“I mean it.” He shrugged. “I can afford it. It’s not like it’ll kill me to handle the cost of the redo, Nicole.”
This wasn’t stubbornness, this was pride, and hers was taking a beating at the moment. Well, she might not have as much money as a King, but she could take care of her own problems.
“I’ll kill you if you try,” she said and waited until his gaze met hers again. “I don’t care how much money you have, this is my responsibility. I can take care of myself, my son and my house.”
He frowned at her. “Who the hell says you can’t?”
“You just did,” Nicole snapped, irritation blowing through her as fast as the electrical fire had moved through her kitchen. “Or implied it, anyway. I don’t need to be rescued.”
“Look around,” he shot back. “I’m nobody’s white knight.”
“Not how it looks from where I’m standing.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t see a horse and I’m not wearing armor.”
No kidding, she thought grimly.
Nicole took another long breath, trying to steady herself. Griffin was just trying to help, she thought. Maybe it was the overblown, high-handed, arrogant kind of help the Kings so excelled at, but he wasn’t trying to be offensive.
“Look,” she said when she thought she could speak without either screaming or gritting her teeth, “I know you think you’re doing the right thing by offering to step in and make everything okay again, but I can do this myself.”
He studied her for a long moment and Nicole had to force herself to stand still under his steady stare. Finally, though, he said only, “Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Now that we’ve got that settled, why don’t you get Connor and I’ll bring the burgers to the table?”
He was giving in too easily, she told herself, even though his voice was tight and his eyes were grim. He wasn’t happy about this, but Nicole told herself his happiness wasn’t her issue. Griffin was just going to have to learn that not every woman in the world rolled over when a King spoke.
She’d been standing on her own two feet for a long time now and she wasn’t about to let anyone—not even a well-meaning, would-be Knight in Shining Board Shorts—take control of what she did and didn’t do.
She turned around sharply and left him standing there, staring after her. By the time she had Connor’s hands washed and the boy secured in his booster seat, Griffin had already poured lemonade for all of them, including filling Connor’s sippy cup. He handed it to the boy and smiled when Connor snatched it and sucked at the straw.
“Apparently moving dinosaurs through the desert is thirsty work,” he said.
Relieved, Nicole smiled. Good, she was glad they’d left their previous conversation behind. Maybe he really was going to accept that she was in charge of what happened in her and her son’s lives.
“Everything he does is thirsty work.” She reached out and smoothed Connor’s hair back from his forehead before breaking up a burger and laying a few bite-sized pieces on his tray. “He’s never still. Always interested in new things, that’s Connor.”
“All boys are like that, I think. At least, my brothers and I were,” Griffin said, using a spatula to slide a burger onto her plate. “Our mom used to swear that one of us broke something every day.”
She spooned potato salad onto Griffin’s plate and then her own. “How many brothers do you have?”
He piled tomatoes onto his burger, added lettuce, then slapped the bun into place. Glancing at her, he smiled.
The power in that smile slammed into her and had Nicole’s insides squirming.
“I thought you had all of us Kings figured out by now.”
“I try, but you’ve got to admit, it’s hard to keep track.”
He laughed and something inside Nicole sizzled.
“Tell me about it. Hell—” He caught himself, glanced at Connor with a wince, then continued. “None of us are sure how many of us there are but as for brothers…I’ve got five.”
She blinked. “Seriously?”
Since she was an only child and her last living relative, her grandmother, had passed away several years ago, Nicole couldn’t even imagine having that much family. And oh, a part of her really envied Griffin his brothers, his cousins, all of them. Most people thought about the Kings and the first thing that came to mind was their fortune, or the power they all seemed to wield so easily.
But Nicole had seen the Kings at family barbecues, at christenings and weddings, and she knew that they were much more than just the powerful Kings of California.
They were a family.
Griffin laughed. “Yeah. My dad always said that as soon as one of us started walking, our mom wanted another baby.”
She looked at Connor and could totally understand. Nicole had wanted a lot of kids, too. But now it looked as though Connor would grow up as she had. An only child.
“But no matter how many of us there were and what we were into—football, baseball, basketball or scouts—Mom was always on top of things. We never could outwit her.”
“You were a Boy Scout?”
Her tone must have conveyed her disbelief, because he straightened up as if insulted and said, “I was. Garrett and I went all the way to Eagle. If you need to know how to survive in the wilderness with a piece of string and a pocketknife, just call us.”
Nicole looked at him and tried to imagine him as a kid, but couldn’t quite pull it off. His own fault, she thought, since he was far too overpowering as an adult to allow her to think of him as anything but an amazingly tempting man.
“Right. Eagle Scout. I’ll remember.”
He shrugged and took a bite of his burger. When he groaned in appreciation, that flutter inside her leaped into life again.
“Man,” he said with reverence, “nothing beats a barbecued burger.”
“Agreed.”
His eyebrows went up. “We’re agreeing on something? What’s next? Friendship?”
She caught the teasing glint in his eye and fired right back, “Don’t get your hopes up.”
He slapped one hand to the center of his chest. “Shattered. You’re a hard woman.”
“Remember that.”
“It’s tattooed on my brain,” he assured her.
She gave Connor more meat, then some potato salad and half a slice of tomato. The little boy dug right in.
“Lucas said once they get the rubble—” he winced a little, then continued “—cleared out, he’d be in touch with you about your choices for paint and flooring and all of the other stuff.”
“Yeah, he told me in the email he sent with the estimate,” Nicole said. With the conversation back to the kitchen, and with the thought of the cost whirling through her mind, she had to force herself to take a bite of the burger that moments ago had been delicious. Now it tasted like sawdust and threatened to get caught in her throat.
She chewed slowly, thoughtfully, and when she swallowed she said, “I emailed him back and told him to just replace everything as it was.”
“What?” Surprised, he asked, “You want linoleum again? That Formica countertop? Why not bring it up-to-date?” Then he must have realized why, because he nodded and muttered, “Right.”
“Exactly,” she said. “I can’t afford to splurge on an upgrade. The wiring will be up-to-date and that’s what matters. For right now, I’ll just replace what I lost. Although I’m thinking that maybe I’ll have them paint the walls a cool green instead of the pale yellow.”
His mouth flattened into a grim line but he nodded.
If he thought she was happy about not updating the kitchen, he was wrong. Still, “In a few years, when I can, I’ll build my dream kitchen.”
“What’ll it look like?” he asked, forking up some potato salad.
“Oh, it’ll be gorgeous.” Nicole closed her eyes briefly and saw her kitchen as she’d often imagined it. She’d had dreams of her own even before Rafe had redone Katie’s kitchen. But seeing her friend’s old, s
erviceable room transformed had fed her own dreams.
“I’d have wood floors,” she mused aloud, “pale oak. I love that golden color. It’s so warm.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll keep the green walls to match that warmth with a splash of cool. Cupboards to match the flooring, of course,” she said, seeing the kitchen so clearly in her mind’s eye. “And the counters will be granite, but not that beige color everyone seems to choose or…ew…black.”
He laughed and she looked at him. “What color?”
“Well, I love Katie’s blue pearl, but for me, I’d get a dark cream color with streaks of green and blue running through it.”
“Like green, do you?”
“Is there something wrong with green?”
“No way,” he announced, waving his burger before he took another bite. “Go on, let’s hear the rest.”
“Pale-green walls, a stainless-steel sink, extra deep, with one of those gooseneck faucets like Katie has, of course…”
“Of course.”
She eyed him. Was he laughing or just indulging her? Did it matter? Not to her.
“Stainless-steel appliances, too,” she went on, seeing the huge new fridge she would one day indulge in, “and a six-burner stove—”
“Why so big? It’s just you and Connor.”
She shrugged. “I like to cook. And right now two of my burners don’t work at all, so six sounds like heaven.”
She gave Connor more of his hamburger. “Anyway, that’s all in the distant future,” she said, trying not to sound wistful. Fantasies were nice, but reality had to be faced. “For right now, I’ll just be happy to have my own house back and the kitchen workable.”
“Lucas will get it done. Fast and good.”
“I know he will.”
Pouring more lemonade for both of them, Griffin set the pitcher back down and said, “As for living here, don’t worry about it. You and Connor are welcome. Like I told you, I’ll stay out of your way and you just make yourself at home, okay?”
“I should be the one promising not to bug you. This is your vacation, right?”
“Yeah,” he said with a short laugh. “Turns out, I’m not real good at the whole ‘relaxation’ thing. I was going buggy after the first three days.”
“I don’t know,” she mused wryly, “you seem to enjoy spending time in the hot tub.”
“What’s not to enjoy?” He grinned and gave her a wink.
A quick jolt of heat shot through her, leaving trails of smoldering warmth in its wake.
“Besides,” he said, “my assistant has already threatened to quit if I keep calling in to the office, so I’m forcing myself to stay in the water, away from the phone.”
“You like working, don’t you?”
“Guilty as charged,” he admitted. “Garrett and I built King Security together. Well, after he sold his organics business to Chance.”
She nodded. “King Organics.”
“You got it.”
“More expensive,” she said, “but worth it.”
“Naturally.” Griffin gave her another wink and that fluttery feeling inside deepened. Honestly, the man was practically a walking orgasm. And Lord, it had been a long time since she’d had one of those.
“Anyway,” Griffin was saying, “Garrett and I did nothing but the job for years, building the company. We breathed and slept the work. Then Garrett met Alex and…”
“He married a princess and moved to Cadria,” Nicole finished for him.
“Exactly. So he’s running the European branch and it’s on me to keep the U.S. side running.” He shrugged. “It’s been busy and—”
“Weird without Garrett?” she asked. She knew Griffin and his twin were close. Having Garrett on the other side of the world must be hard.
“Yeah,” he admitted. His mouth quirked. “Sounds dumb to say it out loud, but not having him around feels strange. Of course, if you repeat that, I’ll deny it.”
“Understood.” She picked up her lemonade and took a sip. “Still, even with Garrett gone, you’ve got tons of family here.”
“You could say that again,” he mused. “Can’t throw a rock in California without hitting a King.” He winked and gave her a wide smile. “I know. I’ve tried.”
“I’ll bet.” Running her fingers up and down the sides of the icy-cold glass, Nicole said softly, “I’ve envied that. Such a big family. At the parties I’ve been to, you all seem to have so much fun when you’re together.”
“We do,” he said. “So, you don’t have a lot of family around here?”
She laughed a little. “Or anywhere else. My parents died when I was a kid and my grandparents went a few years ago.” She turned her head to look across the fence at her place, now empty and burned, and she hoped her grandparents didn’t know. Foolish, she thought, to worry about what they’d think of the accident, but her grandmother had loved that little kitchen. “They left me their house when they died.”
As if sensing her thoughts, Griffin said, “It’ll be back to normal in a couple of weeks, Nicole. Like the fire never happened.”
She smiled, but all she could think was, it had happened. And she knew it would be a long time before she would be able to forget what might have happened.
Four
Three days later, all Nicole could think was, thank God her laptop survived the fire.
With Connor at preschool, she was trying to catch up on work. She bent her head to the task of tallying up the billing for Comisky’s flowers and told herself she was lucky in a lot of ways. She and Connor were both safe. The fire had been contained in the kitchen. She had insurance—okay, yes, with a huge deductible that was going to eat up her pitifully small savings and force her to maneuver a loan—but still. Her computer was safe, which meant she could keep working and making a living. And she and her son had a place to stay that wasn’t costing them a fortune.
All good things.
The only downside…Griffin.
She stopped typing and sat back in her chair. Oh, he was trying to stay out of her way. She knew that. In the last three days, she’d only seen him at breakfast and at dinner. Otherwise, he was either in that damned hot tub or at the job site at her place or out in his car.
Probably best, she told herself firmly. Since the day he’d moved into Katie and Rafe’s house, she’d been on edge. Desires she’d thought long dead had come back to life with a vengeance and she couldn’t do anything with them.
Which had been making for some really annoying dreams.
In her dreams she felt Griffin’s hands moving over her body and ached for more. Then she woke up miserable and had to face him over the breakfast table and pretend that she wasn’t wondering just how good he was in bed.
Stupid.
He was probably great.
Didn’t matter. She couldn’t have an affair with Griffin. A, he wasn’t interested and B…
Nicole stopped typing, closed the file she couldn’t concentrate on and shut the lid of her laptop. There was a B, right? Of course there was a B. There had to be. But damned if she could think of what it was.
He was single—obviously. So was she. Okay, yes, she had Connor, but her son didn’t really come into this equation. She wasn’t looking for a husband and a father for Connor. All she was interested in was an actual orgasm. Or two. It had been way too long and Griffin was so…
For three nights she’d lain in her bed, knowing that Griffin was right across the hall, lying in his. For three nights she’d tossed and turned and then, when she finally did manage to fall asleep, there he was, starring in her dreams. Dreams that were hot enough to have her waking up needy and achy.
“How am I supposed to work when I can’t stop thinking about him?” Naturally, she didn’t have an answer to that question. Well, all right, she did know the answer, it just didn’t help her. Honestly, Nicole didn’t know what to do. She was stuck here until her house was habitable again, and it was another two weeks before Rafe and Katie would
come home. Which meant she and Griffin were going to stay in close quarters.
So she had to find a way to deal with the situation.
Right now, just like every day, Griffin was next door with his cousin and the crew he had working on her kitchen, though Nicole hadn’t been back to her house since the first day the crew arrived. She’d stepped into the middle of controlled destruction and hadn’t lasted long. Watching the guys take sledgehammers to the cupboards and what remained of the ceiling had just been too traumatic for her.
With every swing of their hammers, they were knocking down years of memories, and Nicole had vowed not to go back until the job was done. She trusted the Kings to do a good job, and having her underfoot wouldn’t help anyway. So she worked with Lucas over the phone and by email and Griffin seemed determined to spend nearly every waking moment over there. Which was just one more good reason to avoid her own home.
Damn it. No matter what she did, her thoughts kept straying back to Griffin.
“This isn’t working at all,” she muttered and leaped up.
She grabbed her purse and car keys, then headed for the front door. What Nicole needed was some coffee and some common sense, not necessarily in that order. And since Katie was out of town, Nicole knew just where to go.
*
A half hour later, she was sitting at a small round table at Cupcake Central, owned by another of her clients and an old friend, Sandy Cannon.
“Your problem is, you’re overthinking it,” Sandy said, pausing for a sip of her latte. “I mean, he’s gorgeous, so are you—”
Nicole laughed out loud at that one.
“—he’s single and so are you. You’re in the same house. What’s the downside here?”
Frowning, Nicole looked at her friend. Sandy was married to her high school love, had three kids and ran a successful business. As far as Nicole could see, she pretty much had it all. Except, apparently, the power to talk Nicole out of doing something she really wanted to do.
“I came to you expecting to hear you say, Stop. Don’t. Run.”
Sandy laughed. “Why would I say any of that? Do I look crazy?”
“Do I?” Nicole shook her head and stared down into her latte as if looking for help she wasn’t finding anywhere else. “If I do this, it’ll become a huge mess.”
The King Next Door Page 5
