LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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