Ready for King's Seduction

by Maureen Child

  “It’s okay,” she said, folding her napkin and standing up. “I like a half-full glass. And if yours is half-empty, then I’m sorry.”

  He stiffened as if she’d hit a sore spot. Instantly, Rose regretted the fact that their semipleasant evening had deteriorated somehow. But maybe it was better this way. Keep the distance of teacher and student between them. Because he hadn’t hired her to be his friend—or anything else. This was a job. A good-paying job at that, and she wasn’t willing to risk it by opening up doors that should probably remain closed.

  “My glass is just fine, thanks,” he said, his voice hardly more than a low rumble of sound.

  “Glad to hear it.” Rose looked at him, and, in spite of knowing that she should just keep her mouth shut and protect this very well-paying job, she just had to say, “Maybe your glass is full, but if it’s holding the wrong things, what difference does it make?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Dumb analogy anyway. Look, why don’t I help you clean this up? Then we’ll make out a menu and a grocery list for tomorrow.”

  She left him sitting at the table and even though she didn’t look around, Rose knew he was still watching her when she started loading the dishwasher.

  “That’s it, you’re paying my dues at Weight Watchers.”

  “Hmm?” Lucas looked up from the sheaf of papers he had been staring at for an hour without really reading any of it and looked at his secretary. “Evelyn, what’re you talking about?”

  “This.” She held up an oversize frosted cookie and shook it at him. “Ever since Rafe married Katie, we’ve got these amazing cookies in the break room every day.”

  “That’s a bad thing?” he asked, smiling.

  Evelyn was in her late fifties with a rounded figure and short, graying brown hair. She was smart, efficient and knew as much as Lucas did about running crews and the customer base. She’d been with him for five years and had long since let go of her polite, businesslike tone with him.

  “I’ve gained five pounds,” she muttered and gave the cookie a glare before taking a bite and nearly groaning in pleasure.

  “Don’t eat them,” he said with a shrug.

  “Excellent advice,” she muttered with a dark look. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Evelyn, was there a point to this?”

  She sighed in defeat, took another nibble of the cookie and said, “There’s trouble on the Johnson site. The crew started digging for the new gas line before the WeDig people came out to clear the site and they hit the water line.”

  “Perfect.” Anger churned his guts. His crews were more professional than that. They knew damn well that any digging had to be cleared by the city guys who came out to tell them where gas, water and cable lines were, giving them specific areas to avoid. “Who’s in charge of that site?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Warren.”

  “Damn it.”

  “Exactly,” Evelyn said. “He’s on line two right now, wanting to talk to you.”

  “Good. I’ve got a few things to say to him, too.” He waved one hand at his secretary, who backed out of his office chewing on her cookie and moaning like a woman having sex.

  Oh, now there was an image he didn’t need in his head. Evelyn. Having sex.

  He snatched up the phone, pushed line two and snapped, “Warren, what the hell is going on? You dug before getting the go-ahead?”

  “Not me, boss. It was Rick. The new guy. Got impatient, I guess. I was making a run to a supply shop for more pipe. When I got back, it was like the Great Flood out there.”

  “You’re in charge, Warren,” Lucas told him, tired of the man’s excuses. Whenever anything went wrong on one of his sites, he was never around. Always off doing something else. “You give the orders on this project, and you take your orders from me. You damn well know better than to dig before WeDig comes out to clear it and the guys should know it, too.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No more buts. I’ll be at the site in a half hour. For now, get some pumps in there to clear the yard and get that water pipe capped off.”

  “Already done.”

  “That’s something anyway…” Shaking his head, he added, “Keep the guys on site until I get there.”

  “Right, boss.”

  When he hung up, Lucas was still furious, but almost grateful for the shift in his thoughts. If not for Warren’s ineptitude, he’d have nothing on his mind but Rose Clancy. And he’d already done nothing but think about her since the night before.

  She had haunted his dreams, making sleep nearly impossible, and then this morning over his cup of coffee, he’d smelled her in his kitchen. It was as if she was imprinting herself on his consciousness.

  Now, Lucas thought back to how Dave had always described his sister. Younger, softer, easily hurt and scared of her own shadow. She hadn’t sounded all that appealing to him until the day he first met her. Then, her looks had bowled him over first and her laughter had hit him hard. There was something about a woman who knew how to laugh, he thought now. Maybe it was because growing up, he’d never heard his own mother laugh at a damn thing. Whining on the other hand…she had been very good at that.

  As soon as that thought entered his mind, Lucas deliberately shut it down. It had sounded bad—disloyal—even to himself. His mom had done the best she could. She had just been too…alone.

  Hell. Memories from his childhood weren’t going to make this situation any easier to deal with. Disgusted with himself and his lack of concentration, Lucas pushed aside all thoughts but those related to work. For most of his life, work had been his sanctuary. The place in the world where everything was as it should be. Where the rules were well-defined and always followed. Here, Lucas kept his finger on the pulse of the company. Here, he wasn’t questioned, just obeyed. Here, he was—

  “How’d it go last night?”

  “What?” He looked up as Sean strolled into his office and plopped himself down into one of the three chairs in front of Lucas’s desk. He was chewing on one of the frosted cookies.

  “Did you know we’ve got cookies in the break room now?” He held one hand to his heart and bowed his head. “Thank you, sister Katie….”

  “Yeah, I heard,” Lucas muttered. “Apparently a Weight Watchers class is in the offing.”

  “Not for me,” Sean said with a laugh as he licked the last bit of frosting from his finger.

  Lucas sighed. “Is there a reason you’re here?”

  “Yep. Curiosity. How did it go last night? You know. With Rose?”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “Your secretary told my secretary, who told me and…” He shrugged and grinned. “Here I am. Seriously? Cooking lessons?”

  Frowning, Lucas leafed through a pile of papers on his desk. He didn’t want to talk about this with Sean. Hadn’t he just been focusing on not thinking about her? For all the good it had done him.

  In spite of his best efforts, she kept popping back into his mind. Her smile. The way light flashed on her long blond hair. The sound of her laugh and the fresh, lemony scent of her. It was all right there whether he wanted it to be or not.

  “Nothing to say?” Sean whistled low and long. “Must be even more interesting than I figured.”

  Glaring at his brother, Lucas demanded, “Don’t you have something to do?”

  “Actually, yeah. I’m headed out to look into a new service provider. With the way the company’s expanding, our old one just isn’t keeping up.”

  Lucas didn’t even have to pretend disinterest. Sean was enamored of all the technological aspects of the business, but once he started talking about it, Lucas’s eyes glazed over. “Good,” he said. “Go do it.”

  “In a sec.” Sean leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “So tell me.”

  “Tell you what?” He dropped the papers on his desk and sighed as he figured the fastest way to get rid of his brother was to answer his questions. “You already know I hired her.�
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  Sean laughed. “For cooking lessons.”

  “Why is that so hard to understand?”

  “Seriously?” Sean shook his head and stood up. “You, cooking? I should have been more impressed with her. Blonde, beautiful and a miracle worker. Teaching you to cook? Does she get hazard pay?”

  Frowning, Lucas thought of the triple-her-usual-salary offer he’d made and realized that she was getting hazard pay. His scowl deepened as he snapped, “I’ve cooked for you before and you’re still breathing.”

  “Only because of my excellent digestive system. It can withstand all sorts of toxins.”

  “Get out, Sean.”

  “Going, Lucas,” he said amiably.

  “Oh—” Lucas stopped him with a single word. “There’s trouble at the Johnson site.”

  “Warren again?” Sean frowned.

  “Yeah, they dug without the okay and hit a water pipe. Apparently the home owner can now dock a boat off the patio.”

  Shaking his head, Sean said, “I know the crews are your department, but if you want my opinion, we ought to get rid of Warren. We spend more time cleaning up after him than anything else. He’s more trouble than he’s worth.”

  “Agreed.” Lucas nodded. “We’ll talk about it at the weekly meeting.”

  “Right.” Sean headed for the door, but before he left, he asked, “On the Rose front, I hope cooking lessons are all you’re really up to.”

  “What?”

  “I hope you’re not still planning on using her for payback on Dave. Because, my man, that way lies misery.”

  Lucas didn’t say anything, just stared at his younger brother until Sean shrugged and walked out. But long after he was gone, the man’s words were still ringing in the air.

  Was he right? Was Lucas just asking for trouble by using Rose to get back at Dave?

  Standing up, he turned his back on the work waiting for him and stared out the window at the world beyond the glass. Long Beach was shivering under gray skies and a cold rain driven by an icy ocean wind. Oak trees rattled bare limbs, and the tall pines swayed with each gust.

  Truth be told, Lucas didn’t much like the idea of using Rose, either, though damned if he’d admit that to Sean. But the bottom line was, she was the sister of a man who had cheated him. Lied to him. And Lucas couldn’t let that slide.

  Liars deserved what they got, he told himself as his hands fisted at his sides. Hadn’t he grown up watching his mother’s heart broken again and again by the very men she had trusted to keep her safe? First, it was his father, Ben King—though to give Ben his due, he hadn’t promised Lucas’s mother any more than he had the mothers of any of his sons.

  But Lucas’s mother had pinned her hopes on love. Time and again, she’d gone searching for it, only to have whatever man she was pining over use her up and let her go. Her trust shaken, her heart shattered more times than he could even count, she’d finally given up. Destroyed by the very emotion she’d so longed to feel.

  No, betrayal couldn’t be forgiven. Or forgotten. And he’d do whatever he had to do to make sure that Dave Clancy finally understood that.

  Three

  “How’s Rafe doing?”

  “What?”

  As Rose followed him down the wide aisle in the grocery store, Lucas heard her sigh heavily. “Your brother? Rafe? Didn’t he get married a few months ago?”

  “Oh. Yeah. He did.” Lucas frowned at the seemingly endless selection of products. He’d spent most of his life avoiding grocery stores. When he needed food in a hurry, he stopped in at a deli or something. He hadn’t been raised around a kitchen and, as a King, if he wanted someone cooking in his house, he could hire a damn chef. So why learn?

  Now, he felt like a stranger in a strange land. The brilliant fluorescent lighting gave him a headache. There was a screaming child a few aisles over and an old woman had just crashed her cart into his and then had the guts to blame him. Seriously, men just didn’t belong in grocery stores.

  He was actually starting to rethink his whole plan. He hadn’t really considered at the beginning just what all this would entail. And his interest in cooking was about as low as it could get. Then he reminded himself sternly that getting back at Dave would be worth all the hassles he was going through at the moment. Nobody betrayed a King and walked away.

  Nobody.

  “And?” Rose prompted. “How’s he doing?”

  “Rafe?” He dragged his mind back to the conversation. “He’s good. Seems happy enough.”

  “What a touching testimony for marriage,” she mused and reached over to pick up a box of bread crumbs.

  “Bread crumbs aren’t on the list,” Lucas said, checking just to make sure.

  “I know, but it’s good to have them in the house. They come in handy in all kinds of ways. These are the best,” she said, handing him the blue box. “Low in sodium and carbs, plus they’re crispier than ordinary bread crumbs.”

  “Crispier is better. Right.” If he did inadvertently learn how to cook during this process, he promised himself, he’d hire somebody to shop for him.

  “So, you don’t like Rafe’s wife?”

  He blinked at her. “Where did that come from? Of course I like her.”

  “Well, you don’t seem thrilled that he got married,” she said with a shrug. “So I assumed you didn’t like his wife.”

  “So if I didn’t like Christmas that would mean I hated somebody else’s present?” What was it with women? A man makes a simple statement and they take it and run in the exact opposite direction.

  “You don’t like Christmas?” she countered.

  “I didn’t say that.” Shaking his head, he continued down the baking aisle. “Have you ever heard the word logic?”

  “I don’t know,” she said on a laugh. “I may have heard a vague reference at some point. Sounds like Latin.”

  “Naturally,” he muttered, ignoring her smile, because frankly he didn’t like the buzz of interest he felt lighting up his insides. He had a plan here, and he wasn’t about to be distracted from it. Yes, he was going to seduce her. But that didn’t mean he was going to do something stupid like come to care for her.

  Keeping his voice lighter than the tension filling him would ordinarily warrant, he said, “I like Katie fine. She’s way too good for Rafe, if you ask me.”

  “So it’s just marriage in general you’re against?”

  “Pretty much.” He stopped dead, and she crashed into him.

  “Sorry.”

  He ignored the increased buzzing in his blood and told himself to get a grip on the situation. To get his mind off what his body was clamoring for, he scanned the shelves of spices and was instantly irritated. “How can there be so many?”

  “Ah,” she said with an understanding grin, “life outside the narrow confines of garlic, salt and pepper.”

  He frowned. “Nothing wrong with salt and pepper. It’s basic. Classic.”

  “Boring.”

  “Fine,” he said. Anything to get out of here that much sooner. “What do we need? I mean, what do I need?”

  “It’s all there on the list,” she urged and stood by, deliberately letting him find his way through the spice racks.

  He squinted at labels and hissed at the elevated prices of some of the more esoteric spices. Who knew this stuff was so expensive? Thoughts rolled through his mind even as he continued to read labels. The Kings should look into this. If they could set up suppliers, they could move into the spice industry and really take it over. King Spice, he thought with a half smile. It could work.

  Now here was where he felt comfortable, Lucas thought. Planning, focusing on business and growing the ever-expanding King empire. Get him the hell out of a grocery store and there was nothing that could stop him once his mind was set on something. He slid a glance in Rose’s direction. Her big blue eyes were fixed on him, a quiet smile tugging at her lips. Even in this hideous lighting, her skin was like porcelain and the long ponytail she habitually wore spilled
across one shoulder, her thick blond hair a tempting mass of waves and loose curls.

  She was enough to make any red-blooded male take a long, second look. Hell, he’d looked plenty himself when he had first met her. But Dave had practically wrapped her up in barbed wire and posted a No Trespassing sign over her head. So Lucas had kept his distance out of respect for his friend.

  That respect was long dead, though, and soon he’d have this luscious-looking woman right where he wanted her. In his bed. Under him.

  Until then, he’d just focus on the task at hand, he told himself, as he shifted his gaze back to the damned racks of spices.

  Rose couldn’t seem to tear her gaze off of Lucas. His black leather jacket was open to reveal the plain white T-shirt beneath. Black jeans clung to his long, muscular legs and he was wearing the same scuffed boots she had noticed the day before. What was it, she wondered, about a gorgeous man in jeans and cowboy boots? Was it instinctive? Did it pull at something primal in a woman?

  Or was it simply that Lucas King would look too good in absolutely anything? Sadly, she thought, the latter was probably closer to the truth.

  “I don’t see peppercorns,” he muttered, “and why can’t I just use ground-up pepper? Why do I have to grind it myself? Haven’t we come further than that as a society?”

  “Funny,” she said and reached out to tap one fingernail against the peppercorns. Right in front of him. Somehow, she found that thought comforting. Lucas was so…formidable, that finding out he was like other men in the can’t-find-something-directly-in-front-of-him way made him seem…not ordinary by any means. But more touchable.

  Not that she was thinking about touching him. All right, she was. But what woman wouldn’t when she was standing right beside Lucas King? Still, if there was one thing Rose had learned in the last year or so, it was that she didn’t want anything to do with another alpha male.

  Lucas picked up the bottle of peppercorns, tossed it into the cart then consulted his list again. “Kosher salt? I’m not Jewish. You know that, right?”

  Was he trying to be charming, she wondered, or was it just part of who he was? And if he was trying, why? Three years ago, when they first met, he had never made a move on her. And back then, she would definitely have been interested.