The Bride and the Bargain. Allison Leigh

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      Find. Wife. Find. Wife. Find. Wife.

      Every time the soles of Gray’s running shoes bounced against the narrow tree-lined path, the words seemed to echo in his head.

      “Shut. Up. Shut. Up,” he said under his breath.

      “Find. Wife. Find. Wife,” his footsteps answered.

      He muttered an oath and picked up speed.

      Everything that Gray had ever wanted to accomplish in life, he had. He was successful in every endeavour, because that’s who he was.

      But in this one…damned…thing…he was – barrelling straight for a runner squatting in his path.

      He tried slowing down, but momentum had him in its grip. “On the left,” he barked, hoping the girl – oh, yeah, definitely a girl – would heed his warning and move to the side.

      Instead, he got a glimpse of fair skin, wide dark eyes and flying dark hair as she rose and took the impact with a gasping “Oomph!”

      ALLISON LEIGH

      started early by writing a Halloween play that her primary school class performed. Since then, though her tastes have changed, her love for reading has not. And her writing appetite simply grows more voracious by the day.

      She has been a finalist in the RITA^® Award and the Holt Medallion contests. But the true highlights of her day as a writer are when she receives word from a reader that they laughed, cried or lost a night’s sleep while reading one of her books.

      Born in Southern California, Allison has lived in several different cities in four different states. She has been, at one time or another, a cosmetologist, a computer programmer and a secretary. She began writing full-time after spending nearly a decade as an administrative assistant for a busy neighbourhood church, and she currently makes her home in Arizona with her family. She loves to hear from her readers, who can write to her at PO Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772, USA.

      The Bride and the Bargain

      Allison Leigh

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For my fellow Cinderella Hunters.

      It has been a true pleasure working with you.

      Prologue

       July

      Of all the things he might have foreseen, never in his life could Gray have imagined this.

      No, he’d been more annoyed with the command performance his father had requested. In the month since Harry had suffered a heart attack, the man had been increasingly unpredictable. And the last thing Gray had needed was a trip out to the family’s high-tech estate on Lake Washington when he had fifty million things to attend to back at the office in downtown Seattle.

      Not that the distraction of his work was any excuse.

      He was Grayson Hunt, president of HuntCom.

      Whether or not he and his three younger brothers had been summoned to the shack—as they’d wryly dubbed the opulent family compound when they were young—he was supposed to be able to juggle any number of responsibilities. God knew that Harry had never let anything set him off track for any length of time. The only child of a storekeeper and his homemaker wife, Harrison Hunt had invented the computer software that had made HuntCom a household word. He’d turned an offbeat, fledgling company into a multinational, multibillion-dollar juggernaut that had set the computer industry on its ear.

      Gray was forty-two, Harry’s firstborn and supposedly just like him. The knowledge was as much a curse as a blessing.

      Gray biffed another shot at the antique pool table and shook his head, surrendering the table to his youngest brother, Justin.

      “Does anybody know why the old man called this meeting?” Without hesitation, Justin began pocketing balls, easily showing up Gray’s less impressive attempts.

      “He left a message with Loretta,” Gray said. “Didn’t give her a reason.” When it vibrated silently, he pulled out his cell phone, glancing at the display. Another text from Loretta, his secretary, keeping him apprised of his ever-evolving schedule. He’d canceled six meetings in order to answer Harry’s summons.

      “Harry called you himself? Me, too.” Alex was working his way through a bottle of Black Sheep Ale from his position in one of the leather armchairs arranged around the spacious library. At thirty-six, he headed up the company’s philanthropic arm—the Hunt Foundation—and had probably canceled his own share of meetings, as well. “What about you, J.T.? Did you get the message from his secretary, or from Harry personally?”

      A tumbler of bourbon in his hand, J.T. looked beat. An architect by training, he was in charge of all HuntCom properties and construction and was more often on the road than not. “From Harry. I told him I’d have to cancel a week of meetings in New Delhi and spend over half a day on the corporate jet to get home in time, but he insisted I be here.” He peered wearily at Justin, the baby of the brothers at thirty-four. “What about you?”

      “I was at the ranch when he called. He told me the same thing he told you. I had to be here. No excuses.” Justin slowly rolled the pool cue between his palms. “He refused to tell me what the meeting was about. Did he tell any of you why he wanted to talk to us?”

      “No.” Gray was plenty irritated about it, too. Harry knew they were all busy. So what the hell was he calling family get-togethers for? And then to leave them cooling their heels in the library?

      He looked at his vibrating phone again. Dammit. Another hiccup with their latest buyout. He started for the door. If he had to call and ream out somebody, he wanted some privacy. But before he could make it to the hall door, it flew open and their father entered.

      “Ah, you’re all here. Excellent.” Harry waved his hand toward his massive mahogany desk at the far end of the room that faced the French doors overlooking their private beach. “Join me, boys,” he invited, as if he did so every day.

      Which he didn’t. One thing Gray could not say about Harry was that he’d been a doting, hands-on kind of dad.

      He faced Harry across the desk, ignoring the chairs situated in front of it. His brothers took no interest in the chairs, either.

      Harry eyed the empty seats through his horn-rimmed bifocals. Despite hitting seventy on his last birthday, his dark hair was barely marked by gray. And his blue eyes were definitely looking peeved.

      Gray could relate.

      Harry shrugged impatiently. “Very well. Stand or sit. It makes no difference.” He did sit, however, which was good because Gray would have told him to if he hadn’t.

      His father drove him around the bend, but that didn’t mean Gray had no concerns for the old man’s health.

      “Since my heart attack last month,” Harry began, proving yet again that Gray’s mind often tracked along his father’s, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this family. I’ve never thought a lot about my legacy—”

      At that, Gray’s lips did twist, but he remained silent when Harry glanced at him.

      “—nor about having grandchildren to carry on the Hunt name,” the old man continued. “But the heart attack made me face some hard truths I’d ignored up until then. I could have died. I could die tomorrow.”

      Gray still had a hard time imagining that. Harry seemed too vital. Too stubborn. Still, though Harry was a machine in many ways, he was an aging one.

      His father rose, pressing his fists against the desktop. “I finally realized that left to your own devices, you four never will get married, which means I’ll never have grandchildren. I don’t intend