An Officer And A Millionaire

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, 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 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