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“I brought enough with me for tonight’s lesson,” she said, “because this was all so sudden I figured you wouldn’t have the right ingredients.”
“Good call,” he said, his knife sliding through button after button.
“But it’s just a crime that you have this amazing kitchen and nothing in it,” she said with a long sigh. Shaking her head, she looked around the room as if studying an abandoned puppy and wondering how to find it a good home. “I’m going to leave a list of supplies for you to pick up. With a well-stocked pantry and refrigerator, you’ll always have options.”
He lifted his head to look at her, and their eyes locked. A second or two of pulsing tension passed before he said, “Until I learn how to cook, being well-stocked really isn’t necessary, is it?”
She plopped one hand on her hip. “How am I supposed to teach you how to cook if there’s nothing in your house to cook with?”
“Good point again,” he muttered, then rallied. “Okay, leave your list. I’ll have my secretary take care of getting whatever you think I need.”
“Your secretary.”
He frowned at her. “Something wrong with that?”
“Oh, no,” she said, lifting both hands in surrender. “Just typical, that’s all.”
“Typical of what?”
“Men like you. And Dave.”
“Excuse me?” He stiffened. “I’m nothing like your brother, let’s get that straight right now.”
Now it was her turn to stiffen up, and Lucas noted the flash of emotion in her eyes. “Look, I know you and Dave don’t speak anymore—”
“That’s right, we don’t,” he said, cutting her off before she could try to do something as fruitless as attempt to salvage a friendship that was dead to him.
It was good that she’d brought him up, though. Good to reinforce the fact that Rose was the sister of his enemy. A man he had once trusted. And the only reason Rose was standing here, driving him insane with her soft scent of lemons, was that Lucas was going to use her to get back at the man who had betrayed him. Revenge. Pure. Simple.
Sweet.
A minute or two of strained silence passed before she said, “All I meant was that men like you most often delegate work to your secretaries—even when it’s not something that’s really part of their job descriptions.”
He looked at her, the knife in his hand still. “My secretary’s job description includes pretty much whatever I say it does.”
“Uh-huh. Even grocery shopping?”
“There’s something wrong with that?”
She leaned both hands on the cooking island’s cool granite surface. Her skin looked even paler against the gleaming black stone. “How will you know what to get in the future? You plan to always have your secretary do the work for you?”
Actually, it sounded like a good plan to Lucas. If he wanted to grocery shop, there would be actual food in his house right now. But why would he when there was a great diner just a half block away and enough restaurants in the city of Long Beach that a man wouldn’t have to eat at the same place twice during a six-month span?
Rose shook her head. “Maybe I should be giving your secretary the lessons.”
Okay, that was a little insulting. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll get the groceries. Make a list, and I’ll take care of it before tomorrow night.”
Smiling, she said, “How about we do it together tomorrow? We’ll call it part of the lesson. I’ll show you how to choose your produce and what to look for at the meat counter.”
Lucas nodded, and she smiled even wider. Grocery shopping. Not exactly a high-end kind of date, he told himself, but then he wasn’t dating her, either. This was a planned seduction. What he wanted to do was get her off guard and keep her there. Then, when she was relaxed enough, he’d tumble her into bed. Once that was done, Lucas would tell her brother just how good she had been, and he’d have the kind of revenge that would tear at Dave Clancy for the rest of his life.
“But for now,” Rose was saying, “you finish slicing the mushrooms, then I want you to chop three tablespoons of fresh parsley.”
He paused and frowned. “Isn’t parsley the decoration on plates that no one ever eats?”
“Some of us actually do eat it.”
“Amazing,” he muttered, but went back to his task. While he worked, he managed to keep one eye on Rose as she explored his kitchen. She drew down plates and wineglasses from the cupboards, opened up the fridge and grabbed the sour cream, cheese and butter she’d brought with her for tonight’s recipe.
In a few minutes, they were working together amiably. But when she turned on the radio and soft jazz spilled from the speakers, Lucas began to worry.
He was actually enjoying himself.
And that wasn’t part of the plan.
“So?” Rose asked an hour later, “what do you think?”
She was sitting opposite him at the glass-topped table at the far end of the kitchen. Beside them was a bay window that overlooked a wide backyard. The garden lights were on, spilling small circles of golden radiance across the grass and neatly tended flowerbeds. The winter garden was sparse, but even in the dimly lit darkness, Rose could imagine how beautiful it all was in daylight.
She didn’t usually stay after the lesson and join her students for the meal they had created, but Lucas had insisted and frankly, Rose thought with an inner sigh, she hadn’t wanted to leave. Probably not a good idea to start getting attached, she warned herself sternly, but then she had always had a soft spot for Lucas King. She couldn’t explain it. It just … was.
Still, after two hours of working closely together in his amazingly wonderful kitchen, Rose still couldn’t have said that she knew Lucas any better than she once had. Oh, he seemed friendly enough, despite the thin thread of distance he insisted on keeping between them.
But then, she reminded herself as she looked back at her memories, Lucas had always been a little closed off. That’s probably what had drawn her to him in the first place, Rose realized. In her own family, the men had been outgoing, gregarious. Whatever they were thinking, they didn’t keep to themselves. They were loud and emotional and easy to read.
Meeting Lucas had been like brushing up against a gorgeous mystery. His blue eyes held secrets, his almost unreadable expressions tempted her to delve deeper and his quiet self-assurance had been a welcome difference from her brother and father.
He’d attracted her with his quiet thoughtfulness and, apparently, that hadn’t changed.
“Earth to Rose,” he said, snapping his fingers in front of her face.
She came up out of her thoughts fast and gave herself a shake. “Sorry. What?”
Lucas gave her a half smile. “You zoned out. Was it the sparkling conversation or the slightly charred chicken breast?”
She laughed a little. “The chicken is just a little well done,” she said, glancing down at the salsa-covered meat on her plate. “Not bad at all for a first try.”
“So the conversation put you to sleep?”
“No,” she said, taking a bite of the mushroom au gratin casserole. “But the lack of it might. You haven’t had a lot to say in the last hour or so, Lucas.”
“Cooking takes concentration,” he said with a shrug.
“Is that all it is?”
He looked at her. “What else would it be?”
“I don’t know,” she mused, taking a small sip of the chardonnay he had poured for both of them. “Maybe you’re regretting hiring me? After the way you and Dave left things, I’m still not sure why you hired me in the first place.”
His features tightened briefly at the mention of her brother, and, once again, Rose really wished she knew what had come between the two men. One day, their friendship was just … over. Lucas hadn’t come around anymore, and Dave had refused to talk about it with her. Unfortunately, that hadn’t changed two years later. Neither of them seemed willing to satisfy her curiosity.
“Dave’s got nothing to do with this,” Lucas murmured. “You teach cooking, I need to learn, end of story.”
“If you say so.” She didn’t believe him. Sure, there had been the coincidence of him seeing her at his neighbor’s house. But what had moved him to ask her to help him learn to cook? Why would he suddenly be willing to talk to the sister of the man he hadn’t spoken to in years? There was more here and she’d eventually get to the bottom of it. But for now, she was willing to let it go.
“So what did you think of the mushrooms au gratin?”
He grinned and took a big bite of the casserole side dish in question. Once he’d chewed and swallowed, he said, “It proves that with enough sour cream and cheese, anything is edible. Even fungi and parsley.”
“A lovely compliment,” she said, chuckling. “But you have to admit, the first meal you cooked turned out pretty well.”
“Better than Kathy Robertson’s?”
“Why are men so competitive?”
“It’s a gift. So?”
“Yes,” she reluctantly admitted. “I don’t really like to talk about my clients, but yours was way better. Kathy burned the onions so badly, I had to throw one of my favorite pans away.”
He shuddered. “Hope she kept the name of the last caterer she used.”
Laughing, Rose said, “That was just mean. She’s going to get the hang of it.”
He studied her for so long, Rose began to shift uneasily in her chair. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said with a shake of his head. “But you really are a positive, glass-is-half-full kind of woman, aren’t you?”
Rose tensed briefly. For most of her life, she had pretty much been the Pollyanna type. She looked for the good around her and generally found it. Until, of course, her ex-husband had not only snatched off her rose-colored glasses, but also ground them to dust under his heel.
After that, she’d had to fight to regain her sense of well-being. She’d had to force herself to smile until, eventually, it had become real. And now, she wasn’t going to go back to the dark side again. She wasn’t going to apologize because she liked rainbows and puppies and laughing children.
“Seeing the empty half doesn’t make you more mature or more intelligent,” she said softly. “It only means you’re looking for what you don’t have. How is that a good thing?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“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.”
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.