King’s Million-Dollar Secret

by Maureen Child

  “But…?” He patted the wall, stood up and looked at her, waiting for her to finish.

  Katie straightened up as he did and noticed that though she was five foot nine, he had at least four inches on her. He also had the palest blue eyes she had ever seen, fringed by thick eyelashes that most women would kill for. His black eyebrows looked as though they were always drawn into a frown. His mouth was full and tempting and his jaws were covered with just the slightest hint of black stubble. His shoulders were broad, his waist narrow and those jeans of his really did look amazingly good on him. A fresh tingle of interest swept through her almost before she realized it.

  It was nice to feel something for an ordinary, everyday, hardworking guy. She’d had enough of rich men with more money than sense or manners.

  He was still waiting, so she gave him a bright smile and said, “Let’s just say it’s a personal matter between me and one member of the King family.”

  If anything, the perpetual scowl on his face deepened. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not important.” She shook her head and laughed. “Honestly, I’m sorry I said anything. I only meant that it was hard for me to hire King Construction, knowing what I do about the King family men.”

  “Really.” He folded his arms over his chest and asked, “What exactly do you think you know about the Kings?”

  His gaze was narrowed and fixed on her. She felt the power of that glare right down to her bones and even Katie was surprised at the tingle of something tempting washing through her. Suddenly nervous, she glanced over the back of the stove to look at the pipes as if she knew what she was seeing. Still, it gave her a second to gather her thoughts. When she felt steady again, she said, “You mean beside the fact that they’re too rich and too snobby?”

  “Snobby?”

  “Yes.” Katie huffed out a breath and said, “Look I know you work for them and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I only know that I never want anything to do with any of them again.”

  “Sounds ominous.”

  She laughed at the idea. Katie doubted very much that Cordell King had given her a second thought since he’d abruptly disappeared from her life six months ago. No, the Kings steamrolled their way through the world, expecting everyone else to get out of their way. Well, from now on, she was going to oblige them.

  “Oh, I don’t think any of the Kings of California are staying up nights wondering why Katie Charles hates their guts.”

  “You might be surprised,” he said, dusting his hands off as he looked at her. She shifted a little under that direct stare. “You know, I’m a curious kind of guy. And I’m not going to be happy until I know why you hate the Kings.”

  “Curiosity isn’t always a good thing,” she said. “Sometimes you find out things you’d rather not know.”

  “Better to be informed anyway, don’t you think?”

  “Not always,” Katie said, remembering how badly she’d felt when Cordell broke things off with her. She’d just had to ask him why and the answer had only made her feel worse.

  Rafe smiled at her then and she noted how his features softened and even his eyes lost that cool, dispassionate gleam. Her heartbeat jittered unsteadily in her chest as her body reacted to the man’s pure male appeal. Then, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, that smile of his widened and he actually winked at her.

  But a moment later, he was all business again.

  “Your temporary gas line is hooked up. But remember, we’re shutting the gas off during the day. We’ll let you know when it’s safe to use the stove.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” She took a single step backward and Rafe walked past her, his arm brushing against hers as he did. Heat flashed through her unexpectedly and Katie took in a deep breath. Unfortunately, that meant she also got a good long whiff of his cologne. Something foresty and cool and almost as intriguing as the man himself. “And Rafe?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please don’t repeat any of what I said about the King family. I mean, I probably shouldn’t have brought it up and I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable while you’re working here.”

  He nodded. “Won’t say a word. But like I said, one of these days, I’m going to hear the rest of your story.”

  Katie shook her head and said, “I don’t think so. The Kings are part of my past and that’s where I want to leave them.”

  By the end of the first day, Katie was asking herself why she had ever decided to remodel. Having strangers in and out of her house all day was weird, having noisy strangers only made it worse.

  Now though, they were gone and she was left alone in the shell of what had been her grandmother’s kitchen. Standing in the center of the room, she did a slow circle, her gaze moving over everything.

  The floor had been torn up, right down to the black subfloor that was older than Katie. The walls were half torn down and the cabinet doors had been removed and stacked neatly in the back yard. She caught a glimpse of naked pipes and groaned in sympathy with the old house.

  “Regrets?”

  She jumped and whirled around. Her heart jolted into a gallop even as she blew out a relieved breath. “Rafe. I thought you left with the others.”

  He grinned as if he knew that he’d startled her. Then, leaning one shoulder on the doorjamb, he folded his arms across his chest. “I stayed to make sure your gas hookup in the back room was working.”

  “And is it?”

  “All set.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  He shrugged and straightened up languidly as if he had all the time in the world. “It’s my job.”

  “I know, but I appreciate it anyway.”

  “You’re welcome.” His gaze moved over the room as hers had a moment before. “So, what do you think?”

  “Honestly?” She cringed a little. “It’s horrifying.”

  He laughed. “Just remember. Destruction first. Then creation.”

  “I’ll try to remember.” She walked closer to where the sink had been. Now, of course, it was just a ripped-out wall with those naked pipes staring at her in accusation. “Hard to believe the room can come back from this.”

  “I’ve seen worse.”

  “I don’t know whether to be relieved or appalled at that statement,” she admitted.

  “Go with relieved,” he assured her. He walked closer, stuffing his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “Some of the jobs I’ve seen took months to finish.”

  “So you’ve done a lot of this work?”

  “My share,” he said with a shrug. “Though this is the first job site I’ve worked on in three or four years.”

  The house was quiet…blessedly so, after a full day of hammers crashing into walls and wood. The decimated kitchen echoed with their voices, and outside, the afternoon was fading into twilight. There was a feeling of intimacy between them that maybe only strangers thrown together could experience.

  She looked at him, taking her time to enjoy the view, and wondered. About him. About who he was, what he liked—and a part of her wondered why she wondered.

  Then again, it had been a long time since she’d been interested in a man. Having your heart bruised was enough to make a woman just a little nervous about getting back into the dating pool again.

  But it couldn’t hurt to look, could it?

  “So if you weren’t doing construction, what were you doing instead?”

  He glanced at her, long enough for her to see a mental shutter slam down across his eyes. Then he shifted his gaze away and ran one hand across the skeleton of a cabinet. “Different things. Still, good to get back and work with my hands again.” Then he winked. “Even if it is for the Kings.”

  He’d shut her out deliberately. Closing the door on talking about his past. He was watching her as if he expected her to dig a little deeper. But how could she? She had already told him that she felt curiosity was overrated. And if she asked about his past, didn’t that give him the right to ask about hers? Katie di
dn’t exactly want to chat about how she’d been wined, dined and then unceremoniously dumped by Cordell King either, did she?

  Still, she couldn’t help being curious about Rafe Cole and just what he might be hiding.

  “So,” he said after a long moment of silence stretched out between them. “Guess I’d better get going and let you get busy baking cookies.”

  “Right.” She started forward at the same time he did and they bumped into each other.

  Instantly, heat blossomed between them. Their bodies close together, there was one incredible, sizzling moment in which neither of them spoke because they simply didn’t have to.

  Something was there. Heat. Passion.

  Katie looked up into Rafe’s eyes and knew he was feeling exactly what she was. And judging by his expression, he wasn’t much happier about it.

  She hadn’t been looking for a romantic connection, but it seemed that she had stumbled on one anyway.

  He lifted one hand to touch her face and stopped himself just short of his fingertips tracing along her jaw. Smiling softly, he said, “This could get…interesting.”

  Understatement of the century.

  Two

  “Meeting’s over,” Lucas King muttered. “Why are we still here?”

  “Because I’ve got a question for you,” Rafe answered and looked up at his brothers. Well, two of them, anyway. Sean and Lucas, his partners in King Construction. Just looking at the three of them together, anyone would know they were brothers. They all had the King coloring, black hair and blue eyes. Yet their features were different enough to point to the fact that they each had different mothers.

  But the man who had been their father had linked them not just by blood, but by fostering that brotherly connection in their childhoods. All of Ben King’s sons had spent time together every summer, and the differences among them melted away in the shared knowledge that their father hadn’t bothered to marry any of their mothers.

  Lucas, the oldest of the three of them, was checking his watch and firing another impatient look at Rafe. Sean, typically, was so busy studying the screen of his cell phone while he tapped out messages to God knew who, he hadn’t noticed that Lucas had spoken.

  The brothers held weekly meetings to discuss business, to catch up with whatever was going on in the family and simply to keep up with each other’s lives. Those meetings shifted among each of their houses. Tonight, they were gathered at Lucas’s oceanfront home in Long Beach.

  It was huge, old and filled with what Lucas liked to call character. Of course, everyone else called it outdated and inconvenient. Rafe preferred his own place, a penthouse suite in a hotel in Huntington Beach. Sleek, modern and efficient, it had none of the quirks that Lucas seemed so fond of in his own house. And he appreciated having room service at his beck and call as well as maid service every day. As for Sean, he was living in a remodeled water tower in Sunset Beach that had an elevator at beach level just to get you to the front door.

  They had wildly different tastes, yet each of them had opted for a home with a view of the sea.

  For a moment, Rafe stared out at the ribbons of color on the sunset-stained ocean and took a deep breath of the cold, clear air. There were a few hardy surfers astride their boards, looking for one last wave before calling it a day, and a couple was walking a tiny dog along Pacific Coast Highway.

  “What do we know about Katie Charles?” he asked, taking a swig from his beer.

  “Katie who?” Sean asked.

  “Charles,” Lucas said, irritation for their younger brother coloring his tone. “Don’t you listen?”

  “To who?” Sean kept his gaze fixed on his cell phone. The man was forever emailing and texting clients and women. It was nearly impossible to get Sean to pay attention to anything that didn’t pop up on an LED screen.

  “Me,” Rafe told him, reaching out to snatch the phone away.

  “Hey!” Sean leaned out and reclaimed his phone. “I’m setting up a meeting for later.”

  “How about instead you pay attention to this one?” Rafe countered.

  “Fine. I’m listening. Give me my phone.”

  Rafe tossed it over, then turned his gaze to Lucas. “So?” Rafe asked. “You know anything about Katie Charles?”

  “Name sounds familiar. Who is she?”

  “Customer,” Rafe said, picking up his beer and leaning back in the Adirondack chair. “We’re redoing her kitchen.”

  “Good for us.” Sean looked at him. “So what’s bugging you about her?”

  Good question. Rafe shouldn’t have cared what Katie Charles thought of the King family. What did it really matter in the grand scheme of things? Still, ever since leaving Katie’s house earlier, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. And it wasn’t just the flash of heat he felt when he was around her that was bugging her. She was pretty, smart, and successful, and she hated the Kings. What was up with that?

  “Katie Charles,” Lucas was muttering to himself. “Katie Charles. Kitchen. Cookies.” He grinned and said, “That’s it. Katie’s Kookies. She’s building a real name for herself. She’s sort of a cottage industry at the moment, but people are talking about her.”

  “What people?” Rafe asked, frowning. “I’ve never heard of her before.”

  Sean snorted. “Why would you? You’re practically a hermit. To hear about anything you’d have to actually talk to someone. You know, someone who isn’t us.”

  “I’m not a hermit.”

  “God knows I hate to admit Sean’s right. About anything. But he’s got a point,” Lucas said, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “You keep yourself shut up in that penthouse of yours most of the time. Hell, I’m willing to bet the only people you’ve actually talked to since last week’s meeting are the room service operator and the crew you worked with today.”

  Rafe scowled at Lucas, but only because he didn’t have an argument for the truth. He didn’t have time to date every model in the known universe like Sean. And he had no interest in the corporate world of movers and shakers like Lucas. What the hell else was he supposed to do with his time?

  “Oh, yeah,” Sean said with a grin. “I forgot about that bet you made. How’s it going, being back on a job site?”

  “Not bad,” Rafe admitted. Actually, he’d enjoyed himself more than he had expected. Being on a site with hardworking guys who didn’t know he was their boss had been…fun. And there was the added plus of being around a woman who made his body tight and his brain fuzz out. Until, of course, Katie had confessed that she hated the King family.

  “So,” Sean asked, “if you had such a good time, why do you look like you want to bite through a box of nails?”

  “You do look more annoyed than usual,” Lucas said with a shrug. “What’s up? And what’s it got to do with Katie Charles?”

  “Neither of you knows her?”

  Sean and Lucas looked at each other and shrugged. “Nope.”

  “Somebody does.”

  “Somebody knows everybody,” Lucas pointed out.

  “Yeah, but the somebody who knows Katie is a King.”

  Sean snorted. “Doesn’t narrow the field down by much.”

  “True.” Hell, there were so many King cousins in California, they could probably start their own county.

  “What’s the deal?” Lucas picked up his beer, leaned back in his chair and waited. “Why’s she bothering you?”

  “Because,” Rafe told him, standing up to walk to the balcony railing, “she hates the Kings.”

  “Hates us?” Sean laughed. “Impossible. Women love King men.”

  “That’s completely true,” Lucas said with a self-satisfied smile.

  “Usually, maybe,” Rafe said, his gaze sweeping across the froth of waves on the darkening ocean. Although his ex-wife would probably argue that point. “But this woman doesn’t. Hell she barely could say the word King without shuddering.”

  “So why’d she hire us if she hates us so much?”

 
; He turned to look at Sean. “Our company’s reputation, she says. But she’s not happy about it.”

  “And you think somebody in the family turned her against all Kings?” Lucas asked.

  “What else could it be?” Rafe looked at him and shrugged.

  “The real question here is,” Sean said quietly, “why do you care?”

  “That is a good question.” Lucas looked at Rafe and waited.

  Too good, Rafe thought. Hell, he didn’t know why he cared, either. God knew, he didn’t want to. He’d been down this road before and he’d already learned that not only didn’t he know how to love, but according to his ex-wife, he was actually incapable of it.

  So why bother with romancing a woman when you knew going in it was doomed to fail? No, he kept his relationships easy. Uncomplicated. A few hours of recreational sex and no strings attached.

  Better for everyone when the rules were clear.

  Yet, there was Katie.

  She stirred him up in a way he’d never known before, though damned if he’d admit that to anyone else. Hard enough to get himself to acknowledge it.

  “Yeah, it is a good question,” Rafe muttered. “Too bad I don’t have an answer.”

  Katie was getting used to the noise, the dust, the confusion and the presence of strangers in her house. One week and she could barely remember what quiet was like. Or privacy. Or being able to move around her kitchen to the sounds of late-night radio.

  Now, her kitchen was an empty shell of a room. She glanced out one of the wide windows into the backyard and sighed. There was a small trailer parked on her grass, its doors wide open, revealing tools and equipment enough to build four kitchens.

  Pickup trucks belonging to Steve, Arturo and Rafe were also parked on her lawn and the piles of her discarded kitchen were getting bigger. Broken linoleum, old pipes, her sink—a beautiful, cast iron relic—lay tilted atop one of the mountains of trash and just for a second, Katie felt a twinge of panic.