry.”

Hunter’s back teeth ground together. “No, wouldn’t want Margie inconvenienced.”

Simon went on again, ignoring Hunter’s comments completely. “If after the party you still want the annulment—”

“—I will.”

“—I won’t stop you and I’m sure Margie won’t. But until then, you’ll do this my way.”

Hunter looked at his grandfather and recognized the set-in-stone expression on the old man’s face. There wouldn’t be any budging him on this one. Once Simon Cabot made up his mind about something, nothing less than a nuclear strike would change it. Irritation swamped Hunter, and the uncomfortable sensation of being trapped came right along in its wake.

But Simon was an old man. And Hunter owed him. So he’d do this his grandfather’s way. He’d be here for the party, and then before he went back to the base, he’d set annulment proceedings into action.

“Fine.” Hunter tamped down the frustration bubbling within and swallowed back the urge to argue. “When I’m in town, I’ll act married.”

“You’ll act it here, too.”

“What?”

“You hard of hearing all of a sudden? You should get that checked.” A sly smile curved Simon’s mouth briefly before he became all business again. “As long as you’re home, you’re a married man. I won’t have the servants treating Margie badly. Everyone in this household knows you’re married.”

Hunter was still reeling from that piece of news when a soft knock on the study door sounded out. He turned around as the door opened, and there stood his “wife.”