He rose from his chair, leaned forward with his knuckles resting on 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 to leave the future of this family to chance any longer. You have a year. By the end of that year, each of you will not only be married, you will either already have a child or your wife will be expecting one.”
Absolute silence met his emphatic proclamation.
That silence stretched, lengthened.
“Right,” J.T. finally muttered. Like that’s going to happen, he thought.
Still leaning against the wall, Justin stifled a grin and looked over at Gray. Gray looked amused. Alex lifted his bottle and tilted it to his mouth.
Harry didn’t seem at all dissuaded by their collective lack of interest.
“If any one of you refuses to do so,” he calmly insisted, “you’ll all lose your position in HuntCom and the perks you love so much.”
Justin stiffened.
Alex lowered his bottle.
Gray’s amusement died. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m deadly serious.”
J.T. didn’t bother getting upset. He didn’t believe a word of the threat. “With all due respect, Harry,” he said, fairly leaking patience he didn’t feel. “How will you run the company if we refuse to do this?” Ice clinking, he lifted his glass toward his half brothers. “I don’t know what Gray, Alex or Justin have going on right now, but I’m in the middle of expansions here in Seattle, in Jansen and at our New Delhi facility. If another architect has to take over my position, it’ll be months before he’s up to speed. Construction delays alone would cost HuntCom a fortune.”
Harry appeared unfazed. “It wouldn’t matter, because if the four of you refuse to agree, I’ll sell off HuntCom in pieces. The New Delhi facility will be history and I’ll sell Hurricane Island.”
Having just made it clear he knew full well how important that island was to J.T., his unflinching gaze settled on Justin.
“I’ll sell HuntCom’s interest in the Idaho ranch.” His glance shifted to Alex. “I’ll shut down the Foundation if you refuse to cooperate.” His hard stare finally met Gray’s. “And HuntCom won’t need a president because there will no longer be a company for you to run.”
Alex took a step forward. “But that’s insane. What do you hope to accomplish by doing this, Harry?”
“I mean to see you all settled with a family started before I die. With a decent woman who’ll make a good wife and mother,” he insisted. “The women you marry have to win Cornelia’s approval.”
“Does Aunt Cornelia know about this?”
Justin posed the question before J.T. could ask it himself. Personally, he hadn’t had much to do with the widow of Harry’s business partner. At least, not as an adult. As a kid and a teenager, the woman had seemed to be around only when he was in trouble. Where the others regarded her as something of a honorary aunt, he thought of her mostly as the woman who’d insisted to Harry that J.T. needed restrictions. She was good at calling a person on their behavior. From what he’d heard from Gray, since he was the brother he dealt with most, she was also the only person Harry ever really listened to.
“Not yet.”
“So,” Justin said, looking somewhat relieved by that. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Each of us has to agree to marry and produce a kid within a year—”
“All of you have to agree,” Harry cut in. “All four of you. If one refuses, everyone loses, and life as you’ve know it—your jobs, the HuntCom holdings you each love—will be gone.”
“—and the brides have to each be approved by Aunt Cornelia.”
“She’s a shrewd woman. She’ll know if any of the women aren’t good wife material. Which reminds me,” he added abruptly. “You can’t tell the women you’re rich. Or that you’re my sons. I don’t want any fortune-hunters in the family. God knows I married enough of those myself. I don’t want any of my sons making the mistakes I made.”
Considering the history the man had with each of their mothers, J.T. had the feeling he wasn’t the only one biting his tongue at that glaring understatement. He lifted his glass, waited to see who would be first to tell Harry to take a hike.
Harry drew a deep breath. “I’ll give you some time to think about this. You have until 8:00 p. m., Pacific Time, three days from now. If I don’t hear from you to the contrary before then, I’ll tell my lawyer to start looking for a buyer for HuntCom.”
With that, he moved from his desk and walked out the door.
The moment he closed it behind him, every one of them swore.
“It’s not going to happen,” J.T. insisted. “He’ll never sell HuntCom. As for the rest of it…”
“He can’t possibly be serious,” Justin concluded.
Alex’s scowl deepened. “Maybe he is serious.”
From where he remained back from the others, J.T. listened to his half brothers debate whether or not Harry meant what he said. The uneasy possibility existed that he did, and none of them wanted to lose what mattered to them. Yet not one of them said he was ready to cater to the man’s demands.
J.T. knew he was beyond tired when he didn’t bother to mention what an insult those demands were.
Sleep, he thought. He needed sleep. “So we’re all agreed?” he asked. “None of us are caving in to his crazy ultimatum?”
Justin nodded. “No question. Even if I wanted to get married, which I don’t, I wouldn’t do it because Harry decided it was time to settle down.”
“Settling down.” J.T. shook his head, shoved his fingers through his hair. “That’s not happening. I’m never home long enough to have a dog. What would I do with a wife?” He set his now-empty glass on the credenza with an audible thud. “No offense, but I haven’t slept since yesterday.” He hadn’t even caught a nap on the flight. He’d spent the entire trip trying to resolve the design problem he’d been working on when he’d been summoned. “I’m heading home to crash.”
“I’ll see you at the office tomorrow,” Gray told him as they all moved toward the door. “We need to go over the figures for that possible plant in Singapore.”
“Singapore,” he muttered. “My head’s still in India. Let’s do it when I get back next week.”
“Not a problem.”
“Give me a ride downtown, will you? I took a limo here from the airport.”
Gray told him he’d be glad to, then pulled his cell phone from his pocket when it rang yet again.
“It’s my secretary, Loretta,” Gray said. “She’s at the office working on the white paper for the buyout. If you don’t mind, I’ll talk to her on the way.”
Accustomed to being available at all hours himself, J.T. told him he didn’t mind at all and took advantage of the twenty-five-minute drive into the sprawling city to check his own messages, text back responses to most of them and decide what to do for a meal.
He was hungry for pancakes, which meant it must be morning, body time. Since it was night in Seattle, he phoned for takeout from Rico’s. The Italian