Loe raamatut: «The Bride and the Bargain»

Find. Wife. Find. Wife. Find. Wife.

Every time the soles of Gray’s running shoes bounced against the narrow tree-lined path, the words seemed to echo in his head.

“Shut. Up. Shut. Up,” he said under his breath.

“Find. Wife. Find. Wife,” his footsteps answered.

He muttered an oath and picked up speed.

Everything that Gray had ever wanted to accomplish in life, he had. He was successful in every endeavour, because that’s who he was.

But in this one…damned…thing…he was – barrelling straight for a runner squatting in his path.

He tried slowing down, but momentum had him in its grip. “On the left,” he barked, hoping the girl – oh, yeah, definitely a girl – would heed his warning and move to the side.

Instead, he got a glimpse of fair skin, wide dark eyes and flying dark hair as she rose and took the impact with a gasping “Oomph!”

ALLISON LEIGH

started early by writing a Halloween play that her primary school class performed. Since then, though her tastes have changed, her love for reading has not. And her writing appetite simply grows more voracious by the day.

She has been a finalist in the RITA^® Award and the Holt Medallion contests. But the true highlights of her day as a writer are when she receives word from a reader that they laughed, cried or lost a night’s sleep while reading one of her books.

Born in Southern California, Allison has lived in several different cities in four different states. She has been, at one time or another, a cosmetologist, a computer programmer and a secretary. She began writing full-time after spending nearly a decade as an administrative assistant for a busy neighbourhood church, and she currently makes her home in Arizona with her family. She loves to hear from her readers, who can write to her at PO Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772, USA.

The Bride and the Bargain

Allison Leigh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my fellow Cinderella Hunters.

It has been a true pleasure working with you.

Prologue

July

Of all the things he might have foreseen, never in his life could Gray have imagined this.

No, he’d been more annoyed with the command performance his father had requested. In the month since Harry had suffered a heart attack, the man had been increasingly unpredictable. And the last thing Gray had needed was a trip out to the family’s high-tech estate on Lake Washington when he had fifty million things to attend to back at the office in downtown Seattle.

Not that the distraction of his work was any excuse.

He was Grayson Hunt, president of HuntCom.

Whether or not he and his three younger brothers had been summoned to the shack—as they’d wryly dubbed the opulent family compound when they were young—he was supposed to be able to juggle any number of responsibilities. God knew that Harry had never let anything set him off track for any length of time. The only child of a storekeeper and his homemaker wife, Harrison Hunt had invented the computer software that had made HuntCom a household word. He’d turned an offbeat, fledgling company into a multinational, multibillion-dollar juggernaut that had set the computer industry on its ear.

Gray was forty-two, Harry’s firstborn and supposedly just like him. The knowledge was as much a curse as a blessing.

Gray biffed another shot at the antique pool table and shook his head, surrendering the table to his youngest brother, Justin.

“Does anybody know why the old man called this meeting?” Without hesitation, Justin began pocketing balls, easily showing up Gray’s less impressive attempts.

“He left a message with Loretta,” Gray said. “Didn’t give her a reason.” When it vibrated silently, he pulled out his cell phone, glancing at the display. Another text from Loretta, his secretary, keeping him apprised of his ever-evolving schedule. He’d canceled six meetings in order to answer Harry’s summons.

“Harry called you himself? Me, too.” Alex was working his way through a bottle of Black Sheep Ale from his position in one of the leather armchairs arranged around the spacious library. At thirty-six, he headed up the company’s philanthropic arm—the Hunt Foundation—and had probably canceled his own share of meetings, as well. “What about you, J.T.? Did you get the message from his secretary, or from Harry personally?”

A tumbler of bourbon in his hand, J.T. looked beat. An architect by training, he was in charge of all HuntCom properties and construction and was more often on the road than not. “From Harry. I told him I’d have to cancel a week of meetings in New Delhi and spend over half a day on the corporate jet to get home in time, but he insisted I be here.” He peered wearily at Justin, the baby of the brothers at thirty-four. “What about you?”

“I was at the ranch when he called. He told me the same thing he told you. I had to be here. No excuses.” Justin slowly rolled the pool cue between his palms. “He refused to tell me what the meeting was about. Did he tell any of you why he wanted to talk to us?”

“No.” Gray was plenty irritated about it, too. Harry knew they were all busy. So what the hell was he calling family get-togethers for? And then to leave them cooling their heels in the library?

He looked at his vibrating phone again. Dammit. Another hiccup with their latest buyout. He started for the door. If he had to call and ream out somebody, he wanted some privacy. But before he could make it to the hall door, it flew open and their father entered.

“Ah, you’re all here. Excellent.” Harry waved his hand toward his massive mahogany desk at the far end of the room that faced the French doors overlooking their private beach. “Join me, boys,” he invited, as if he did so every day.

Which he didn’t. One thing Gray could not say about Harry was that he’d been a doting, hands-on kind of dad.

He faced Harry across the desk, ignoring the chairs situated in front of it. His brothers took no interest in the chairs, either.

Harry eyed the empty seats through his horn-rimmed bifocals. Despite hitting seventy on his last birthday, his dark hair was barely marked by gray. And his blue eyes were definitely looking peeved.

Gray could relate.

Harry shrugged impatiently. “Very well. Stand or sit. It makes no difference.” He did sit, however, which was good because Gray would have told him to if he hadn’t.

His father drove him around the bend, but that didn’t mean Gray had no concerns for the old man’s health.

“Since my heart attack last month,” Harry began, proving yet again that Gray’s mind often tracked along his father’s, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this family. I’ve never thought a lot about my legacy—”

At that, Gray’s lips did twist, but he remained silent when Harry glanced at him.

“—nor about having grandchildren to carry on the Hunt name,” the old man continued. “But the heart attack made me face some hard truths I’d ignored up until then. I could have died. I could die tomorrow.”

Gray still had a hard time imagining that. Harry seemed too vital. Too stubborn. Still, though Harry was a machine in many ways, he was an aging one.

His father rose, pressing his fists against the desktop. “I finally realized that left to your own devices, you four never will get married, which means I’ll never have grandchildren. I don’t intend to leave the future of this family to chance any longer. You have a year. One year. By the end of that year, each of you will not only be married, you will either already have a child or your wife will be expecting one.”

Gray stared, uncharacteristically nonplussed.

“Right.” J.T. finally broke the stunned silence.

Harry ignored their general lack of response. “If any one of you refuses to do so, you’ll all lose your positions in HuntCom and the perks you love so much.”

“You can’t be serious,” Gray finally said, focusing on the bottom line. Harry held controlling interest in HuntCom. Not even if everyone else on the board—Gray and his brothers, Harry’s oldest friend Cornelia and Corny’s four daughters—voted in accord against Harry could they outweigh his votes. He could do pretty much whatever he wanted, but that didn’t mean Gray believed the old man would actually follow through with unseating them.

They were all too good at what they did for HuntCom and the family interests, and Harry—affected by his heart attack or not—knew it.

“I’m deadly serious.” Harry’s eyes didn’t waver.

“With all due respect, Harry, how will you run the company if we refuse to do this?” J.T. asked. As often as Gray thought like Harry, J.T.’s thoughts were on the same wavelength as Gray’s. “I don’t know what Gray, Alex or Justin have going on right now, but I’m in the middle of expansions here in Seattle, in Jansen and at our New Delhi facility. If another architect has to take over my position, it’ll be months before he’s up to speed. Construction delays alone would cost HuntCom a fortune.”

“It wouldn’t matter because if the four of you refuse to agree, I’ll sell off HuntCom in pieces.”

Gray went still, ignoring his vibrating phone. Sell HuntCom? Where the hell did that idea come from?

“The New Delhi facility will be history and I’ll sell Hurricane Island,” Harry warned, his voice edged with steel. The isle was J.T.’s treasured escape and the idea of losing it probably hit J.T. harder than the idea of losing the company.

Then Harry turned his painfully serious gaze on Justin. “I’ll sell HuntCom’s interest in the Idaho ranch if you don’t marry and have a child.” Without waiting for a response, he looked at Alex. “I’ll shut down the foundation if you refuse to cooperate.”

The weight of the brothers’ fury filled the room.

Then Harry finally looked at Gray, delivering the only possible remaining blow. “HuntCom won’t need a president because there will no longer be a company for you to run.”

He was Harry’s second in command. Harry had started HuntCom, but Gray was HuntCom.

Selling the company itself—the very root of everything they had—was a fine threat. One that Gray wasn’t about to let himself believe. He had only to look at Harry’s behavior since the heart attack. He’d scaled back only some of his workload since then. To Gray, that looked like plenty of proof that even Harry couldn’t part ways all that easily with the company he’d built. He’d never sell.

“But that’s insane,” Alex said, clearly trying to sound reasonable and not quite making the mark. “What do you hope to accomplish by doing this, Harry?”

“I mean to see you all settled, with a family started before I die. With a decent woman who’ll make a good wife and mother.”

Gray swallowed an oath. That was rich. In the four marriages that had resulted in the four Hunt brothers, Harry had never managed to make one with a decent woman.

“The women you marry have to win Cornelia’s approval,” their father concluded.

“Does Aunt Cornelia know about this?” Justin demanded. Cornelia Fairchild was the widow of Harry’s best friend. Like Gray, Justin obviously found it hard to believe that she was a willing accomplice to Harry’s fit of madness.

“Not yet,” Harry allowed.

Justin looked relieved. Gray understood why, but he couldn’t say that he was as confident that their honorary aunt would have any sway in derailing Harry from his plan. She was more a mother figure to them than their own mothers had been, but that didn’t mean her allegiance wouldn’t stick with the old man. Cornelia and Harry went way back. She, along with her husband, George, and Harry had been friends since childhood.

Harry lifted his hand. “She’s a shrewd woman. She’ll know if any of the women aren’t good wife material.”

Too bad she hadn’t chosen Harry’s wives, Gray thought. Their lives would have been considerably different.

Unaware of Gray’s dark thoughts, Harry went on, making the situation even more surreal. “You can’t tell the women you’re rich, nor that you’re my sons. I don’t want any fortune hunters in the family. God knows I married enough of them myself. I don’t want any of my sons making the mistakes I made.”

Then none of them should be courting real disaster by walking down an aisle, Gray thought. Much less trying to procreate.

Justin was still trying to pin down Harry. “So Aunt Cornelia has to approve our prospective brides and they can’t know who we are. Is that all?”

Harry hesitated long enough to make every nerve at the back of Gray’s neck stand at suspicious attention. “That’s all. I’ll give you some time to think about this,” he added into the thick silence.

Not likely, Gray thought, reading his brothers’ faces.

“You have until 8:00 p.m., Pacific daylight time, three days from now,” Harry continued with an infuriating confidence. “If I don’t hear from you to the contrary before then, I’ll tell my lawyer to start looking for a buyer for HuntCom.”

And with that, he left the library.

J.T.’s lips twisted derisively. “I don’t see it happening. He’ll never sell HuntCom.”

“He can’t possibly be serious,” Justin concluded.

Gray shrugged into his jacket. Enough time had been wasted at the shack. He hadn’t known what to expect when Harry’d called him, but he damn sure hadn’t expected this. “We’re in the middle of a buyout. There’s no way he’d consider selling the company until it’s finished and that might be months away. He’s bluffing.”

“How can you be sure?” Alex asked. He freely eschewed the wealth and privilege that came with being a Hunt, but Gray knew that he tolerated the Hunt duty because it allowed him to satisfy his mile-deep humanitarian streak. He would be happy never to have a Hunt dime—only that would mean he couldn’t give it away to someone who did need it. “What if you’re wrong? Do you want to take that chance? Lose everything you’ve worked for over the past eighteen years? I know I sure as hell don’t want to see the foundation shut down…or run by someone else.”

“The only baby Harry’s ever cared about is HuntCom,” Gray said. “There’s no way he won’t do what’s ultimately best for the company. He always does.”

“I sure as hell hope you’re right,” Justin muttered. “Where did he get the idea it was time we all went hunting for brides?”

J.T. made a face, shaking his head. “Just so we’re all agreed. None of us are caving in to his crazy ultimatum?”

“Not in this lifetime,” Gray muttered.

For him, it was the end of the discussion.

Chapter One

Ten months later

Find. Wife. Find. Wife. Find. Wife.

Every time the soles of Gray’s running shoes bounced against the narrow tree-lined path, the words seemed to echo in his head.

He picked up speed, pushing harder as the path rose sharply beneath his feet.

“Shut. Up. Shut. Up,” he muttered under his breath.

Find. Wife. Find. Wife. His footsteps answered.

He made it to the peak of the hillside and looked out over the horizon that would have been nearly obscured if not for the footpath cut through the trees. He propped his hands on his hips, hauling in long breaths, feeling his heartbeat charging in his chest. The sweat soaking his shirt felt cold.

He spent precious time driving most mornings to this particular park because it was far enough away from his digs near the waterfront that he’d never once run into someone he knew.

The park wasn’t a fancy place. It didn’t have paved paths. It didn’t have riding stables, or formal picnic areas or art displays. And often, he seemed to have the hilly tree-congested expanse to himself, but even when he didn’t, it was rare to encounter more than one or two other runners.

Pretty much the way he liked it since his time was generally used up dealing with others. That was just one of the prices he paid for being president of a major corporation. A price he’d gladly pay many times over since—according to those who knew him—he’d been aiming for the helm of HuntCom since he was in the womb.

Until lately, Gray had never doubted that he would someday succeed his father as chairman of the board.

Until lately.

He set off down the hillside, oblivious of the slim rim of golden sunshine working its way into a sky that was unusually clear.

Find. Wife. Find. Wife.

He muttered an oath, and picked up speed.

Nearly a year had gone by since Harry called him and his brothers into his library and issued his damn marriage decree. Nearly a year since his brothers—and he, he admitted reluctantly—came to the consensus that they had to fall in line with their father’s wishes or lose everything that mattered.

Everything. Not that giving in had been easy. Hell, no. In fact, Gray’d had his attorney come up with the flipping contract he and his brothers had all signed—as well as Harry, after some serious arm-twisting of their own—that detailed everything from marital deadlines and requirements of intent to procreate on one side to transfers of HuntCom voting shares on the other. But he’d only done it when it had become clear that Harry was not going to come to his senses.

Harry was a literal-minded soul. Not good with relationships of any sort, pretty much. He was more like the early computers he’d once programmed. Want results of X? Then do A. Then do B. Then do C.

He hadn’t been successful in his marriages and family life and didn’t want his sons ending up like him. So the answer?

Do what Harry hadn’t done.

Marry the right woman. Resulting in the right kids. Resulting in an existence unlike Harry’s.

Find. Wife. Find. Wife.

Gray gritted his teeth, moving even faster down the sharply curving trail, muscles warm and fluid from years of running, even though his brain felt uncommonly cold and tight. He’d thought that Harry would realize the error of his ways before it came down to the crunch.

But Harry was immovable. And he’d started talking to those in the industry who could possibly buy out portions of HuntCom.

Find. Wife. Find. Wife.

Everything that Gray had ever wanted to accomplish in life, he had. He was successful in every endeavor, because that was who he was. What was the point of wasting his time if he didn’t plan to succeed?

But in this one…damned…thing…he was—

Barreling straight for a runner squatting square in his path.

Cursing a blue streak, he tried slowing up, but momentum had him in its grip. “On the left,” he barked, hoping the girl—oh, yeah, definitely a girl—would heed his warning and move to the side. But the path was too narrow and Gray’s speed was too fast and maybe if she hadn’t decided to straighten from her crouch, he could have hurdled over her—

Instead, he got a glimpse of pale skin, wide dark eyes and flying dark hair as she rose and took the impact with a gasping “oomph!”

He cursed again, reaching to catch her in the same moment that he’d been trying to avoid her, and managed to miss the mark as completely as he’d managed to plow over her.

His shoes skidded on the dirt as he finally succeeded in slowing enough to turn around and run back to her.

She was flat down, sprawled across the rocks that lined the edge of the path.

“I didn’t see you.”

“Obviously.” Her voice was muffled as she gingerly pushed herself to her hands and knees. The gray sweatpants she wore were as utilitarian as the ones he had on, but she’d rolled the waist over a few times and as her rear pushed off the ground, the skin between the nearly threadbare sweats and the hem of the thin T-shirt she wore gleamed smooth and pale in the dawn.

His lips tightened, as much from noticing that band of skin below the white shirt as from her husky sarcasm. “I tried to warn you,” he reminded.

She tossed back her head, giving him a severe look that not even the half-light could dim. “If you’d given me more than a microsecond, it might have helped.” She drew her knees up farther beneath her, which only caused that shapely derriere to round even more.

He grimaced again, well aware that she was right. “Let me help you up.” He closed his hand around her arm and felt her instantaneous recoil. He let go, backing up a step. “Relax. Just trying to help.”

“Well…don’t. I can do it myself.” She ducked her chin, and her hair slid over her shoulder. Muttering under her breath, she finally pushed herself to her feet and faced him, only to sway unsteadily.

His hands shot out and caught her shoulders. “Easy there.”

She hitched her shoulder, clearly wanting him to let go again.

Which he did.

She leaned over, plucking at the knees of her sweatpants and he realized they were both torn right through.

“You’re hurt.”

She gave him a quick “you think?” look that made him grimace all over again. This time at himself.

A preoccupied bastard is what he was.

Just like Harry.

He shoved his fingers through his hair. “Are you parked in the lot?”

“No.”

Which could mean anything, he knew, but most likely that she lived within close proximity. “Can you make it to the bottom of the hill?” His cell phone was in his car. It would be a simple matter to call for assistance whether or not she could make it there under her own steam. He’d get her bandaged up, make sure there were no lasting effects that would come back to bite him or HuntCom in the butt, and on their way they’d go.

She nodded and started to move past him, only to gasp again, hitching forward to grab her left knee.

He caught her around the shoulders. “Don’t put any weight on it.” She’d stiffened again, but this time he ignored it. “If you want to sit, I’ll go down and call for help.”

“No.”

“Then you can let me help you walk down. Your choice.” He realized her hands were scraped, as well, when she pressed them gingerly against her thighs, leaving behind a smear of blood. “Something tells me you’re not going to let me just carry you down.”

Her head ducked again. “That won’t be necessary,” she assured stiffly.

He eyed the top of her head. The brightening sunlight picked out glints of gold among the soft brown strands. She was a bitty thing next to him, even with the shapely curves that pushed against her running clothes. And he was not bitty at all. “I am sorry,” he said quietly.

She hesitated, then looked up at him. He couldn’t quite tell the color of her eyes. Just that they were dark and rimmed with long, curling lashes.

She pressed her lips together for a moment. “I am, too,” she finally said. “I, um, I stopped to tie my shoe.” She wiggled her left foot, drawing his attention.

The lacing of her shoe—definitely not custom-made as his own were—lay untied and bedraggled against the dirt path.

“Hold on.” He cautiously let go of her shoulders and, once certain that she wasn’t going to tip over, crouched down at her feet.

She made a soft sound and he glanced up as he tied the shoelace. “Something wrong?”

She shook her head slightly. “No. It’s just…I…it’s been a long time since I’ve had my shoelaces tied for me.”

His head was on a level with her thighs. He made himself keep his eyes on her scraped knees and lower. To his chagrin it was harder than he’d have thought.

He tugged the bow tight, then double looped it. “Next time, use a double knot,” he suggested wryly.

He rose and caught the twitch at the corner of her lips. But the second she took a step, the barely there smile was replaced by a definite wince of pain.

“We need to get you to the hospital.”

Her eyes widened. “No. Really, that’s not necessary.”

“You might have a sprain. A fracture.”

She shook her head emphatically. “Just bumps, I promise.”

“Bumps and gravel and blood,” he pointed out. “At the very least I need to make sure you get cleaned up, and clearly, you can’t walk on that ankle.”

She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. “I don’t need medical care.”

And sad to say, he didn’t need a nuisance suit for personal injury, either. Not to say that she’d instigate anything of the kind, but he hadn’t gotten to where he was without learning a thing or two about human nature.

People were greedy beings. And though Gray knew he wasn’t any particular exception to that trait, he also knew painfully well that the Hunt family and HuntCom made a particularly enticing target even to people who would ordinarily never think such things.

That was reality.

But so was the sight of her bleeding knees that made him wince inside. She was hurt and he was responsible. She hadn’t untied her fraying shoelace on purpose, after all.

“I insist,” he told her.

Her eyebrows rose, nearly disappearing into the tendrils of hair clinging to her sweaty forehead. “Is that so?” She seemed about to say more, only to press her lips together again.

“We can work it out when we get you off this path,” he suggested. He’d simply call Loretta. She’d arrange everything with her usual minimum of fuss. Gray could be assured that this girl wouldn’t suffer any ill effects from their collision and he could get back to the matters at hand.

“You mean you think you’ll get your way,” the girl murmured. “Once we’re off the trail.”

He almost smiled. Fact was, Gray nearly always got his way, as she put it. “Do you have something against doctors?”

“Only their bills,” she assured, looking a little too solemn for her wry tone. She lifted her shoulder. “I’m in the insurance void and, well, to be honest, I can’t afford yet another bill.”

“Void?”

“I, um, just started a new job here. My health insurance won’t kick in for another few weeks.”

All new employees of HuntCom had to wait out their probationary period of ninety days before receiving insurance benefits. Simple business practice, he knew, yet this was the first time he’d ever personally encountered someone in the “void” as she called it. “Where do you work?”

He could feel her withdrawal again like a physical thing. Who’d she think he was, anyway?

The thought had him looking more sharply at her smooth, oval face. There was no question that she was pretty. But she had a wide-eyed earnestness about her that was disconcertingly disarming. “Are you new to the area, too?”

“Pretty much.” She swiped her hand over her forehead, leaving her bangs in disheveled spikes, and another smear of blood in its wake.

“Then as a Seattle lifer, I can’t have you thinking we’re hogs on the running trails.” He put his arm around her again, and this time she didn’t protest. He took part of her weight as they laboriously stepped along the path. It would have been much more expedient for him just to tote her entirely, but this time he kept his mouth shut on the reasoning.

“On the left.”

He looked over his shoulder at the runner bearing down on them and moved the girl out of the way with plenty of time as the young guy trotted past.

“Worked for him,” Gray pointed out.

She gave a soft half laugh, as if she couldn’t quite prevent it, even though she wanted to. “He also wasn’t going eighty in a thirty-mile zone.”

He knew he’d been putting on the speed. Trying to outrun the problem hanging over him. “You should visit the hospital,” he said again. “The bill won’t be a problem,” he assured somewhat drily.

“I suppose you’re another one of those guys who made a fortune in the dot-coms or something.” She flicked him a glance from beneath those long, soft lashes.

“Or something,” he murmured, giving her another measuring look. It wasn’t arrogant of him to say that he was somewhat well-known, particularly in the Seattle area. Either she was a master of understatement, or she hadn’t recognized him. Once he told her his name, though, she undoubtedly would. “Where’d you say you moved from?”

Her eyebrow arched. “I didn’t.”

They rounded another curve in the path. It was beginning to level out. Another quarter mile, he knew, and they’d be back at the lot where his BMW was parked. “If you won’t let me take you to the hospital, at least let me get you to a clinic. You need some first aid, here. Even you must admit that.”

She stopped her laborious limp of a walk and gave him a searching look. “Why are you doing this?”

“That’s an odd question.”

“Why?”

“I plowed over you.”

“Well—” she looked slightly discomfited “—I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

“Big is a relative term,” he countered. “I could fit you in my pocket.”

“Or your trunk.”

He frowned at the flat statement. “Believe me, honey, you’re safe with me.”

She looked away again.

“And if you’re so wary of strangers, why do you run at this hour of the morning? It’s just now getting light and there are hardly any people here.”

“I fit it in before work.” She still sounded stiff. “Why are you here at this hour?”

“I fit it in before work,” he returned.

Her lips compressed. “Well, there you go, then.” She began limping along again, faster this time, but no less awkwardly. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really…well, I really don’t need your coddling. And I have things to do before I go to work.”

He could see the parking lot. There was only one car.

His.

“You plan to walk back home, then, do you?”

“That’s how I got here.”

There was no question that she’d decline if he suggested he drive her there. It was an odd position for him. There were people who liked him for who he was, and who didn’t for the very same reason. But he’d never once been looked at with such wary distrust by another person.

He didn’t know whether to laugh at himself for his own surprise at that, or whether to applaud her caution.

He had a million things on his schedule that day, not least of which was a meeting with Harry about the upcoming release of their latest operating platform. But he couldn’t deny his reluctance at letting the girl just walk away.

And not only because of the whispering inside his head that hadn’t ceased even when he’d stopped running.