The Billionaire and His Boss

by Patricia Kay

  “The reason I’m here is because of my father.”

  “I figured that.”

  “It’s not what you think. Do you know much about my father? His personal life, that is?”

  P.J. shrugged.

  Seeing she wasn’t going to help him out, he said, “He was married four times. None of his marriages lasted longer than two years. Each marriage produced a son. When I told you I was one of four brothers, that’s the truth. Neither I nor my brothers have ever been married.” He grimaced. “We didn’t have a great example of marriage.”

  P.J. wished she had a fresh cup of coffee. Anything to occupy her hands. Anything to wrest her gaze from his.

  “Last spring my father had a heart attack. It was a pretty serious one, and it scared him.”

  P.J. nodded. She remembered. At the time, Steve Mallery had been concerned about what would happen if Harrison Hunt died.

  “Afterwards,” Alex continued, “he seemed different. More reflective. I guess he finally realized he wasn’t indestructible and wouldn’t live forever.” Alex smiled crookedly. “Anyway, he called a meeting of the four of us—me and my brothers—in July, and told us he was tired of waiting for us to get married and give him grandchildren. He said, quote, left to our devices, he never would have any, unquote. He said a few other things…then he gave us an ultimatum. Within a year, he wanted each of us married, and by the end of that time, he also wanted our wives to be pregnant or already to have given birth.”

  P.J. wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, unfortunately, I’m not. That wasn’t the end of the ultimatum, either. The women we married couldn’t be gold diggers. My father isn’t big on gold diggers,” Alex added sarcastically, “because he married enough of them himself. To accomplish this, he said we couldn’t tell our prospective brides who we were. That was the only way we could be sure they were marrying us for ourselves and not for his money.”

  As what Alex told her sank in, P.J. stared at him, appalled. “And this is why you lied to me? Because of some kind of stupid agreement you made with your father? You’re here at HuntCom looking for a bride?”

  “I’m sorry, P.J. I didn’t want to lie to you. But I had no choice. If I’d told you who I really was, I would have been letting my brothers down. Hell, I’m letting them down now. See, that’s the way Harry got us to agree to his scheme. He threatened to sell the entire corporation, everything that makes up HuntCom, including the foundation, which is my passion, and the special projects and places that are important to my brothers.”

  P.J. couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This whole situation had been bad enough when she’d thought Alex was a corporate spy. That, at least, she could understand. She didn’t have to like it, but she could understand it. “So this is about money.”

  “It’s not about money.”

  “Oh, of course it is. You can dress it up any way you like but at the root of everything is money. Your father certainly understands that.”

  “I don’t care about the money. I do care about the foundation and the work we’re doing, but I would even have given that up if I’d had to. But my father put one other condition on his proposal to us—we all had to agree. If even one of us didn’t, all of us would lose out. I couldn’t do that to my brothers.”

  “So you went along with his nutty scheme that’s like something out of the Dark Ages. You came here under false pretenses and you lied to me and everyone else. Tell me, Alex, just when did you plan to tell me the truth? Or didn’t I figure into your plans at all? Was I just some kind of side diversion while you were looking for the perfect, gullible candidate to be Mrs. Alex Hunt?” She was trying not to think about the baby Alex had mentioned. The baby Harrison Hunt had ordered. The baby P.J. could never give him.

  He stared at her. “How can you say that? You must know it’s not true. I was attracted to you from the moment I met you.” He heaved a sigh. “Look, this isn’t the way I’d have chosen to say this. I’d rather be doing it over wine and candlelight. The truth is, I love you, P.J. I’d want you to be my wife even if my father’d had nothing to do with my meeting you.”

  “You expect me to believe that? How can I ever believe another word you say? By your own admission, you have to go along with your father’s demands, so you’d say anything to keep from upsetting your little applecart.”

  “I’ve already upset it. You know who I am, so I’ve broken my father’s rules.”

  P.J. gripped her hands below the desk to keep them from shaking. She wanted, more than anything, to believe him, but how could she? And what if she did believe him? What good would it do her? She couldn’t give him a child. When he found out about that, he would no longer want her, anyway.

  “You know, you haven’t exactly been playing it straight either, P.J., or should I say…Paige.”

  She wasn’t even surprised he knew about her family. “Don’t try to make this about me, Alex. I repudiated my family’s money. But you! You did what you did for the money. And nothing you can say will ever change my mind about that.” Then she reached for the letter she’d typed that morning and handed it to him.

  “What is this?” he said.

  “It’s my letter of resignation.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Without even looking at it, he ripped the letter in two, then in four, then in eight, throwing the pieces in the wastebasket. “If you want to quit, go talk to Steve Mallery. He’s your boss, not me. But I’ll save you the trouble. I’ll leave instead. In fact, I’ll go right now. Unless you want two weeks notice?”

  She swallowed. She wanted to say, Please don’t go. But she didn’t say anything.

  Ten seconds later, he walked out the door. He didn’t look back.

  “Hey, Alex, what’s going on?”

  Alex was angry and frustrated, and the last thing he wanted to do was talk to anyone, but he could hardly ignore Rick. “Look, I can’t talk right now. But if you want, we can meet for a beer after work.”

  “Meet for a beer? Where’re you going?”

  “I’ll explain later, okay? Right now, I have to get out of here.” Alex gestured toward P.J.’s office. “But if you can’t wait till tonight, you could always go ask P.J. what’s going on. She’s got all the answers.”

  “Oh, Alex,” Cornelia said. “I was afraid of this.”

  “Yeah,” he said glumly. “I guess I should have been worried, but somehow I thought everything would work out.”

  “Did you tell her you love her?”

  “Yes, but I handled it badly. She doesn’t believe me.”

  Cornelia sighed. “Shall I try to talk to her?”

  He shook his head. “This is something I have to do. First I’m going to let her cool off. Then I’ll try talking to her again.” He looked up, and the sympathetic look on his aunt’s face was nearly his undoing. “I don’t want to lose her, Aunt Cornelia. Even if it means losing the foundation and J.T., Justin and Gray losing the ranch and the island and the company.”

  “She’s that important to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then do whatever it takes to get her back, Alex. Don’t let anything, especially not pride, stand in your way. Because love like that doesn’t come along very often. And it rarely comes twice.”

  P.J. didn’t last the day. At two o’clock, she could no longer keep up the pretense that all was normal. She told Chick she wasn’t feeling well and was going home.

  “You’re going home?” he said in disbelief.

  “Yes.” She knew what he was thinking. P.J. never took a sick day. In fact, in the nearly eight years she’d been with the company, she could count on one hand the amount of days she’d missed, and two of them were when she was called for jury duty.

  She barely made it to her car before she burst into tears. She, Paige Jeffers Kincaid, tough girl, someone who never cried, bawled her eyes out.

  She was still crying when she arrived at her condo.

  She cried off
and on all evening. She’d stop, decide to quit feeling sorry for herself, tell herself she wasn’t the first woman to be taken in by brown eyes and dimples, then she’d start crying again.

  The phone rang once. She looked at it, then jumped up to see who it was.

  Alex.

  She put the phone back in its base. She didn’t want to talk to him. What was there left to say?

  Maybe he does love you. Maybe it wouldn’t matter to him that you can’t have a baby. Maybe he’d want to marry you, anyway.

  Oh, sure. And give up his foundation? Give up all that money? Give up the chance to have dozens of little Alex Hunts? Yeah, and pigs can now fly.

  You could test him.

  But if she did, and if he failed the test, she knew she would be so devastated, she might not be able to pretend otherwise. At least this way, she still did have her pride.

  And not much else.

  On and on her thoughts raged. But the outcome was always the same. Alex was history.

  Get over it! It’s not the end of the world. It’s not the death of a child. It’s just the end of a love affair you always knew was going to end anyway.

  And then the tears started again.

  Finally, at midnight, she fell into an exhausted sleep.

  Alex’s night wasn’t much better than P.J.’s. He met Rick for a beer after work and told him the whole sorry tale. Rick just kept shaking his head.

  “Geez, Alex. You sure have made a mess of things,” he said when Alex finally wound down.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Are you really old Harry’s son?”

  “Afraid so,” Alex said dejectedly.

  “You know, if this wasn’t so damned serious, and if it didn’t involve P.J., who I think the world of, it would be funny.”

  “Really? You think it’s funny?” Alex said. He finished off his beer and ordered another.

  “Think about it. You’re a millionaire pretending to be an ordinary Joe, and P.J., also no slouch in the money department, is pretending to be an ordinary Jane. I mean, it’s like a comedy. It could be a movie.”

  Alex smiled. Rick had a point. “It’s a comedy of errors.”

  “Look,” Rick said, finishing off his own beer, “I know P.J. She’s got a temper and she’s stubborn. She would also hate thinking she’d been made to look like a fool. But she’s also smart and I think she probably really cares for you, so if you keep after her, she’ll probably come around.”

  “You think?”

  “Worth a try. I mean, what have you got to lose?”

  Alex thought about what Cornelia had said and what Rick had said and knew they were both right. He decided not to wait until morning, when he’d planned to try to talk to P.J. again. Instead, he called her as soon as he got to his apartment, but there was no answer. When her voice mail kicked in, he decided not to leave a message. He would call her tomorrow.

  Better yet, he would go to see her tomorrow. He would sit in front of her condo until she came home and she wouldn’t be able to avoid him. She would have to listen to him.

  And this time, he would not take no for an answer.

  Chapter Thirteen

  O ver the next two weeks, Alex tried everything. He called P.J. He cornered her at her condo. He sent e-mails. He sent flowers. He sent a singing telegram. He wrote her a long letter.

  Nothing worked.

  She kept saying no.

  The week before Thanksgiving, he decided to play his trump card. He drove to Bellevue, went into Tiffany’s, and bought the prettiest rose-cut diamond ring they had. He knew better than to get something ostentatious, so he settled for a one-carat stone set in platinum. Understated and elegant.

  When he got back to Jansen, he called her and asked if he could come and see her that night for “one last time.”

  “Alex, it’s over. Why can’t you just accept that?”

  “Thing is, I’m leaving Jansen. I just wanted to say goodbye. And I have something for you that I wanted to give you before I go,” he added quickly, before she could point out that they could just as easily say goodbye by phone.

  She sighed. “Okay. You can come. But make it early because I’m going out at seven-thirty.”

  “I’ll be there by six.”

  Promptly at six, Alex rang her doorbell. The Tiffany’s box was safely secured in the zippered pocket of his leather jacket. His heart turned over when she opened the door. She looked tired.

  More than tired. Sad.

  And he knew he was the cause of that sadness. He’d hurt her and now she’d erected a barrier around her heart, and so far, he hadn’t been able to get past it. It was the first time in his adult life he hadn’t been able to accomplish a goal he’d set for himself, and Alex didn’t like the feeling. More than that, he hated that he was the reason for the wounded expression in her eyes.

  “Come on in,” she said.

  She invited him to sit on the sofa in her living room, but he said he’d rather stand. “I’m not going to keep you long.”

  There was an awkward silence for a few seconds. Then they both spoke at once.

  “So you’re leaving,” she said.

  “I’ve really missed you,” he said.

  She didn’t smile. “What is it you want, Alex?”

  “You know what I want.”

  “Tonight, I meant.”

  “Tonight and every night,” he said, looking into her eyes.

  She swallowed and backed up, even though he hadn’t come any closer.

  Deciding it was make-or-break time, Alex unzipped the pocket containing the Tiffany’s box, removed it and held it out.

  “Wh-what is that?” she whispered, backing up even more.

  This time, he stepped forward until she had nowhere else to go. Now only a foot separated them and he could smell the combination of the light fragrance she wore and the lemony shampoo she used on her hair.

  “P.J., I love you. I never thought I could fall in love like this. More than anything, I want us to be together.” He reached for her hand and put the box into it. “Please say you’ll marry me. But if you’re determined not to marry, then I’ll be content for us to just live together. And if that doesn’t prove to you that I don’t care about my father’s money, then I guess nothing ever will.”

  She stared at the box. And then, shocking him, her eyes filled with tears. She shook her head and held her hand out. “I—I can’t take this, Alex. I can’t marry you. Please stop asking me. Because the answer is always going to be the same.”

  “P.J….” He didn’t take the box.

  “I want you to go now.” She pushed the box back into his pocket.

  “This doesn’t make sen—”

  “Goodbye, Alex.” She’d brushed the tears away.

  He didn’t know what else to say. He could see she wasn’t going to be swayed. There was something here he didn’t understand, something she wasn’t telling him, but what it could be, he couldn’t imagine.

  She walked to the door and opened it.

  Okay, he thought, I’ll go. But this isn’t the end of this. Hunts don’t quit. They just regroup for another time.

  He walked to the door, but before going out, he bent down and kissed her. Although she held herself stiffly, he felt her body’s reaction.

  She loves me. She can deny it as many times as she wants, but I know she loves me.

  “Take care of yourself,” he said softly.

  “You, too.”

  The door shut firmly behind him.

  P.J. was so sick of herself. So sick of crying. So sick of being the kind of woman she had always despised. Why? Why had she let Alex get under her skin this way?

  Please, God, she prayed. Please help me get over him. Because I can’t live this way. And I don’t know what to do to change things.

  Alex took care of everything that needed taking care of in Jansen. He paid his landlord the necessary amount to get out of his lease. He closed his Jansen bank account, settled with the utility companies a
nd cancelled the phone and cable service.

  He called Goodwill and gave them all his furniture and most of his distribution-center work clothes. He donated the television set to the local women’s shelter. Then he packed up the few be longings he was keeping, tossed the bags in the bed of his truck, and drove back to Seattle.

  “Hey, Rick, what’s going on with P.J.? Jenny said she’s taken a leave of absence.” Jenny was the switchboard operator at the distribution center.

  “Hi, Alex. Yeah, she left right before Thanksgiving and she won’t be back till January second.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “I don’t know. She just said she needed a vacation. I, uh, kind of figured it might have something to do with you.”

  “Damn,” Alex muttered. “Do you think she’s staying with her family?” Alex had tried her at home and been told by a recording that her number had been changed and the new number was unlisted. And when he’d tried her cell phone, he got a message saying that number was no longer in service. It was obvious she was deliberately cutting him out of her life.

  “Like I said, she didn’t say what her plans were.”

  “If you hear from her, would you let me know?”

  Rick hesitated. “Thing is, Alex, I really don’t want to be in the middle of this. P.J.’s been my friend a long time, and—”

  “I understand,” Alex said wearily. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that.”

  They talked awhile more, Alex asking about Maria and the kids, Rick asking about Alex’s job at the foundation, then they promised they’d get together before too long, and hung up.

  Alex sat at his desk and thought a few minutes. Then he made a couple of phone calls and on the third try got what he wanted—the private number of the Kincaid family home. Two minutes later, he was listening to it ring.

  “Kincaid residence,” said a soft female voice.

  “This is Alex Hunt. May I speak with Paige, please?”

  “Miss Paige?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but Miss Paige isn’t here.”