The Bride and the Bargain Page 8

  She tsked. “Of course I’m not saying that. They’re lovely girls. I know that.”

  “Well then?” Harry squinted at Gray. “I don’t have to remind you that even though they’ve stuck to the agreement, they’ll still lose everything if you don’t.”

  Gray had years of experience beneath his belt in the art of negotiating. Alex might be the family’s most avowed poker fiend, but Gray knew how to bluff with the best of them. “I haven’t defaulted,” he assured mildly.

  Harry pursed his lips. “You haven’t left Seattle for more than three days at a stretch in the past three months. And that’s always been on business. How are you finding a woman that doesn’t know who you are if you’re always in town? Hell, the last time you were in Europe was a year ago. You can’t romance a woman long-distance, boy. They don’t like it. They want you there. With them. Showing devotion and all that…stuff.”

  “Don’t agitate yourself,” Cornelia cautioned.

  “Sorry if I’m not going to take romancing tips from you,” Gray said flatly. “As it happens, I don’t need to. I can manage fine on my own.”

  Harry pushed up on his elbows despite Cornelia’s efforts at keeping him still. “There’s a woman?”

  Gray couldn’t ignore the glint of hope in the old man’s eyes and it felt like a stab to his gut. It was like being ten years old all over again, doing anything and everything he could just to get a speck of pride and satisfaction out of his father, who was more often buried in computer code than anything else. “Yes.”

  There was a woman, just not one that he was prepared to trust yet, despite the dossier that suggested her claims weren’t entirely the scam he’d believed. Officially speaking, Amelia wasn’t the one to attempt that absurd paternity suit. Her sister had.

  The file folder tucked under his arm seemed to burn into his ribs.

  Maybe he didn’t have to trust her, though. Not when there seemed to be something they both needed.

  “What’s her name? Where’d you meet?”

  “Amelia. Running.”

  Harry’s eyes narrowed and Gray could practically see the wheels turning inside his father’s formidable brain. “How long have you been seeing her?”

  “Long enough,” he lied smoothly.

  “When do we meet her?”

  “You don’t. Not until we’re married, remember?”

  “She has to pass Cornelia’s muster,” Harry reminded.

  His honorary aunt looked pained. “Harrison Hunt. Really. I don’t know why you insist on not trusting your sons’ judgment.”

  “I trust their judgment fine. Just not when it comes to women.”

  “Then you should have been more discerning in your own choice of wives,” Cornelia said, her voice oddly tight. She stepped away from Harry’s bedside, brushing her hands down her trim slacks. “I’m going to go find some tea. Gray? Can I bring you back something?”

  “What about me,” Harry asked.

  “You can have whatever the doctor says you can have, when he says you can have it.”

  “You’re getting pretty snippy in your old age, Cornelia.”

  She ignored him and lifted her eyebrows, looking at Gray. “Well?”

  He shook his head. “Thanks. But I’ve got to get to the office soon.”

  “Workaholic,” she chided and tsked. But she patted his arm as she slipped past him and left the room.

  “Will she marry you? This Amelia girl?”

  “You let me issue a release that you’re stepping down as chairman of the board, effective immediately, and I promise you, I’ll be married by the end of the week.”

  Harry snorted. “I know you, boy. You can’t just go out and hire yourself a wife so you can step into my title as chairman. That isn’t the agreement.”

  “Who else is going to succeed you? You’ve been training me for the day since you gave Christina the boot. And there is no hiring involved.”

  “I don’t even want to hear your mother’s name,” Harry dismissed. “She loves you, then?”

  Gray didn’t make the mistake of thinking that Harry was referring to Christina. “Words can’t describe,” he assured.

  “There was nothing in our agreement that said I had to step down as chairman.”

  There hadn’t been. The content had been to retain their interests and increase their voting shares just enough that Harry no longer held controlling interest. Gray approached the bed, closing his hands over the high wooden footboard. “Resigning isn’t about the agreement, Dad, and you know it.”

  Harry’s sharp gaze slid away. “You never call me Dad.”

  “Your doc said you can’t keep working like you do.”

  His father’s hands curled into fists. “I’ve cut down on my hours,” he defended. “It’s my company.”

  “And it will live on whether you retire or not.” The words were blunt. Painful. “Wouldn’t you rather be around for a while longer to see it, or are you so stubborn that you’d rather be buried still bearing your precious title? Hell, Harry. Keep the title. I don’t care. But quit the work.”

  “Don’t try to kid me, boy. You want that title. You have for years.”

  “I’ve earned that title,” Gray returned evenly. “HuntCom is my life as much as it is yours. I didn’t give birth to it, but I’ve damn sure participated in helping it grow up.”

  “Whether I resign or not, you’re still bound by our agreement.”

  “Yes. And if you don’t step down, those grandkids you claim to want won’t ever have a chance to bounce on your knee.”

  A muscle ticked in Harry’s narrow jaw. “All right. Fine. You can make the announcement. After your wedding.”

  Gray exhaled, feeling tired and worn.

  Now all he had to do was produce the aforementioned bride. Considering the way they’d last parted, he figured it would not be one of his slam-dunk deals.

  “Aunt Amelia, when will Mommy get to come home with us?”

  The day following the debacle with Grayson Hunt, Amelia fit her key into the last door lock of their apartment and pushed it open. “I don’t know, honey.” She waited for Jack to go inside first, then nudged Molly through even as she began working Timmy out of his sling carrier. His diaper was wet and he was beginning to fuss, but changing him on the crowded bus ride back to the apartment from Daphne’s convalescent center had been logistically impossible. All Amelia had managed to do was give him a bottle.

  “Grow up,” Jack muttered to his sister on his way to the bedroom.

  The door closed with a slam behind him.

  Molly looked fit to cry.

  Amelia felt like crying, herself. Maybe she shouldn’t continue taking the children to visit their mother so regularly when Daphne could hardly speak, much less recognize her children. Not when it left them all in such a state.

  “You keep praying about your mom,” Amelia told Molly.

  Prayer was their last best hope. Prayer for a miracle because every avenue that Amelia tried to take in order to get Daphne’s rehabilitation amped up had failed miserably.

  Particularly the avenue named Grayson Hunt.

  Molly was only ten, but her expression clearly indicated that she didn’t hold out much hope on the prayer thing.

  Amelia leaned over and kissed Molly’s head. She knew exactly how the little girl felt. “Go put your jacket away and I’ll start dinner as soon as I’ve taken care of Timmy.”

  If Amelia didn’t find some way to pay for her sister’s special care—and soon—Daphne would be transferred yet again to a long-term, state-funded facility where there would be no chance for the rehabilitation that had already been deemed unnecessary.

  Molly nodded, looking dejected as she dragged her windbreaker behind her and headed for the bedroom door that Jack had emphatically closed. “Lemme in, Jack,” Molly whispered loudly through the door.

  What she wouldn’t give to hear Molly give a real yell, Amelia thought, as she headed into the bedroom with Timmy. She’d realized quickly enoug
h that keeping the baby supplied in disposable diapers was going to cost a small fortune, and used them only when she had to. The rest of the time, she went the old-fashioned route.

  Cloth.

  Fortunately, Paula had been an old hand at the art of folding and fastening cloth diapers, since that’s what she’d used when her daughter was an infant. And now, after three months and more than a few painfully poked fingertips, Amelia was adept with the matter, too.

  Dry again, Timmy stared up at her, mouth open in his angelic smile, legs kicking and hands reaching for her hair—his most recently mastered game.

  Amelia leaned over her bed where she’d changed him—no changing table had been in the budget—and blew a kiss against his cheek.

  Timmy gurgled and squealed and wriggled with delight.

  He was dry, fed and loved. As far as he was concerned, his world was complete.

  Molly and Jack were dry, fed and loved, too. Only they were old enough to know that without their mother, their world would never be the same again.

  Amelia couldn’t even dwell on the unbearable thought. She scooted the baby onto the middle of the bed and changed out of the lilac pantsuit she’d worn to see Daphne that day. She carefully hung it up next to the gray suit from the previous day.

  The nun’s habit. Grayson’s cutting remark hung in her head.

  She huffed, snapped the gray wool off the hanger and bundled it over the back of the straight chair she’d confiscated from the dining room to use at the narrow table that sufficed as a desk. There was no point leaving the garment in the Lilliputian closet, taking up precious space. The pieces needed to be dry-cleaned before they would be fit to wear again.

  She yanked on a soft pair of sweats, gathered up Timmy and returned to the living room where she settled him in the infant seat she’d found in a secondhand store. He grinned back at her from his position of superiority smack dab in the center of their little round dining room table as she set about preparing dinner.

  She’d never been much of a cook, but she’d been learning fast since she’d left Portland. And fortunately, the children weren’t finicky eaters. Good thing, or they’d have starved, considering the results of her early efforts.

  The meat was browning for simple tacos and she was shredding her way through a block of cheddar cheese when she heard the knock on the door. “Jack, can you get that? It’s probably Paula.”

  He’d finally come out of his bedroom and had been sprawled on the floor in front of the television, laboriously doing homework. He pushed to his feet and went to the door, looking out the peephole. “It’s not Paula.”

  She turned the cheese wedge on its side. “Who is it?”

  “I dunno.”

  She set down the cheese, checked the heat under the ground beef and headed to the door. “Your homework almost finished?”

  Jack shook his head but he didn’t go back to the books spread on the floor. He stood alongside Amelia—almost protectively, she suspected—as she went on her tiptoes to look out the tiny viewer.

  Her heart jumped into her throat at the fish-eye view of Grayson Hunt.

  He knocked again. “Amelia. Open the door.”

  She went down on her heels, wanting nothing more than to pretend they weren’t there.

  They didn’t have to answer the door, after all. There was no law that said they did. And just because he was an incredibly wealthy, influential man didn’t mean he had any more rights then a stranger off the street to tell her what to do.

  He’d already made it clear what he thought of her.

  “Jack. Take Molly and the baby into the bedroom.”

  “But—”

  “Please. Just do it.”

  Frowning mightily, he went to the table and scooped up Timmy, infant seat and all. “Come on, Mol.”

  “But I’m watching TV.”

  Grayson was knocking again, managing to express plenty of impatience in the act. “I can hear you through the door, Amelia.”

  “Molly,” she said, more sharply than she ought to have. She didn’t need to see her niece’s crestfallen expression to know it. “Please,” she said more calmly. “Just go with Jack for a few minutes. You can watch the television in my bedroom.” It was all of nine inches and black-and-white, but it was the only one they had, other than the twenty-year-old model in the living room. “This won’t take long.”

  “Who is he?” Jack asked, looking suspicious.

  She swallowed. “Nobody you have to worry about.”

  “I heard that,” Grayson said through the door.

  She waited just until the children were safely closed behind her bedroom door. Then she fumbled with the locks and yanked open the door, standing squarely in the opening. “What are you doing here?”

  He easily looked over her head through the slice of opening she’d left and she wished she were ten inches taller so she could block that view, as well. “We need to talk.”

  “No. We don’t. You’ve said as much as I want to hear.” And she still felt battered and bruised as a result. She started to close the door, but he stopped her simply by planting his very well-shod foot in its way. “Go away.” She banged the door hard on his foot. But the woefully thin door was hardly a weapon.

  “Not until we’ve talked.”

  Her shoulder leaning against the door, she glared at him. “Why? So you can assassinate my sister’s character—and mine—just a little more? No thanks.”

  “I know about Daphne’s stroke.”

  Her mouth dried. “Don’t even speak her name to me.” Her voice was low. Shaking.

  He actually managed to look regretful.

  Not that she believed it for a second.

  “I want you to leave. You’ve made it clear that you have no business here and I agree with that. So just go.”

  “My father had a heart attack almost a year ago.”

  She’d seen that in the news, along with most of the rest of the civilized world. And if he thought to draw a comparison between the state of his father—who was still at the helm of HuntCom as far as she knew—and her sister, who couldn’t qualify for anything beyond the most basic of care, he wasn’t as intelligent as her information suggested.

  “Move your foot. I don’t want our dinner to burn.”

  “You sold your town house to pay down her hospital bills.”

  The small profit she’d made on the sale hadn’t made a particularly significant dent in them, either.

  The idea that he’d obviously done his research into her had her cheeks, as well as her blood, burning. “That’s none of your business.”

  “Unlike you learning that I have a liking for cranberry muffins?”

  “What I learned about you was already public knowledge. You…you poking into my life is pure invasiveness. What do you care, anyway? Unless you’re planning to charge me with slander the way your attorney threatened Daphne.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you about that.” His voice was curt, his expression inflexible.

  “Then we have nothing to say, argumentative or otherwise, to each other.” She pushed again at the door, even harder, but his foot was as movable as a concrete block. “Do I have to call the police? Because, believe me, Mr. Hunt, I’m not afraid of doing so.”

  “I realize I was…hard on you,” he allowed.

  Her lips parted. “Hard on me? You accused me of, of—” She broke off, too angry for words. “Jack,” she called loudly. “Bring me the telephone.”

  “Wait.” Grayson withdrew his foot, only to press his palm against the door instead. He reached in his jacket and drew out a narrow envelope from his lapel. “Here.”

  She eyed the ivory-colored vellum as if it were a snake. “What is it?”

  “An agreement. Maybe we can help each other.”

  She would have given anything to tell the man that under no circumstances would she ever require his help. But how could she? If she hadn’t needed his help, she’d have never been in the park that early morning.

/>   Jack came out, carrying their cordless phone to her. He eyed Grayson silently.

  “Thank you.” Amelia took the phone. “Go back with your sister.”

  “I can hear everything through the doors, too.” He directed the comment at Grayson. Clearly warning.

  Amelia held the phone to her chest, waiting until her nephew was once again behind the bedroom door, giving at least the illusion of protection. She looked up at Grayson. “There is no agreement I would ever make with you,” she said evenly.

  “That’s not how it seemed to me yesterday.”

  “That was because I still possessed the ridiculous notion that there might be some decency in you despite the way you treated my sister.”

  His lips tightened. He extended the envelope again. “I never met your sister. Just take it. You might change your mind.”

  She studied him, suspicion and anger rampant in her cells. “There’s no way I can help you. No way I would ever even want to help you.”

  His eyes cooled. “Fine. Read it anyway. Because despite my distaste for your methods, I actually had begun believing that you did want to help your sister. What’s the name of that private facility you’ve been trying to get her into? Jackson-Whitney?”

  Her hand reached out and snatched the envelope from his fingers before she could stop it. She wanted, badly, to tear the thing into pieces, right in front of him.

  But she didn’t.

  The man had done his research. “Sloan Jackson is the only doctor who doesn’t believe Daphne’s prognosis is hopeless.”

  “And you spent every dime on your only credit card to pay his consultation fee.”

  She was trembling. She managed to lift her chin, anyway. She didn’t regret one dime of what she’d spent trying to find some hope for her sister. “He’s not some kook out to take fools’ money. His reputation is exemplary.”

  Surprisingly, Grayson nodded. “I agree. If you’re sure you want him, read that.” He removed his hand from the door.

  Which Amelia didn’t immediately slam shut in his face.

  He gave a short nod, obviously satisfied with that particular fact. “You still have my number?”

  She wanted to tell him that she’d burned that foul card on which he’d written his private number.