Chapter One
Hunter Blackwell focused on his target and meandered through the crowd, turning heads of several women in his wake. It had been a long time. And although he seldom asked old friends for favors, he marched toward one now without a backward glance. If the rumors were true, half of his problems could be solved in a few short days.
Without any concern for the discussion he might be interrupting, Hunter moved behind his old friend, made sure those that could see him did, and lifted his chin.
The conversation died as the man in front of him turned and tilted his head.
A smile spread over Blake Harrison’s face. “Blackwell.”
“Your Grace.”
Blake shot a laugh in the air and extended his hand.
Hunter accepted the man-hug and let a shiver of satisfaction wash over him as Blake Harrison apologized to his audience for the interruption, and then offered Hunter his complete attention.
“My God, man . . . how long has it been? Eight years, nine?”
“Texas,” Hunter reminded his friend. “I believe you were marrying your wife for the third time.”
Blake stared beyond him for a moment and let a memory take hold. “That had to be the craziest wedding to date.” The notion of marrying the same woman, repeatedly, was ludicrous. The fact that Blake and his wife never divorced yet proceeded to remarry every year was certifiable. In some circles, the running theory was Blake’s player ways had never changed, and he needed to reaffirm his vows annually to keep his wife happy.
Those who knew the duke, however, knew nothing could be further from the truth. Blake and Samantha Harrison had a marriage meant for the big screen. Young girls would pine over it, and happy bachelors would run.
“Married life is agreeing with you.” Hunter might have come off as if making conversation, but his old friend did indeed appear to have a glow around his eyes and a few extra healthy-looking pounds a man might acquire from a settled life.
“I will let Sam know you approve.”
He laughed. Chances were Sam wouldn’t remember Hunter. They’d met at said wedding, where she had been busy renewing her vows—again.
Hunter nodded toward the back of the massive hall, where the crowd celebrating the retirement of a fellow entrepreneur turned philanthropist thinned. “Do you have a minute?”
Blake narrowed his dark brows and lifted a hand for Hunter to lead the way.
They wound around a dozen colleagues, old friends, and even older enemies before they found a quiet corner where it would be obvious they were having a private conversation. With any luck, they wouldn’t be interrupted.
“You’re a man on a mission,” Blake said without judgment.
“Aren’t I always?” Hunter had spent that last decade of his life with one goal in mind. Win. Didn’t matter what he was doing, what business venture he’d taken on . . . what investment to dive into . . . his goal was to win.
“I’ve already given you the investment advice I have to offer.”
“This isn’t about an investment.” Well, not really. “I despise skirting around the issues.”
Blake grinned. “Then don’t. You don’t have to put on airs with me.”
One of the qualities Hunter liked most about his old friend. “Certain circles tell me that your wife has her own business.”
Blake kept his smile, but the way his eyes narrowed told Hunter he was walking close to an edge.
“She does.”
“I believe she can assist me.”
“Looking to remove your eligibility status, Blackwell?”
A slight weight lifted from his chest. Seemed his sources were right. “The Forbes list made my life more difficult than you can imagine.”
“I don’t know about that. I have a vivid imagination.”
Hunter knew how vivid Blake’s imagination could be. “Can she help?”
Blake reached to the inside pocket of his jacket and removed a single card from the back of his own business cards. He tapped the small paper on the edge of his hand and cocked his head. “You have to understand . . . I have nothing to do with Alliance. I can’t guarantee Sam and her girls will accept you as a client.”
“Accept me?”
Blake let his smile reach his eyes again. “My wife is meticulous when screening clients. If any of the women in her employ find a reason to dismiss you, you have to be willing to walk away.”
Hunter thought of his goals, offered an innocent smile. “Women love me.”
“Which works well when finding a date, not the same when searching for a wife. Fair warning, Blackwell: if they pass you over, I won’t step in on your behalf.”
Blake offered him Samantha’s business card.
Taking his time, he took it and tucked it away without a glance. “I’m not worried.”
Blake chuckled. “I know you, Blackwell . . . and I know my wife. Not only should you be worried, you might want to find plan B to whatever problems you have.”
“I’m not the same kid I once was.”
“None of us are. I just hope you’ve learned to take rejection better than your earlier years. I seem to remember you using your fist on occasion to get your point across.”
“I think we were both guilty of that.”
Blake considered his observation. “You were caught.”
“You were the son of a duke. Rather untouchable, if I recall.”
“True. Sam rejects violence of any kind.”
“Amazing things happen when you can fix your problems with diplomacy and money. You grow up and stop fighting.”
Blake shook his head. “We still fight, just not with our fists.”
Hunter flexed his fingers and motioned toward the host bar. “How about a drink?”
“I’m so embarrassed.”
“It’s perfectly normal.”
Gabi Masini glanced at her British friend, then to the smashed-up back end of her Lexus. She swore the person backing out of the other parking space signaled for her to go.
When the man in the other car smacked into her—or maybe she backed into him—they both emerged from their cars. Only the fifty-something I’ve eaten too many doughnuts man was waving his fist and screaming at her in a language she didn’t recognize. Considering Gabi was fluent in three and working her way through a fourth, she still didn’t comprehend the man. Anger, however, didn’t require a language to understand.
It didn’t take long for the private sensors on the car to notify the security team. That team happened to be close by, and Gabi’s shame was witnessed by Gwen and her husband, Neil.
Neil walked past the cars, shoved himself between the irate driver and Gabi, and spoke in a low tone.
“Accidents happen,” Gwen said while placing an arm around her.
“This is the second one in a month.”
Gabi didn’t want to consider the two that elevated her car insurance shortly after she’d relocated to Southern California.
“You lived on an island that only provided golf carts for years.”
“I’ve been in California for eighteen months.”
Gwen sucked in a breath and didn’t comment.
“I’m the worst driver ever.”
“Don’t be absurd. There has to be others worse than you.”
Where are they?
Neil walked toward them, his face as stern as the tight grip of control he always wore. He reached out a hand, palm up.
Gabi knew, instinctively, what he wanted. The keys dangling in her fingers rattled as she handed them over.
“I’m sorry.”
Neil lifted one eyebrow before turning his gaze to his wife. “Drive her home. I’ll be there shortly.”
Gwen turned on her perfectly polished pedicure and started walking away.
Gabi had no choice but to follow. “Wait.” She moved back to the car and pulled twice on the back door before the metal relented and let her in. She removed the mail and a handful of groceries she’d been in the shopping center acquiring and hauled them to Gwen’s waiting car.
For several miles, Gabi pleaded her case, to which Gwen listened but didn’t comment.
“I’m an awful driver,” Gabi finally relented.
Gwen cautiously maneuvered onto an off-ramp and headed down the familiar Tarzana street where Gabi lived. “I’m going to have to agree with you. Four accidents in less than two years is above average.”
“Maybe I should move back to New York. No one owns a car in New York.”
“And when was the last time you lived in that city?” Gwen asked.
“I was a teenager. I barely graduated before Val was pulling my mother and me out of the city and onto the island.” Her brother, Valentino Masini, owned and operated a resort on a private island in the Keys where golf carts shuttled guests. Gabi had lived on the island, sheltered, taken care of, up until eighteen months before her fourth car accident. With Val moving on with his life, a wife and an island to keep his attention, Gabi took control of hers and moved to the other side of the country, where not driving a real car wasn’t an option. Public transportation in Southern California was difficult at best, unworkable at all other times. Nerves got the best of Gabi her first few months in the state. Then she seemed to do better. Only the last month she had a hard time keeping from playing bumper cars with others on the road . . . or in parking lots.
“Chances are you’d simply replace one worry with another if you moved back to New York.”
Yeah . . . Gwen was right. Not to mention California was where her job was . . . where she’d found her backbone again. She couldn’t abandon the state because she failed to stay within the lines of her side of the road. “Maybe I should take lessons?”
Gwen pulled into the driveway. “Or maybe we should hire you a driver.”
“Oh, that’s silly.”
Gwen twisted the key and cut the engine before glancing over her shoulder.
Gabi squirmed in the passenger seat. “Every sixteen-year-old acne-faced kid learns how to drive. I think I have more on them.”
Gwen, channeling her husband, who often said so much by not saying anything at all, silently pushed out of the car and walked up the short path to the front door.
A series of numbers on a keypad let her in. From there she moved to another monitor system that alerted the team that the resident of the house had breached the walls. Gabi set her bags on the kitchen counter, dropped the mail onto the table.
She moved about the room, depositing groceries where they belonged. “Was it hard for you to adjust to driving on the right side of the road when you moved here?”
Gwen told her about her adjustments to driving in the States, which apparently weren’t nearly as difficult as Gabi’s.
By the time Neil arrived, Gabi had exhausted her excuses for being a poor driver and conceded that something had to change before someone got hurt.
Then Neil delivered a series of facts that took some of her control away . . . at least temporarily.
“Your car is in for repairs, your insurance company has suspended your ability to hold them accountable until an investigation has taken place.”
“Can they do that?” Gabi asked.
“They can and have. Renting a car without insurance isn’t possible.”
“Seems a bit extreme,” Gwen said.
Neil stood silent for a moment. “The man she hit this time is a lawyer and had a call into Gabriella’s insurance company before the tow managed to pull into the shop.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.” Neil removed his wallet and found a business card. “Here is the company Blake uses. I’ve already spoken with our contact there, they need thirty minutes’ notice and they will drive you wherever you need to go.”
Gabi pulled a long strand of her dark brown hair over her shoulder and glanced at the card. “That must be terribly expensive.”
“It’s this or a lawsuit. A taxi is another option, but in light of the majority of work and contacts you have, a private driver might prove best,” Neil encouraged.
“How can I convince the insurance company to reinstate my coverage?” Because Gabi knew once her car was fixed, she still wouldn’t be able to drive it without insurance.
“I have a call in for that answer. In the meantime, use the service.”
Gwen placed a kiss to each side of Gabi’s face before following her husband out the door.
Before Neil and Gwen turned the corner of the quiet street, Gabi’s phone was ringing.
The name on the display had her sucking in a breath for support. Word traveled fast. She lifted the phone, closed her eyes, and pressed the answer button. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“What?” Samantha Harrison, otherwise known as Gabi’s boss and new friend, didn’t laugh or lay the blame on her.
“I thought he motioned for me to back up. I’m much better than when I first arrived.”
“What are you talking about?”
Gabi sucked in her bottom lip. “You, ah . . . you don’t know?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t pretend otherwise. What isn’t your fault?”
“Minor fender-bender in the parking lot. No one was hurt.”
Gabi thought she heard Sam groan. “And it wasn’t your fault?”
She waved a hand in the air, as if Sam could see. “No. Of course not. So if you’re not calling about the accident, what can I do for you?” Her thinly veiled attempt to change the subject as quickly as possible was met with a tiny laugh.
“I have a client I need you to crunch some numbers on.”
Numbers . . . she could do that. Gabi was a savant with numbers. “Give me a name and the access code to your file and I’m on it.”
Gabi jotted down the name and code. Hunter Blackwell. J836AY9
“Numbers is all you need from me?”
“No. Actually . . . I need more than a bottom-line portfolio report. Mr. Blackwell is an old friend of Blake’s, so I’m giving him an extra chance. Based on what I’ve already learned, I would have encouraged him to look elsewhere for the future Mrs. Blackwell.”
If there was one thing Gabi had discovered about her boss, the woman scrutinized every client, both male and female, with a high-powered microscope. She looked beyond any tabloid fodder and water-cooler gossip to determine the truth behind the persona. Nearly every male client searching for a bride had a driving reason for doing so, and sometimes they weren’t forthcoming with their backgrounds. Sam always found the skeletons, displayed them for her clients to see, then determined their worthiness based on their reaction to the facts. Most high-powered men willing to part with over seven figures for a bride hated having their dirty parts displayed. They especially didn’t like a woman advertising it.
If at any time during the initial meeting with Sam or now Gabi, they felt the slightest bit threatened, the meeting ended, and the ability to do business with the client dissolved.
“What has you dismissing him so quickly?”
“The few bits of information about the man available have recently been laced with an assault charge. The charges were dropped long before the case could see a judge. Then there was an accusation that Mr. Blackwell had been found with three women in the back of his limo after a fundraiser in Dallas.”
“Since when do we listen to the gossip magazines?”
“We don’t,” Sam defended. “But one of the girls was allegedly seventeen. I’m digging into that now. But if this guy likes underage girls, I’m not setting him up with anyone.”
Warning bells rang inside Gabi’s head. “How soon will we know the facts?”
“I have a few people working on it now. In the meantime, I need his numbers crunched.”
The warning bell rang a second time.
“Sounds like a risk.”
“He is. But my head isn’t in this right now with Jordan back in the hospital. I know I’m distracted and wouldn’t want my personal life to interfere with my business.”
“Oh, Sam . . . I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard.” Samantha’s sister Jordan had lost her ability to really live much of a life years before. As a young woman, Jordan attempted to take her life and ended up having a massive stroke, leaving her severely compromised. Gabi didn’t know all the details, but she did know that Samantha and Blake cared for the now thirty-year-old woman out of their home. A twenty-four-hour private nurse still couldn’t keep away some of the decay and issues being stuck in a wheelchair without all her faculties created.
Since Gabi had moved to California, Jordan had been admitted to the hospital at least half a dozen times.
“So you’ll take care of Blackwell?”
“Consider it done. Do you want me to meet with him?”
“Would you?”
“Don’t be silly. Once the files from your contacts are uploaded in the system, I’ll contact Mr. Blackwell for a meeting.”
Sam sighed into the phone. “Perfect. And if you’re not happy with him . . . with anything . . . feel free to dismiss him as a client. I trust your judgment.”
Gabi hesitated. “But he’s Blake’s friend.”
“Blake knew him and his brother in high school. They kept in touch the first couple of years in college, but they’d never been terribly close. Blake offered some advice over the years, but that’s it. He made it perfectly clear that our decision wouldn’t come between them.”
Some of the tension inside Gabi’s shoulders eased. “Do you want me to tell you of my decision before I tell the client?”
“No need. I’ve got too much going on. Listen, Jordan’s cardiologist is on the other line. I’ve got to go.”
“Go. Call if you need anything.”
“I will.” Without any more, Sam hung up.
Gabi prepared a cup of strong tea and moved into the home office. She sat at a desk that held three massive screens. She opened up the main computer, moved to the interface that linked to Sam’s. Within a couple of minutes, she’d opened Hunter Blackwell’s file.
She skimmed over the contact and personal profile information. It didn’t matter to Gabi if the man was six two or four eleven. She could care less if he’d been married before or if he had children. All Gabi focused on was the numbers.
Really big numbers.
Hunter Blackwell recently made the Forbes list of eligible billionaires and was quickly referred to as high risk for making the list of “Billionaires and Their Outrageous Scandals” that Forbes would post at the end of the year.
Before jumping into the numbers, Gabi cross-referenced the media hype to determine why Blackwell was on Forbes’s radar.
Hours later, her head still buzzing with the caffeinated tea, Gabi heard the grandfather clock sounding once. A crusty plate sat on her otherwise clean desk; three tea bags were now drying beside an empty cup.
She printed out the files she needed and noted the automated change in code to the Blackwell file before switching off her computers.
Gabi tapped the edges of the papers together and leaned back in her chair.
Her body screamed with the hours of inactivity as she stood and walked out of the office.
“Well, Mr. Blackwell. You better be an exceptional man in person or you’re going to have to plead to your latest Bambi to marry you and not take you for all you’re worth.”