The Bride and the Bargain

Another thing he’d gotten from his mother. The kid loved peanut butter.

“Are you ready for your math test today?” She ran her hands under the faucet, wincing as the warm water hit her scraped palms.

He pulled the spoon out of his mouth. “Gonna fail it, anyway.” He leaned over the width of the counter and dropped the silverware into the sink with a clatter.

“Jack—”

“I’ll get Mol.” He headed through the short hallway that broke off into the hall bathroom and the two bedrooms the apartment possessed before she could deliver the pep talk forming on her lips.

He was back in minutes, Molly trailing in his wake. She wore her school uniform, too, a navy skirt and matching cardigan over her tan blouse. Her long blond hair was brushed and shiny and her eyes—as dark as her brother’s—widened when she saw Amelia’s appearance.

“I’m fine,” Amelia assured hurriedly. Not unnaturally, Molly worried so easily these days. “I tripped over my shoelace.” She waggled her foot with the lace that Grayson Hunt had securely tied. “Just like you did the other day in the park.”

Molly nibbled her lip for a moment, absorbing that. When she wordlessly held out two bands and a comb, Amelia was relieved. She managed not to wince as she wrapped her fingers around the comb and deftly parted her niece’s silky hair. “Ponytails today instead of braids, okay?”

“Okay,” Molly whispered.

Amelia finished the simple hairstyle and dropped a kiss on the child’s head. “All set.”

“Will we visit Mommy today?” Molly’s voice never raised above the whisper.

Amelia’s heart ached. “After school,” she promised. She took the kids at least twice a week to the convalescent center. Daphne, unfortunately, didn’t react to their presence when they did visit. She was alert, but her own children might as well be strangers. Amelia looked over Molly’s head at Jack. “You two can’t wait for me to go to school this morning or you’ll be late. You’ll be all right catching the bus by yourselves?”

The corner of Jack’s lips turned down. “We always did before.”

She couldn’t help herself. She reached forward and brushed her fingers through the reddish-blond hair falling across his forehead. Before meant before Timmy was born, she knew. Before his mother had become incapacitated and the aunt he’d barely known had come to take over. “I know, sweetheart.” She smoothed her hand down his cheek even as he was stepping away, too grown at twelve years old to suffer such displays of affection. “And you’ll do fine on your math test. Just take your time, Jack.”

He made a face. Math was the only subject in which he really struggled. “Get your pack, Mol.”

But Molly didn’t go for her backpack. Instead, she slipped her hands around Amelia’s waist, hugging her tightly. “Are you staying home today?”

Amelia had counted herself fortunate that she’d found a librarian position with the very school that Jack and Molly attended on scholarship. It didn’t pay as well as her old job at the university library in Oregon, but her schedule was in sync with the children’s. “I’ll just be a little late,” she assured, and hoped Mr. Nguyen, the headmaster, didn’t quibble over the matter. In addition to insurance benefits, she wasn’t yet entitled to sick leave, either. “You have your lunch money?”

Molly’s head bobbed and she finally let Amelia loose to take the backpack that Jack held out for her. She slid her arms through the loops and followed her brother out the door.

Amelia stood there in the silent apartment for a moment. The furnishings were simple but cheerful, seeming to carry Daphne’s personality even after all these weeks without her presence. The beige walls were covered with an eclectic collection of travel posters. Places that Daphne had always dreamed of visiting, but hadn’t. The woven blanket tucked over the couch carried the same brilliance, as did the pillows scattered among the two threadbare armchairs.

No, the apartment wasn’t fancy. It was an aeon away from the type of digs that Grayson Hunt occupied. The research she’d done about the man over the last three months had told her just how great an aeon. Not only did he have his place at the family home on Lake Washington, but he occupied a stunningly modern penthouse near the waterfront that, according to the spread done in an architectural journal, included a rooftop garden that rivaled a forested park.

Unlike the Hunt’s mansion, Daphne’s apartment did not possess walls of windows that afforded its occupants the finest views that money could buy. Nor were Daphne’s furnishings custom-made by the world’s greatest designers, but her sister’s apartment was a home because Daphne had made it so.

Now, Amelia’s sister languished in a facility that provided only the medical care for which she could qualify. Adequate, but definitely basic.

Amelia’s knees ached as she crossed the tidy beige carpet and flipped the locks back into place.

If only she’d been able to convince Daphne to bring the kids and go stay with her in Oregon where they’d both grown up.

Everything would be different.

She put Molly’s comb away and called the school and her neighbor Paula, who minded Timmy during the day, to let them know she’d be late, then carried the first aid supplies into the bedroom that she shared with the baby and his crib.

Timmy was still sound asleep, his soft lips pursed together, his fists curled. Three months now, Amelia couldn’t help but marvel. Three months that had passed in a blink.

She’d cared for the baby since she’d brought him home from the hospital. Without his mother. Three months focusing on everything she’d ever convinced herself she didn’t want in this life. Not after the way she and Daphne had grown up.

How quickly a lifetime of belief had spun on its ear. Just because of this tiny, small being.

She chewed the inside of her lip, resisting the urge to touch the sweet boy. Just because she wanted the comfort of cuddling Daphne’s baby was no reason to disturb his sound sleep.

If Daphne hadn’t left Oregon at all, this beautiful baby wouldn’t even exist and there would have been no reason whatsoever for Amelia to take on Grayson Hunt.

Less than an hour later, bandages on her knees hidden beneath her gray slacks, Amelia was handing Timmy and his diaper bag and extra bottles over to Paula Browning. The woman wasn’t only their neighbor; she was about the only person Amelia considered a friend in Seattle. She was ten years Amelia’s senior, widowed, and her only child was already away at college. If it weren’t for Paula, Amelia wasn’t quite certain how she would have managed. It was Paula who’d volunteered to watch the children. To mind Timmy during the day, and Amelia had been so far out of her depth, that she’d gratefully accepted. Not only was Paula unfailingly reliable, but she was a font of practical advice about babies.

And on that subject, Amelia had needed all the advice she could get.

Paula’s green eyes were nothing if not sharp, though, and there was no hope of her failing to notice the bandages Amelia had taped to her palms as she transferred Timmy to the woman’s arms. Timmy’s fingers twined around her hair and she worked the strands free, kissing his soft little fist as the other woman took him.

“I figured there must be something wrong for you to be running late,” Paula said now, smiling into Timmy’s bright eyes. “What happened?”

“I tripped when I was running. Nothing major.”

Paula looked knowing. “That’s what happens when you run before the sun even comes up.” She shook her artfully blond head. “Not like you need the exercise, either. You’re even thinner now than when you arrived in Seattle.”

Amelia frowned down at herself. She supposed it was true that her clothes hung a little more loosely on her frame these days.

“Any luck spotting the great one, himself?”

Amelia flushed. Before she’d gone into labor, Daphne had confided in Paula about the identity of her child’s father. She knew that Amelia’s choice of running trails had far more to do with him than anything else. “He was there, actually,” she admitted. “I couldn’t believe it, at first. I’ve never even spotted him before. And—” She broke off.

Paula’s eyebrows rose. “And?”

“And…nothing.” Amelia was still kicking herself. “I mean, I did nothing.” Except get run over by the man, and that truly had been unintentional. Until it had happened, she wasn’t even aware that Grayson Hunt was on the trail at all.

And then when he was there—helping her, even—she hadn’t told him who she was, hadn’t told him that if he didn’t come to some terms over his responsibilities, she was going straight to the media.

She had done absolutely nothing.

“Well, at least you know all the interviews you’ve been poring over for the past month haven’t been wasted,” Paula consoled.

Grayson hadn’t announced to the news outlets that he chose to run in a small, hilly park over an hour away from his waterfront home. That comment had been strictly off-the-cuff, captured only in a live feed moments before he’d addressed the graduating class at MIT over a year earlier. But the close proximity of the park to the restaurant where Daphne had waitressed and met Grayson had been enough reason for Amelia to try her chances there.

Goodness knows her efforts at obtaining a meeting with the man in person had been utterly futile. Regular people just couldn’t get in to see him without good reason, and she knew the second she mentioned her sister and paternity, she’d be shuffled off to his attorneys. As it was, then, the closest she’d been able to get was an appointment with some underling of his—and that was set for six months down the road.

Amelia didn’t have six months.

More importantly, Daphne didn’t have six months. If her sister’s condition was going to improve, it would take a miracle. A miracle by God, or a miracle by money.

Amelia wasn’t taking her chances, either way. She went to bed at night praying, and she started her day running in the park on the off chance that she just might encounter him.

And when she had, what had she done besides end up with her nose in the dirt?

Paula watched her. “So what are you going to do now?”

Amelia curled her fingers, feeling the bandages on her palms. It was fine to envision herself tackling Goliath head-on. But she’d never before been good at confrontations, never been good at fighting battles.

That had been Daphne’s strong suit, and even she had chosen not to fight for her child’s rights. If it hadn’t been for the way she and Amelia had been raised, that fact would have had Amelia wondering if Daphne could somehow be mistaken. Her sister had never lacked for male company, even though she’d kept her companions away from her children and her home.

But Amelia did remember how it had been for them as children. Both she and Daphne knew what it felt like to be acknowledged by a father only because the law had forced it, so it wasn’t surprising that Daphne had shied away from forcing that issue herself.

“The only answer I can still think of is to go to the media if he does threaten me with a lawsuit like he threatened Daphne,” Amelia admitted.

Paula looked uncertain. “It’s pretty rare for anything unflattering about the Hunts to make it into the news.”

Which left the gossip rags, they both knew, who’d lap up anything salacious about the wealthy man. “I hate the idea. I don’t want the world looking at Daphne. Or the children. But I have to do something, Paula. He’s my last hope where my sister is concerned. Even the attorney I hired has told me that Daphne’s case is at a standstill. She has no health insurance and unless it’s privately financed, there is no hope of her receiving the kind of care and therapy that could improve her condition.”

“Honey, I hate to say it, but even if you find a way to get her into that rehabilitation institute you found, Daphne might not improve. I know it’s tragic, but she did have a major stroke the likes of which many people don’t even survive.”

The doctors—all but one—had claimed the same thing. “She’s my sister,” Amelia said quietly. “She and the kids are all I have. I have to try.”

“Even if it means going against Grayson Hunt? Once that lawyer of his threatened Daphne with that lawsuit when she notified him of her pregnancy, she vowed never to acknowledge his existence again.”

How well Amelia knew that. Daphne was a fighter, but she’d had her pride, as well.

“I have to try,” she said again.

It was the only thing she could do.

Chapter Three

It wasn’t all that easy tracking down Miss Amelia White, Gray learned later that day. Not even for him. It would have been much easier if he’d delegated the task to someone else, but something kept him from doing so.

Stubborn pride, probably.

Hell. His brothers had managed to find wives without calling out the HuntCom dogs to help. The fact that Gray had to force himself not to do just that seemed to point out the difference between him and Harry’s other sons. They’d all been prepared to sacrifice their HuntCom ties for the women that they’d chosen. Women that they’d—amazingly enough—convinced themselves they’d fallen in love with.

Gray was happy enough for his brothers, even though he figured it was just a matter of time before the happy fog cleared from their heads.

They were Harry’s sons, after all.

What did any of them know about making a marriage work?

But what Gray did know was that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—sacrifice HuntCom for anything. He might as well stop breathing. So he’d tackled the task of finding Amelia, himself.

Even though he’d given her his private number, he wasn’t going to wait around on the chance that she might phone him. Not when he considered her wariness where he was concerned. It would take a miracle for her to use that number.

And Gray wasn’t a big believer in miracles.

Fortunately, the cab company had a record of the address where that particular fare had been dropped. And when money hadn’t provided the impetus to release the data, some computer hacking had.

Now he sat at his desk in his downtown apartment that evening, his earpiece tucked in his ear, and worked his way down the list of phone numbers assigned to every apartment inside Amelia’s building.

Unfortunately, none of the phone numbers belonged to an Amelia White, so it was a matter of calling every number.

Call, after call, after call. “Amelia White, please. Wrong number? Pardon me. Sorry for the interruption.”

Most times, he didn’t even get to the “pardon me” part.

He recited the next number. “Amelia White, please,” he said automatically when the call was answered.

“She’s busy right now. Who is this?”

He almost missed it, so accustomed was he to failure. He sat up straighter, eyeing the display on the desk unit of his voice-activated telephone.

The voice that had answered was male. Young. Maybe on the verge of puberty considering the way it seemed to crack.

“This is Gray.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose again, stifling an oath. “Matthew Gray,” he corrected. “Who is this?”

“Jack. What do you want?”

The kid didn’t lack nerve, that’s for certain. “I want to talk to Amelia.”

“What for?”

“Do you always give her callers the third degree?”

“My aunt doesn’t have callers,” the boy returned.

Aunt. The nugget of information made Gray smile. So Amelia had a niece and a nephew. “I’m calling to see how she’s feeling after her tumble in the park this morning.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I was there.”

The boy sighed a little. “She’s in the bathtub,” he supplied grudgingly.

Every nerve inside of Gray tightened at the image that immediately jumped into his head of Amelia’s curves glistening with water.

Was she a bubble bath kind of girl?

Or was she strictly in it for the Epsom salts route, given the way he’d plowed into her?

He pinched his eyes shut. What the hell was wrong with him? He’d never lacked for feminine company when he wanted it, but his reaction was more like a man who’d gone hungry for it for about a decade too long.

“Could you tell her I’m on the phone?” Decency should have had him leaving a message with the boy, but Gray didn’t have time to pussyfoot around with the good manners his all-about-appearances mother had tried to drill into him during their infrequent visits. Besides, he didn’t expect that Amelia would return his call.

“Yeah. I guess. Hold on.” A clatter blasted through Gray’s earpiece and he winced, pulling it off even as he hit the speaker on the desk unit and waited.

“H-hello?”

For some reason, she sounded even younger when she finally came on the phone line. “How’re the knees?”

She exhaled softly. In his mind’s eye, he saw the soft purse of her lips, the sweep of her lashes hiding her brown eyes from him. “Sore. I was, um, soaking them.”

And everything else. “Epsom salts?”

“I…what? Oh. No, I don’t have any of that.”

“Should have picked some up when you stocked up on bandages. Good for taking the pain out of sore muscles and stuff.”

“I have heard of it,” she said, sounding slightly affronted. “And you seem awfully certain that I did stock up on bandages. Maybe I used your money for—oh, I don’t know—a manicure.”

He was reasonably confident that she hadn’t. Her slender fingers had been entirely natural, the nails trimmed short and neat. The women he knew paid ridiculous sums to keep their hands looking unnaturally natural. “Did you?”

She sighed a little. “Not exactly. How did you find this number, anyway?” Her voice was suspicious.

He glanced at the list. The phone number belonged to some woman named Mason. The mother of the niece and nephew? “I’ve called nearly every number listed for your building.”

“And you knew which building, because—”

“Because the cab company said that’s where you were dropped.”

She was silent for a moment as if she were trying to figure him out. “Why would you go to such trouble, Mr. Gray?”

“Matt.”

“Fine.” Her voice sounded suddenly tight. “Matt.”

“Because I’m that kind of guy.”

Her silence was loud.

He tried again. “Because I’ve thought about you all day.” There was more truth than he liked in the admission.

“I can’t imagine why.”

“There is the small matter of your bloodied knees and hands,” he reminded. “How old is your nephew?”

“Jack?” Her soft voice lifted again with suspicion. “Why?”

“Because I’m curious. You mentioned your niece. Didn’t mention a nephew.”

“He’s twelve,” she supplied. “Look, I really have to be going.”

“Bathwater getting cold?” Evidently he was developing a masochistic streak. Why else punish himself with the vision of her delicately placing one foot into the tub, followed by the other. Steamy water lapping at her calves, then her thighs as she lowered herself. Sank back against the side, water climbing higher, tickling the base of her throat, the point of her slightly triangular chin.

“If you must know, yes, it is getting cold.”

He eyed the speakerphone, as if he could see her face, instead. “Did you think about me today?”

Silence reigned again, broken only by the background noise of that tinny television. “You have no idea,” she finally answered.

“Don’t sound so solemn.”

She made a soft sound. He couldn’t tell if it was annoyance or something else. “Look, Mr. Gray. Matt. I…I appreciate your efforts in making certain that I’m okay, but I think it’s best if we just—”

A sound broke out that made the hair on Gray’s nape stand on end.

A baby’s cry.

“That’s a baby.” He stated the obvious. Another nephew? Or hers? She’d said she wasn’t married. But women had babies all the time these days without benefit of marriage.

“My nephew,” she said. “Timmy. And I have to see to him, as you can plainly hear.”

“Are you playing babysitter or something?” he asked, speaking a little more loudly to be heard above the wail that was drawing closer to the telephone.

Either she’d gone to pick up the baby, or someone had brought the baby to her. Jack, maybe. Or the other one. Molly.

“Or something.” Her voice was short. “I’m watching them for my sister. This is their place.” She neatly satisfied Gray’s speculation. “He’s three months old,” she said suddenly.

What he knew about babies would fit on the head of a pin and his ignorance hadn’t been without design. “Sounds like he’s got a healthy set of lungs.”

“He’s hungry.”

“What about you? Have dinner with me tomorrow.”

She made a strangled sound that not even the baby’s crying could disguise. “I’m sorry, Mr.…Matt. I have to go now.”

The crying was cut off midwail to be replaced by the soft buzz of the dial tone.

Dammit.

He jabbed the phone with his finger and the dial tone went silent. He pushed at his desk, his chair swiveling around to face the windows behind him. But he didn’t see beyond his own frustrated reflection, glaring back at him.

Smooth, Gray. Really smooth. He hadn’t been turned down so flatly, so abruptly, in well…ever.

His phone buzzed softly and he glanced at the caller ID. He grimaced and jabbed the speaker. “What’s up, Marissa?”

“Hello to you, too,” his attorney drawled, sounding amused. “You’re sounding rather tense, darling. Anything I can do to help?”

If only it were that simple. Marissa Matthews was a beautiful, leggy redhead who’d make the perfect wife for him. Independent, never demanding, perfectly accustomed to the requirements of being a Hunt. If he could have made a bargain with her to become his wife, he would have. Only she already knew who he was; and had made it plain all the way back when they were in school together that she’d be happy to marry only money.

“Not this time,” Gray told her. “You get the paperwork from Birchman signed?”

“Not yet. But don’t worry. I will. He’s got no choice. He either sells his little operation to HuntCom at a very tidy sum, or he goes under. It’s a slam dunk. You made sure of that, remember?”

He had. Tying up every possible venue for Edward Birchman to market his so far barely noticed software.

It was something Gray was good at. HuntCom hired the best developers in the world as a general rule, but Gray still kept his eye on what was going on outside of HuntCom walls. And when he spotted something that was going to be good, going to be big, he usually managed one way or another to bring it into the fold.

To everyone’s profit, except HuntCom competitors.

“That’s not why I called, though,” Marissa said. “Unless you went out and purchased a yacht this afternoon—when I know you were supposed to be meeting with your father—I’m afraid that Gerry’s up to his tricks again.”

Gray grimaced. Gerry Dunleavy was Gray’s half brother on his mother’s side. Christina had married two more times after she’d been given the boot by Harry when Gray was still a tot. She’d only produced one other child, though, Gerry, from husband number three. And considering old Dunleavy was a contemporary of Moses when he’d married Christina, that was pretty much a medical miracle.

Gerry was ten years younger than Gray, and a royal pain in his backside given his proclivity for using Gray’s name whenever it suited his purposes. And one of Marissa’s tasks in life for Gray—for which he paid her handsomely—was to keep on top of Gerry’s activities and keep him out of the news.

Personally, Gray avoided dealing with Gerry himself. Not hard, since they detested one another. He simply didn’t want Gerry’s behavior to reflect poorly on HuntCom.

“What the hell does Gerry need with a yacht? Christina’s already got one courtesy of Daddy Dunleavy. He left it to her in his will.” And Lord knew there was nothing that Christina ever denied Gerry.