The King Next Door

by Maureen Child

  She only stared at him. “I didn’t ask you for this, Griffin. What I told you was a dream. Idle imagination.”

  “And now it’s not.”

  This wasn’t going at all the way he’d hoped it would. He knew she’d be pissed, of course, but he’d thought that seeing the kitchen of her dreams right there in front of her would take the sting out. And okay, yeah, he’d expected her to thank him for going to all the trouble of making sure she got what she damn well deserved.

  “It wasn’t up to you to do this, Griffin,” she said, and her voice was softer, lower, as if most of the anger had drained away. But her eyes belied that supposition. They were still flashing, still furious.

  “Look, it’s done.” And even he wasn’t sure why it had been so important to him to give her this. He only knew it had been, and now that it was done, he wanted her to enjoy it. To cook in it every day. To remember him every time she walked into the room.

  Griffin frowned as that thought flashed in his mind. Where had that come from? Shifting uncomfortably, he ignored the truth he’d just stumbled on and asked, “Why don’t you at least take the time to look around?”

  “Yeah, uh,” Lucas said, gathering his clipboard from the shining granite countertop. “I’ll be going. You two work this out, and let me know who wins.”

  Nicole shot him a look that should have curled his hair. But clearly Lucas was accustomed to dealing with furious women. He just gave her a smile and slipped out of the room like a damn ghost. So much for family loyalty, Griffin told himself. Who knew a King could be a coward?

  Well, fine. He could handle Nicole on his own. He’d been doing it for almost three weeks, right? He knew her, body, heart and mind, and he knew damn well that underneath all of her protests, she wanted this kitchen.

  “Go ahead, Nicole. Look.” Even God was on his side in this, Griffin thought, since the late-afternoon sunlight washed across the dream kitchen in a sweep of gold. The pale-oak cabinets looked as golden as the light. The floor gleamed, and the granite countertop shone like a mirror.

  He ran one hand over the granite and her eyes were drawn to the motion. “It’s exactly as you described it,” he said softly.

  She swallowed hard and scooped up Connor when he would have scuttled out of the room. “I know. And it’s even more beautiful than I imagined it would be.”

  “And the stove.” He moved toward the professional-grade appliance. “Six burners, and they all work.”

  A smile teased at the corners of her mouth, but disappeared way too fast. “It doesn’t change anything, Griffin—”

  “The fridge I had to guess at, since you didn’t really say one way or the other.” He pulled open the doors and let her stare into the interior. Boxes of Connor’s favorite juice drinks were on the top shelf, and in a wine rack was a bottle of champagne he’d planned to spring on her later.

  He watched her expression, and in spite of the anger still churning inside her, he could see how much she loved her new kitchen. Her gaze swept over the tile floors and across the freshly painted walls and landed, for just a minute, on the rooster teakettle he had cleaned up. An unexpected emotion rushed through him and caught Griffin by surprise.

  This had started out as a way to pay her back for what he’d done to her house. Then it had become a way to please her, more for his own sake than anything else, he could silently admit. He had wanted the fun of giving her something she hadn’t expected. But now it was more than all of that. He wanted her to have it because he knew how important it was to her. The dream she’d described had been too detailed to be just idle wishful thinking. Watching her eyes as she’d told him had convinced him that this dream meant more to her than even she had known.

  And besides all of that, he realized now, he’d wanted her to have it so that she’d never forget him. So that his presence would be stamped on her house. Her world. He wanted her to remember him long after he was gone, because Griffin knew he wouldn’t be forgetting her.

  “It’s really beautiful, Griffin,” she said on a sigh. “But that’s not the point.”

  “Then what is the damn point, Nicole?” Annoyance chewed on him. He kept his voice low and even because he didn’t want to scare Connor, who was watching him through wide blue eyes. “Tell me, because from where I’m standing, I did something nice for you and I’m getting slapped by it.”

  Shaking her head, she looked around the kitchen again, and when she finally turned her gaze back to Griffin, she said, “Don’t you get it? You doing all of this—” she waved one hand in the air, as if to encompass the entire room “—it’s like you’re paying me to have sex with you.”

  “What?” Okay, that he hadn’t expected. Insult slammed home, and he gaped at her in astonishment.

  “It’s the big payoff,” she continued. “Most men give tennis bracelets or a necklace or something—”

  As she spoke, guilt and something he thought might be shame nibbled at him. That’s exactly what he did when he walked away from whichever woman he was spending time with. Usually he didn’t even bother buying the trinket himself. He simply had his assistant, Janice, pick up something at the jewelry store and send it in his name. Did those women feel like Nicole did? He wondered but had no answer.

  But that wasn’t important here, was it?

  “That’s insane. And insulting,” he added, before grinding his teeth again. “I don’t pay for sex.”

  “Ah, well,” Nicole said, “You don’t have to, do you? Women just line up and take their turns, hoping you’ll smile down on them, is that it?”

  Uncomfortable with the shift in conversation, he tried to turn it back. “Where the hell is this coming from?”

  “I’m sorry, am I not being grateful enough?” she asked, bouncing Connor on her hip. The little boy didn’t look happy, and Griffin knew just how the kid felt.

  Before he could think about it, he snatched Connor from Nicole and held the boy up close against his chest. Connor leaned his head on Griffin’s shoulder and sighed. “Griff play ball?”

  “Soon, buddy,” he promised and ran one hand down the boy’s back in a comforting pat.

  “Griff, wanna play.” The little boy gave his best begging smile and a curl of something warm settled in Griffin’s chest.

  “Pretty soon, kiddo,” he said, then turned to look back at Nicole. “Now how about we just get down to it? I wanted to do something nice for you,” he started.

  “I didn’t want you to—”

  “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t need your permission to do a damn thing.”

  “To my kitchen you do.”

  “Apparently not,” he mused and leaned back against the cold granite counter. New tack, he thought. Don’t fight fury with fury. Instead, brush it off. Let her know that her anger wasn’t changing anything.

  “Your cousin—”

  “Is out of this. I told Lucas to do it, so your issue is with me, not him.”

  “Oh,” she said with a grimace, “trust me, I know who I have issues with.”

  “Good, then let’s get this settled now.” He moved in closer and she didn’t budge an inch. “I set fire to the kitchen. It’s my job to see it fixed.”

  “The way I can afford it.”

  “Fixed. Why the hell are you fighting me on this?”

  “Because I take care of myself, Griffin.”

  “Who’s arguing?” he demanded and jiggled Connor when the boy made a sound of distress. “You’re the most self-sufficient person I’ve ever known. I respect that. Hell, you’re smart and funny and capable and—”

  “Your accountant?”

  He stopped, took a breath and blew it out again. That phone call from Brittany kept biting him in the ass. He hadn’t meant to insult Nicole; he just hadn’t wanted to talk to Brittany any longer than he absolutely had to. And now that he thought about it, he’d given Brittany a diamond necklace. Damn.

  “You’re more than that to me,” he finally said.

  “Really, what am I then?”
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  There was that question again, he thought wildly. And he still didn’t have a complete answer. All he knew was, Nicole had touched him on levels he hadn’t even been aware of having before her. Levels he wasn’t entirely comfortable acknowledging even to himself.

  He couldn’t give her an answer, so instead, he asked, “Is it so hard to accept that this was important to me?”

  Confusion gleamed in her eyes, but at least, he thought, the raw anger was gone.

  “Yes,” she said softly, “I guess it is. Why, Griffin? Why was this important to you?”

  He shoved one hand through his hair, looked down at the little boy in his arms and then shifted his gaze to the boy’s mother. Something inside him turned over, and heat spilled through him. Not the fiery, lust-ridden flames that had been engulfing him for days. This was a warmth that seemed to slide into every dark and empty corner he possessed. Looking into her eyes gave him more than he’d had before. And even as he recognized that, he knew he couldn’t keep it. Couldn’t risk what he might find if he let his guard down.

  Shaking his head, he asked, “Does it really matter?”

  Disappointed by his evasion, she looked around her again, then rubbed her hands up and down her upper arms. “Griffin, you really shouldn’t have done any of this.”

  Maybe not, but he wasn’t sorry about it. “Yeah, well, I did.”

  “And now I have to pay you for it.”

  “Damn it, Nicole…”

  “No,” she said quickly. “It’s the only way. I’ll make…payments or something, I don’t know. Shouldn’t take more than twenty or thirty years,” she added in a mutter.

  He gave an audible sigh. The woman annoyed him as often as she intrigued him, and that was saying a hell of a lot. “Connor, your mother is the most stubborn woman in the world.”

  “That’s pretty much pot-kettle territory,” she pointed out.

  Well, she had him there. “Fine. You want to pay me back? Do some work for my company.”

  He’d surprised her again.

  “What? Now you want to hire me?”

  He was out of options, Griffin told himself. If he wanted to make this right with her, and he did, then he had to do something. And work was the one thing Nicole completely understood. Her work ethic was as finely honed as his own, so he knew he had her with this one.

  “You’re not giving me much of a choice here, are you?”

  “No.” She lifted her chin. “I’m not. Okay, I’ll work for you to pay off what you put into the kitchen, but I’m also going to pay you for the deductible.”

  “Damn it, Nicole,” he said again and reached out to take her chin in his hand. “That’s one thing we’re not going to argue over. I started the fire, I’m paying the deductible. Deal with it.”

  Their gazes locked, tension hummed between them for several long seconds. Finally, though, Nicole nodded. “Okay. You can pay the deductible, but I pay you back for every other expense you paid over the insurance money.”

  “Deal. I’m not happy, but it’s a deal.”

  She took his fingers from her face and closed her hand around them. “It has to be this way, Griffin. We’re not a couple. You don’t owe me anything. We have to be able to deal with each other on even ground.”

  Even ground. Hell, he could buy and sell her a hundred times over. Financially, the cards were stacked in his favor. But he couldn’t argue with her logic. They weren’t a couple and weren’t going to be one. What they had was temporary, and they’d both known that going in. It just fried him to be told he wasn’t a part of her life, but he couldn’t disagree, either. He nodded. “Even ground.”

  *

  Nicole’s nerves were jumping and tangled up with her anger and, okay, yes, excitement, was a deep sense of disappointment she couldn’t shake. Griffin could color this any way he wanted to, but the truth was, he had done exactly what he wanted to do without a thought for how she might feel about it. An arrogant man with a generous streak. How was she supposed to stand against that combination?

  She knew darn well that the King family stormed through life doing what they thought was best, and if that meant mowing someone down…well, they always felt bad about it later. Shaking her head, Nicole realized that she was just the latest in a long line of Griffin’s conquests.

  He was so used to women falling at his feet, no wonder he was confused over her reaction to his “gift.” The man was both endearing and frustrating as all get-out. Somehow, he had remembered everything she’d told him about her dream kitchen. How had he found the perfect granite? The tiles she had seen only in her mind?

  And her rooster. Her gaze flicked to the silly bird sitting on her new, truly fabulous stove. Griffin had cleaned the soot off the red teakettle until it, too, gleamed as if it was new.

  Everything in Nicole wanted to go to him, but first she had to make him see why she was so upset about this.

  “You went around me, Griffin.”

  “Yeah,” he admitted, “I did.”

  “My ex used to do that, too,” she said, reaching up to stroke her son’s cheek. “He made my decisions for me because he thought I was too stupid to do it for myself.”

  “That’s not what—”

  She held up one hand for quiet. “Whether you meant it that way or not, that’s how it feels.”

  He nodded slowly, as if finally understanding what she was thinking, feeling.

  “If that’s true, then…” He paused, took a breath and added, “I’m sorry.”

  Nicole smiled. “I think that’s the first time I ever heard you say that.”

  One corner of his mouth quirked. “I don’t say it often.”

  “Then thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Griff,” Connor said, slapping one tiny hand against Griffin’s cheek. “Wanna story now.”

  Instead of answering, Griffin looked at her. One dark eyebrow lifted. “Shall we go back? Have dinner, read a story and get Connor ready for bed?”

  “No bed,” the boy wailed, flinging a wild glance at his mother.

  “Maybe Connor and I should just stay here tonight.”

  “Kitchen’s not completely finished yet,” he said. “The crew will be in to check on grounding wires and that gas hookup for the stove tomorrow, so…”

  So, Nicole thought, she could stay here and still not have a usable kitchen, or she could go back with Griffin and have one more night of the fantasy that had come to mean too much to her.

  Not much of a contest.

  “Okay then,” she said. “Let’s go back.”

  “Hear that, buddy?” Griffin asked as he headed for the doorway. “We’re gonna go read a story.”

  “And no baf,” Connor said solemnly.

  Griffin was chuckling as Nicole paused on the threshold to look back at her dream kitchen. An involuntary sigh slipped from her throat. It was perfect.

  And it was going to be a constant reminder of the man she had loved…and lost.

  *

  They made love that night in a room lit only by the pale light of the moon. Griffin looked into Nicole’s eyes as he took her and felt the invisible threads between them tightening. The connection he felt with her was deepening, and he wasn’t sure what the hell to do about it.

  Leaving might not be enough this time, he told himself later as he lay awake and listened to Nicole’s soft, steady breathing.

  He was getting too attached. Too accustomed to being with Nicole and her son. Even when this time with her was over, he knew he’d carry her memory with him, and that hadn’t been in the plan at all.

  Still, leaving was his only recourse. He wouldn’t risk the pain of loving and losing again. If that made him as big a coward as Lucas had turned out to be, then he’d just have to live with it. No sane man lined up for a sharp jab to the heart, so why the hell should he set himself up?

  The only thing he could do was leave. Soon, he assured himself as Nicole snuggled into him in the dark. He draped one arm around her and h
eld her close even as his mind deliberately ignored the warning bells sounding out all around him.

  Connor’s voice warbled over the baby monitor. “Mommy?”

  Griffin glanced down at Nicole. She was still sleeping, so he slipped out of bed, carefully disentangling himself so he wouldn’t disturb her. Then in the dark, he walked across the hall to where Connor was awake and fretting.

  The night-light threw a soft yellow light onto the ceiling, where it reflected and fell back down in a soft glow that illuminated the big bed and the tiny boy sitting up in the center of it. Connor wore blue, summer-weight, footie pajamas with baseball team logos stamped all over them. His blond hair was sticking straight up, and he clutched his alligator to his chest. His eyes widened when Griffin walked in.

  “Me scared, Griff.”

  “Of what, buddy?” He kept his voice low and eased down to sit on the edge of the bed.

  “Don’t know.” The little boy lay down, rubbed his eyes with his fists, then grabbed hold of his alligator again.

  “Well, don’t be scared,” Griffin told him, smoothing the boy’s hair and speaking quietly. “I’ll be right here, okay?”

  “’Kay.” Connor sighed and gave him a winsome smile that turned Griffin’s insides to jelly. “You a good daddy.”

  While the little boy drifted back to sleep, Griffin sat there in the dimly lit darkness, stunned to his soul. A daddy? No. He looked at the child sleeping so innocently and took a huge mental leap backward. He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t risk this. He already felt too much for Connor and for Nicole. He couldn’t let the boy believe that he was staying. That he would always be around to chase away the nightmares.

  This whole thing had spiraled way out of control.

  Time now to snap it back into line.

  He walked back to his bedroom and stopped in the doorway. Nicole was sitting up in bed, watching him. Her blond hair was rumpled, and her lips were still puffy from his kiss. She looked, he thought, edible. His brain shouted out a clear warning even as other parts of him leaped to life.

  “Is Connor okay?” she asked.