Maureen Child: An Officer And A Millionaire

“I should have known you were a bully.”

“Excuse me?” He actually felt his glower darken.

“Is this a military thing? You barking orders and expecting us poor civilians to jump into line? Well, I don’t take orders from you. And you should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Ashamed of myself? You might want to back off, babe, ” he said, and it came out as more of a growl, “I’m not the one pretending to be something I’m not. I’m not the one living in someone else’s home under false pretenses. I’m not the one-”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, I’m not going to stand here and be insulted.” She pushed past Hunter, giving him a straight-armed shove that caught him so off guard he actually stepped aside. He could have stood his ground, but then, he’d never been the kind of man to use his muscle against women.

His quick movement brought a twinge of discomfort from the still-healing wound in his side, and he automatically lifted one hand to it. Then he watched her storm out of the bathroom, somehow managing to look regal while wrapped in a towel. She left damp footprints on the thick, soft green carpet, which muffled the sound of her passage, and headed directly to his chest of drawers.

Wryly, he asked, “Going to be wearing some of my old boxers and T-shirts, are you?”

She shot him a surly look over her shoulder. “I moved your ratty old clothes to the bottom drawer a long time ago.”

“Ratty?”

“What would you call T-shirts with more holes than fabric?”

“Mine.”

She ignored him now, digging into an open drawer. Pulling out a pale blue lacy bra and a pair of panties to match, she hurried over to the huge walk-in closet, stepped inside it and closed the door behind her.

So he wasn’t going to be watching her dress. Not that he wanted to. Fine. That was a lie. He wouldn’t have minded another look at her figure. After all, he was human, wasn’t he? And male, with an appreciation for a nicely rounded woman. And whoever the hell she was, he already knew she had some great curves.

Instantly, his mind filled with that last glimpse he’d had of her. Pale flesh, rigid pink nipples and a bottom that made a man want to grab hold and squeeze.

Scowling at the thoughts crowding his fevered mind, he shut them down resolutely. A Navy SEAL was nothing if not disciplined.

“Why are you here, anyway?” Her voice came from the depths of the closet.

“This is my home, babe. I belong here.”

She snorted. That came through loud and clear. He also heard clothes hangers rattling and a hard thud followed by her muffled yelp.

“What’re you doing?” he demanded.

“Breaking my toe,” she snapped.

Hunter glowered at the closed door; then while he half listened to the sounds she made, he let his gaze slide around the room he’d grown up in. He’d been so distracted by the whole “wife” thing earlier that he hadn’t really noticed how different the room was.

The walls were green, not beige. The carpet was green, not brown. There was a lacy quilt covering the king-sized bed he’d picked out himself at seventeen and a mountain of frilly pillows stacked against the headboard. Filmy white curtains fluttered at the windows that overlooked the garden at the rear of the mansion, and the French doors leading to the balcony boasted the same girly curtains as the windows.

How had he not noticed? He, whose very survival often depended on his observational skills? “What the hell have you done to this place?”

She stepped out of the closet then, and he whipped around to look at her. She wore a yellow T-shirt over a pair of worn, faded jeans that hugged every luscious inch of her and a pair of sandals that added about three inches to her measly height. Her green eyes were narrowed, her full mouth grim, and she’d somehow managed to fluff her wild mane of curly hair into a damp jumble of softness. When she folded her arms across her chest, his gaze locked on the wide, gold band on her ring finger.

Damn it.

Margie stared right back at him while she tried to ignore the rush of something hot and tempting inside her. His blue eyes were filled with suspicion he didn’t bother to hide, and tension practically rippled off him in waves. Hunter Cabot was a lot… bigger than she’d expected. Not just tall. Big. His shoulders were wide, his chest and arms looked as though he spent most of his time lifting weights and even his long legs were thick and muscled beneath the black jeans he wore.

Impressive. And a little-no, a lot-daunting. But she wasn’t about to let him know how nervous he made her. After all, she hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Well?” He glared at her again. He really was very good at that. “Who the hell told you that you could move into my room and turn it into some female lair?”

The best defense, Margie had always believed, was a good offense. A lawyer she’d once worked for had taught her that, and she’d always found it to work.

“Your grandfather did,” she answered with plenty of heat of her own. “You remember, the lonely old man you never visit?”

“Don’t you start on me about my grandfather. You don’t have the right.”

“Really?” She marched right up to him, every step fueled by the anger she’d harbored for Hunter ever since she first came to work for his grandfather. “Well, let me tell you something, Captain Hunter Cabot, I earned the right to defend your grandfather the night he had his heart attack and I was the only one at his bedside.”

He flushed. Anger? Or shame?

“Why were you at his bedside, anyway?”

Margie huffed out an impatient breath. She shouldn’t be having to explain any of this. Simon had promised her that he would talk to Hunter before he came home. But this surprise arrival had thrown everything off.

“I’m Simon’s executive assistant.”

“His secretary?”

“Assistant,” she corrected. “I was here. With him, when he had the heart attack. We tried to find you, but, big surprise, you were nowhere to be found.”

“Just a damn minute…”

“No,” she countered, stabbing her index finger at him, “you had your say; now it’s my turn. You’re never here. You hardly call. Your grandfather misses you, blast it. Why, I can’t imagine-”

“That’s none of your-”

“Not finished,” she snapped, interrupting his interruption. “You’re so busy running around saving the world you don’t have time to be with your grandfather when he might have died? Like I said before. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

There, Margie told herself as Hunter’s mouth snapped shut and his blue eyes flashed. He might have had the upper hand since the moment he’d found her naked-oh, dear God-in the bathroom. But now, it 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.”