The Billionaire's New Year Gift. Emma Darcy

far too long and too hard to build his empire to ever give it up.

      No.

      He’d never sell everything. All they had to do was wait him out, and he’d back down.

      So when Alex and his brothers were conferenced into a call from Justin the following evening and Justin said he thought they should take the deal, Alex was shocked, even though Justin explained why he thought so.

      “I went to see Cornelia,” he said. “And she feels there’s a strong possibility Harry’s threat to sell the company is real. She said she’s been growing increasingly worried about him since his heart attack. She confided that Harry seems uncharacteristically introspective and that on several occasions he’s told her all he wants is for us to be married and to have children. Cornelia says she’s afraid Harry feels a need to right his wrongs and is getting his fiscal and emotional affairs in order in preparation for dying.”

      “So you’re willing to let him choose your wife?” Alex said to Justin in disbelief.

      “No,” Justin said. “I’m willing to convince him that’s what’s happening, but I’ll do the choosing. I spend half my time in Idaho, not Seattle. I’ll marry someone acceptable to him and set her up in a home in the city and then I’ll go back to Idaho.”

      “You think that’ll work?” The question came from J.T.

      “Oh, yeah,” Justin drawled, cynicism lacing his tone. “The second she realizes she’s married to a Hunt and has a generous allowance, she’ll gladly live in Seattle while I live wherever the hell I want. I’ll write off the cost of keeping her and the kid as a business expense.”

      “Damn, Justin,” Alex said. “That’s cold.” Not to mention dishonest. ButAlex didn’t say that. He knew his brothers all thought he was too idealistic, that he simply didn’t understand the cold realities of the world.

      “Not cold. Practical,” Justin said.

      “You know this won’t work unless all of us are in,” Gray said.

      “I know,” Justin said. “And it won’t work for any of us unless we come up with a contract that ties Harry’s hands in the future. We’d have to make sure he can never blackmail us like this again.”

      “Absolutely,” J.T. put in. “If he thinks he can manipulate us with threats, he’ll do it again in a heartbeat.”

      “So if we do this, we are going to need an ironclad contract that controls the situation,” Alex said, thinking out loud.

      “If all Harry had threatened us with was loss of income,” Justin said, “I’d tell him to go to hell and walk. But I’m not willing to lose the ranch. What about the rest of you?”

      Alex finally broke the silence that followed his question. “If it was just money, I’d tell him to go to hell, too. But it’s not, is it?”

      “It’s about the things and places he knows matter most to us.” J.T. sounded grim.

      “Part of Harry’s demand was that the brides not know our identities until after we’re married. How are you going to find a marriageable woman in Seattle who doesn’t know you’re rich, Justin?” Gray asked.

      “I’ve been out of state for most of the last eighteen months, plus I’ve never been as high-profile as the rest of you,” Justin said.

      “Yeah, right,” J.T. scoffed. “There isn’t a single one of us who hasn’t had our picture in the paper or a magazine.”

      “But not as often as Harry,” Gray said. “He’s the public face of HuntCom. I’ve got to give the old man credit, he deflected as much publicity from us as he could.”

      “True,” Justin agreed. “So how about it, Gray? Are you in?”

      Alex knew Gray could be as stubborn as Harry. “Face it, Gray. Harry holds all the cards.”

      “He always has.” Gray sighed audibly. “This totally sucks, but if we can come up with a way to tie Harry’s hands in the future, then I guess I’m in.”

      By the time they finished their call, Alex was already thinking of ways he could fulfill his part of their strange bargain and begin his own hunt for Cinderella.

       Chapter One

      Six weeks later…

      Alex looked around his new apartment with satisfaction. This place, with its nondescript decor and discount-house furniture, was a far cry from his pad in the city, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t need fancy digs. Never had. The only reason he lived where and how he did was because it was expected of him in his position as the director of the Harrison Hunt Foundation.

      Thinking about the foundation, he frowned. He’d put out every fire, assigned as many tasks as he could to others and taken care of everything else he could think of before telling his staff he was taking an extended leave of absence. And he knew his assistant, Martha Oliver, affectionately called Marti by all who knew her well, could be trusted to handle ninety-nine percent of anything else that might come up.

      But it was that other one percent that worried Alex. Still, he was only a ninety-minute drive from downtown Seattle, and in an emergency, Marti could reach him on his cell and know he’d come as soon as possible. In fact, she’d been texting him religiously, keeping him up to date on everything. Alex made a mental note to give her a hefty bonus when this situation was finally resolved and he was back to work. Which, he hoped, would be soon.

      He knew there was no reason to worry. Things would be fine while he was gone. He reminded himself that all he had to do was quickly find a suitable woman to marry, and he might not have to be away from the foundation for long at all.

      Alex was not arrogant or vain. But he wasn’t unaware of his appeal. All his life he’d been told he was good-looking and wherever he went women made eye contact and flirted. So if he found someone who interested him and that he felt his father and his Aunt Cornelia would approve of, he suspected all he’d have to do was go through the motions women expected from a suitor.

      After he and his brothers had decided to go along with Harry’s edict, Alex had given considerable thought to his strategy in the campaign to find the kind of wife he wanted. What he’d decided was he would never be able to do so while continuing to work at the foundation. He needed to go somewhere he wasn’t known and he needed to be working at an ordinary job with ordinary people.

      Then he thoroughly researched Harry’s various holdings and narrowed them down to the one where he thought he might not stick out like a sore thumb. He told his father he wanted a position at their distribution center in Jansen, an hour and a half drive from Seattle—just south of Olympia. He already knew most folks in Jansen watched Portland television stations and read the Portland newspaper, so they’d be unlikely to recognize him from any of the publicity photos tied to the Hunt Foundation. And if anyone did recognize him, he’d simply say he was always being mistaken for one of the Hunt brothers.

      Alex didn’t think he had to worry. He had always tried to keep a low profile. He hated society bashes and disliked the club scene. If not for the foundation and its work, he doubted anyone would ever recognize him as belonging to the Hunt family.

      Today would be the true test, though, because in less than forty-five minutes, he would begin his new job at HuntCom’s main distribution center.

      New job.

      New apartment.

      And new name.

      He’d also decided that for the duration of his “hunt” he would be known as Alex Noble. It would be different if he were going to go to work somewhere that wasn’t associated with HuntCom, but at the distribution center there was no way he could be Alex Hunt without someone questioning the coincidence of the shared name.