An Officer And A Millionaire Read online

  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.”

  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, t
hen 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 lifethreatening. 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 wa
s 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.”