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
