# King's Million-Dollar Secret

Maureen Child

Millionaire Rafe King was working one job as an everyday carpenter. And that’s when he hit the jackpot – an introduction to Katie Charles. With every word, every touch, the sweet, sexy lady made Rafe feel like more than the cold-hearted tycoon he was reputed to be.There was only one problem: Katie despised all wealthy men, especially the King family. But if he kept this secret, it might cost him…everything.

Scandalous Secrets

July 2020

Secrets of the Past

August 2020

His Hidden Heir

September 2020

Scandalous Reputation

January 2021

The Billion Dollar Secret

February 2021

A Royal Secret

March 2021

Secrets & Lies

## About the Author

MAUREEN CHILD is the author of more than 130 romance novels and novellas that routinely appear on bestseller lists and have won numerous awards, including the National Reader’s Choice Award. A seven-time nominee for the prestigious RITA™ award from Romance Writers of America, one of her books was made into a CBS-TV movie called The Soul Collector. Maureen recently moved from California to the mountains of Utah and is trying to get used to snow.

## King’s Million-Dollar Secret

Maureen Child


www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-408-97182-6

KING’S MILLION-DOLLAR SECRET

© 2011 Maureen Child

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

## Note to Readers

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To Rory, Scott and Joaquin

at Building and Construction Contractors,

the heroes who rebuilt my kitchen,

put up with my constant questions

and made a palace out of a pup tent!

Thanks, you guys.

## Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Note to Readers

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Epilogue

About the Publisher

## One

Rafe King liked a friendly wager as much as the next guy.

He just didn’t like to lose.

When he lost though, he paid up. Which was why he was standing in a driveway, sipping a cup of coffee, waiting for the rest of the work crew to show up. As one of the owners of King Construction, it had been a few years since Rafe had actually done any on-site work. Usually, he was the details man, getting parts ordered, supplies delivered. He stayed on top of the million and one jobs the company had going at any one time and trusted the contractors to get the work done right.

Now though, thanks to one bet gone bad, he’d be working on this job himself for the next few weeks.

A silver pickup truck towing a small, enclosed trailer pulled in behind him and Rafe slanted his gaze at the driver. Joe Hanna. Contractor. Friend. And the man who’d instigated the bet Rafe had lost.

Joe climbed out of his truck, barely managing to hide a smile. “Hardly knew you without the suit you’re usually wearing.”

“Funny.” Most of his life, Rafe hadn’t done the suit thing. Actually, he was more comfortable dressed as he was now, in faded jeans, black work boots and a black T-shirt with King Construction stamped across the back. “You’re late.”

“No, I’m not. You’re early.” Joe sipped at his own coffee and handed over a bag. “Want a doughnut?”

“Sure.” Rafe dug in, came up with a jelly-filled and polished it off in a few huge bites. “Where’s everyone else?”

“We don’t start work until eight a.m. They’ve still got a half hour.”

“If they were here now, they could start setting up, so they could start working at eight.” Rafe turned his gaze to the California bungalow that would be the center of his world for the next several weeks. It sat on a tree-lined street in Long Beach, behind a wide, neatly tended lawn. At least fifty years old, it looked settled, he supposed. As if the town had grown up around it.

“What’s the job here, anyway?”

“A kitchen redo,” Joe said, leaning against Rafe’s truck to study the house. “New floor, new counter. Lots of plumbing to bring the old place up to code. New drains, pipes, replastering and painting.”

“Cabinets?” Rafe asked, his mind fixing on the job at hand.

“Nope. The ones in there are solid white pine. So we’re not replacing. Just stripping, sanding and varnishing.”

He nodded, then straightened up and turned his gaze on Joe. “So do the guys working this job know who I am?”

Joe grinned. “Not a clue. Just like we talked about, your real identity will be a secret. For the length of the job here, your name is Rafe Cole. You’re a new hire.”

Better all the way around, he thought, if the guys working with him didn’t know that he was their employer. If they knew the truth, they’d be antsy and wouldn’t get the work done. Besides, this was an opportunity for Rafe to see exactly what his employees thought of the business and working for King Construction. Like that television show where employers went undercover at their own companies, he just might find out a few things.

Still, he shook his head. “Remind me again why I’m not firing you?”

“Because you lost the bet fair and square and you don’t welsh on your bets,” Joe said. “And, I warned you that my Sherry’s car was going to win the race.”

“True.” Rafe smiled and remembered the scene at the King Construction family picnic a month ago. The children of employees spent months building cars that would then race on a track made especially for the event. In the spirit of competition, Rafe had bet against Joe’s daughter’s bright pink car. Sherry had left everyone else standing at the gate. That would teach him to bet against a female.

“Good thing you let your brothers do all the talking at the picnic,” Joe was saying. “Otherwise, these guys would recognize you.”

That’s just the way Rafe liked it, he thought. He left the publicity and the more public areas of the business to two of his brothers, Sean and Lucas. Between the three of them, they had built King Construction into the biggest construction firm on the West Coast. Sean handled the corporate side of things, Lucas managed the customer base and crews, and Rafe was the go-to guy for supplies, parts and anything else needed on a site.

“Lucky me,” he muttered, then looked up at the rumble of another truck pulling up to the front of the house. Right behind him, a smaller truck parked and the two men got out and walked toward them.

Joe stepped up. “Steve, Arturo, this is Rafe Cole. He’ll be working the job with you guys.”

Steve was tall, about fifty, with a wide grin, wearing a T-shirt proclaiming a local rock band. Arturo was older, shorter and wearing a shirt stained with various colors of paint. Well, Rafe thought, he knew which one of them was the painter.

“We ready?” Steve asked.

“As we’ll ever be.” Joe turned and pointed to the side of the house. “There’s an RV access gate there. Want to put the trailer in her back yard? Easier to get to and it’ll keep thieves out.”

“Right.”

Joe positioned his truck and trailer through the gate and in minutes, they were busy. Rafe jumped in. It had been a few years since he’d spent time on a site, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten anything. His father, Ben King, hadn’t been much of a dad, but he had run the construction arm of the King family dynasty and made sure that every one of his sons—all eight of them—spent time on job sites every summer. He figured it was a good way to remind them that being a King didn’t mean you had an easy ride.

They’d all grumbled about it at the time, but Rafe had come to think that was the one good thing their father had done for any of them.

“We did the walk-through last week,” Joe was saying and Rafe listened up. “The customer’s got everything cleaned out, so Steve and Arturo can start the demo right away. Rafe, you’re going to hook up a temporary cooking station for Ms. Charles on her enclosed patio.”

Rafe just looked at him. “Temporary cooking? She can’t eat out during a kitchen rehab like everyone else?”

“She could,” a female voice answered from the house behind them. “But she needs to be able to bake while you’re fixing her kitchen.”

Rafe slowly turned to face the woman behind that voice and felt a hard punch of something hot slam into him. She was tall, which he liked—nothing worse than having to hunch over to kiss a woman—she had curly, shoulder-length red hair and bright green eyes. She was smiling and the curve of her mouth was downright delectable.

And none of that information made him happy. He didn’t need a woman. Didn’t want a woman and if he did, he sure as hell wouldn’t be going for one who had “white picket fences” practically stamped on her forehead.

Rafe just wasn’t the home-and-hearth kind of guy.

Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the view.

“Morning, Ms. Charles,” Joe said. “Got your crew here. Arturo and Steve you met the other day during the walk-through. And this is Rafe.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said. Her green eyes locked with his and for one long, humming second there seemed to be a hell of a lot of heat in the air. “But call me Katie, please. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, after all.”

“Right. So, what’s this temporary cooking station about?” Rafe asked.

“I bake cookies,” she told him. “That’s my business and I have to be able to fill orders while the kitchen is being redone. Joe assured me it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“It won’t be,” Joe said. “Of course, you won’t be able to cook during the day. We’ll have the gas turned off while we work on the pipes. But we’ll set it up for you at the end of every day. Rafe’ll fix you up and you’ll be cooking by tonight.”

“Great. Well, I’ll let you get to it.”

She slipped inside again and Rafe took that second to admire the view of her from the rear. She had a great behind, hugged by worn denim that defined every curve and tempted a man to see what exactly was underneath those jeans. He took a long, deep breath, hoping the crisp morning air would dissipate some of the heat pumping through him. It didn’t, so he was left with a too-tight body and a long day staring him in the face. So he told himself to ignore the woman. He was only here long enough to pay off a bet. Then he’d be gone.

“Okay,” Joe was saying, “you guys move Katie’s stove where she wants it, then Rafe can get her set up while the demolition’s going on.”

Nothing Rafe would like better than to set her up—for some one-on-one time. Instead though, he followed Steve and Arturo around to the back of the house.

The noise was incredible.

After an hour, Katie’s head was pounding in time with the sledge hammers being swung in her grandmother’s kitchen.

It was weird, having strangers in the house. Even weirder paying them to destroy the kitchen she’d pretty much grown up in. But it would all be worth it, she knew. She just hoped she could live through the construction.

Not to mention crabby carpenters.

Desperate to get a little distance between herself and the constant battering of noise, she walked to the enclosed patio. Snugged between the garage and the house, the room was long and narrow. There were a few chairs, a picnic table that Katie had already covered with a vinyl tablecloth and stacks of cookie sheets waiting to be filled. Her mixing bowls were on a nearby counter and her temporary pantry was a card table. This was going to be a challenge for sure. But there was the added plus of having a gorgeous man stretched out behind the stove grumbling under his breath.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

The man jerked up, slammed his head into the corner of the stove and muttered an oath that Katie was glad she hadn’t been able to hear. Flashing her a dark look out of beautiful blue eyes, he said, “It’s going as well as hooking up an ancient stove to a gas pipe can go.”

“It’s old, but it’s reliable,” Katie told him. “Of course, I’ve got a new one on order.”

“Can’t say as I blame you,” Rafe answered, dipping back behind the stove again. “This thing’s gotta be thirty years old.”

“At least,” she said, dropping into a nearby chair. “My grandmother bought it new before I was born and I’m twenty-seven.”

He glanced up at her and shook his head.

Her breath caught in her chest. Really, he was not what she had expected. Someone as gorgeous as he was should have been on the cover of GQ, not working a construction site. But he seemed to know what he was doing and she had to admit that just looking at him gave her the kind of rush she hadn’t felt in way too long.

And that kind of thinking was just dangerous, so she steered the conversation to something light.

“Just because something’s old doesn’t mean it’s useless.” She grinned. “That stove might be temperamental, but I know all of its tricks. It cooks a little hot, but I’ve learned to work around it.”

“And yet,” he pointed out with a half smile, “you’ve got a new stove coming.”

She shrugged and her smile faded a little into something that felt like regret. “New kitchen, new stove. But I think I’ll miss this one’s occasional hiccups. Makes baking more interesting.”

“Right.” He looked as if he didn’t believe her and couldn’t have cared less. “You’re really going to be cooking out here?”

The sounds of cheerful demolition rang out around them and Katie heard the two guys in the kitchen laughing about something. She wondered for a second or two what could possibly be funny about tearing out a fifty-year-old kitchen, then told herself it was probably better if she didn’t know.

Instead, she glanced around at the patio/makeshift kitchen setup. Windows ringed the room, terra-cotta-colored tiles made up the floor and there was a small wetbar area in the corner that Katie would be using as a cleanup area. She sighed a little, already missing the farmhouse-style kitchen that was, at the moment, being taken down to its skeleton.

But when it was finished, she’d have the kitchen of her dreams. She smiled to herself, enjoying the mental images.

“Something funny?”

“What?” She looked at the man still sprawled on the tile floor. “No. Just thinking about how the kitchen will be when you guys are done.”

“Not worried about the mess and the work?”

“Nope,” she said and pushed out of the chair. She walked toward him, leaned on the stove top and looked over the back at him. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not looking forward to it and the thought of baking out here is a little high on the ye gods scale. Still, the mess can’t be avoided,” she said. “As for the work that will be done, I did my research. Checked into all the different construction companies and got three estimates.”

“So, why’d you choose King Construction?” he asked, dragging what looked like a silver snake from the back of the stove to a pipe jutting out from the garage wall.

“It wasn’t easy,” she murmured, remembering things she would just as soon put behind her permanently.

“Why’s that?” He sounded almost offended. “King Construction has a great reputation.”

Katie smiled and said, “It’s nice that you’re so protective of the company you work for.”

“Yeah, well. The Kings have been good to me.” He scowled a bit and refocused on the task at hand. “So if you don’t like King Construction, what’re we doing here?”

Sighing a little, Katie told herself she really had to be more discreet. She hadn’t meant to say anything at all about the King family. After all, Rafe and the other guys worked for them. But now that she had, she wasn’t going to try to lie or squirm her way out of it, either. “I’m sure the construction company is excellent. All of the referrals I checked out were more than pleased with the work done.”

“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, hard-working 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 didn’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.

This had all seemed like such a good idea at the time. Now though, she had to wonder if she’d been crazy. What if the new kitchen wasn’t as good as the old? What if her new stove didn’t cook as reliably? Where would she ever find another sink so wide and deep? What if her business went belly up and she’d spent her savings on a kitchen she wouldn’t be able to afford?

“Oh, God …”

“Too late for panic now,” a deep voice assured her from the doorway.

She turned around to look at Rafe and caught the knowing gleam in his eyes. She forced a smile. “Not full-blown panic yet. Just a little … okay,” she admitted finally, “panic.”

He laughed and she had a moment to think how devastating he really was before the smile on his face faded. He walked into the room and looked out at the view she’d been staring at. “It looks bad now, but it’s going to be great when it’s finished.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Yeah, it is. This isn’t my first rodeo, you know. I’ve done a lot of remodels and the owners always have that wild-eyed look you have right now.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “But they’re always happy when it’s over.”

“Because it’s over or because they love what you did to their houses?”

“A little of both, maybe,” he acknowledged. “Just wanted to let you know we found a leak in a hot-water pipe.”

“A leak?” Katie instantly had mental images of a rising flood beneath the house.

“Relax,” he said. “It’s just an old, slow leak. The joint on the pipes is bad. We’re going to replace it, we just need to show it to you first and get you to sign off on the work, since it’s extra to the contract.”

She blew out a relieved breath. “Right. Okay then. Lead the way.”

Katie followed Rafe out of the patio, across the yard and through the back door to the kitchen. She couldn’t even reach her favorite room in the old house by walking down the hallway. It was crowded with her refrigerator, tables holding all of her pantry items and towers of pots and pans.

The sun was blazing down out of a clear blue sky and she was grateful for California weather. If she’d had to do this remodeling job in a place renowned for rain, it would have been far worse.

Rafe held the door open for her and she walked inside to a room she barely recognized. The old subfloor was black and littered with dust. The skeletons of the cabinets stood out like picked over bones on the walls. The pipes looked forlorn somehow, as if they were embarrassed to be seen.

Steve, the plumber, was crawling up out of a hole in the floor. Katie just managed to hide a shudder. You couldn’t pay her enough to crawl under the house where spiders and God knew what other kind of bug lived. When he was clear, Steve turned to flash her a smile. “If you come over here, I can show you the leak.”

“Great. Leaks.” She picked her way across the floor, stepping over scattered tools and bits of old wood. She stopped alongside the long, narrow opening in the floor and squatted beside Steve. He held a flashlight pointed beneath the floorboards and said, “There it is. Probably been dripping like that for years. Hasn’t done any damage, so that’s good. But we should put in a new copper joint.”

Katie nodded solemnly as if she understood exactly what he was talking about. But the truth was, she didn’t see a leak. All she noticed was a damp spot on the earth beneath the floor that probably shouldn’t be there. If she actually admitted she couldn’t see the leak, they might insist she go down there to see it up close and personal. So Steve’s word would be good enough for her. “Okay then. Do what you have to.”

“Excellent.” Steve turned and said, “Hey, Rafe, why don’t you show her the new sink you brought in this morning.”

“My new sink’s here? Already?” Now this she was interested in. As far as pipes went, all she cared about was that they carried water whichever way they were designed to carry it without leaks, thanks very much. She didn’t need to understand how they did it. Hard to get thrilled over copper piping.

“I was at one of our suppliers and saw a sink I thought you’d like, so I picked it up. We’ll just store it in the trailer until it’s time to install.” Rafe led her out of the kitchen, down the back steps and across the lawn.

Arturo had the cabinet doors spread across makeshift sawhorse work tables and was busily scraping off the old finish before sanding them. Everything was happening. Only a week and already she was seeing progress. Maybe they’d get it all done in two weeks, Katie thought, then smiled wryly to herself. And maybe she’d sprout wings and fly.

“Here it is.” Rafe stopped at the trailer, reached in and drew out a huge sink, one side much deeper and bigger than the other.

“Isn’t that heavy?” she asked, remembering the loud clunk her old cast-iron sink had made when tossed to the top of the junk pile.

“Nope. It’s acrylic.” He held it in one hand to prove his point. “Tougher and won’t chip or rust.”

She smoothed her fingers over the edge and sighed a little. It was perfect. Looking up at him, she said, “Thank you. It’s great.”

“Glad you like it.” He tucked it back into the trailer and draped a protective work blanket over it.

“I thought the contractor was supposed to pick up the supplies for the job,” she said.

He turned back to look at her and shoved both hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Joe asked me to pick up a few things at the home store. I saw the sink and …”

“How’d you know I’d like it?”

“Took a shot,” he admitted.

“It was a good one.”

His blue eyes were shining and a cool wind tossed his black hair across his forehead. He was tall, broad-shouldered and looked great in those faded jeans, she thought, not for the first time. In fact, she had dreamed about him the night before. In her dream they were back in her kitchen, alone, as they had been yesterday. But in her fantasy, Rafe had kissed her until her toes curled and she had awakened so taut with desire and tension she hadn’t been able to go back to sleep.

Even her unconscious mind was working against her.

“So, Rafe Cole,” she asked, “how long have you been in construction?”

She thought his features tightened briefly, but the expression was gone so quickly, she couldn’t be sure. Now why would that simple question get such a reaction?

“My dad started me out in the business when I was a kid,” he said, staring off at the house, keeping his gaze deliberately away from hers. “I liked it and just sort of stuck with it.”

“I get that,” she said, trying to put him at ease again, to regain the easiness they’d shared only a moment ago. “My grandmother started me out baking when I was a little girl, and, well, here I am.”

He nodded and glanced at her. “How long have you lived here?”

“I grew up here,” she said. “My dad died before I was born, and my mom and I moved in here with Nana.” Her gaze tracked across the familiar lines of the old bungalow. The windows were wide, the roof was shake and the paint was peeling in spots. But the house was home. It meant security. Comfort. “I moved out for college, then mom died and a year ago, I inherited the house from Nana.”

“Oh,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”

It took her a second; then Katie laughed and told him, “No, she didn’t die. She just moved. Nana and her sister Grace decided to share an apartment at the Senior Living Center. They figure there are lots of lonely men over there looking for love!”

He laughed at that and once again, Katie felt a rush of something hot and delicious spread through her. The man should smile more often, she thought and wondered why he didn’t. The other guys working here were forever laughing and joking around. But not Rafe.

He was more quiet. More mysterious.

Just … more.

Rafe sat opposite his brother Sean at a local diner and waited for his burger. As for Sean, he was typing out a message or thirty on his cell phone. Okay, as far as Rafe was concerned. Gave him more time to think about Katie Charles.

The woman was haunting him.

He couldn’t remember being so fixated on a single woman—not even Leslie, before he married her, had so completely captivated him. While that should have worried him, instead he was intrigued. What was it about Katie that was getting to him?

She was beautiful, sure. But lots of women were. He wanted her, but he had wanted lots of women. There was something else about her that was reaching out to him on so many different levels, he couldn’t even name them all.

“Hey,” Sean said with a laugh. “Where’d you go?”

“What?” Rafe swiveled on the bench seat and looked at his younger brother.

“I’ve been talking to you for five minutes and you haven’t heard a word. So I was wondering just what exactly had you thinking so hard.”

Rafe scowled a little, irritated to have been caught daydreaming. Jeez. Thoughts of Katie were taking up way too much of his time. “Not surprising I was thinking of something else, since you were so busy texting.”

“Nice try,” Sean said, still grinning. “Distract me with insults so I won’t ask if you’re still thinking about the cookie woman.”

Rafe shot him a glare. “Her name’s Katie.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Anyone ever tell you how irritating you are?”

“Besides you, you mean?” Sean asked, giving their waitress a bright smile as she delivered their dinners. “You bet. All the time.”

Rafe had to smile. Sean was absolutely the most laid-back King ever born. Most of them were type A’s, ruthlessly pushing through life, demanding and getting their own way. Not Sean. He had a way of slipping up on whatever he wanted until it just naturally fell into his hands.

He was damn hard to annoy and almost never lost his temper. In the world of the King family, he was an original.

Once the waitress was gone, the brothers dove into their meals. This hamburger joint on Ocean Avenue had been a popular spot since the forties. Rafe and Sean were on the outside patio, where they could watch traffic and pedestrians in a never-ending stream of motion. Kids, dogs, parents with digital cameras poking out of their pockets fought for space on the crowded sidewalk. Summer in a beach town brought out the tourists.

“So,” Sean said, reaching for his beer, “let’s hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“About the cookie lady,” Sean countered, both of his eyebrows wiggling.

Rafe sighed. Should have expected that his brother would be curious. After all, Rafe hadn’t talked about a woman since Leslie walked out. He remembered his ex-wife looking at him sadly and telling him that she felt “sorry” for him because he had no idea how to love someone. That he never should have married her and sentenced her to a cold, empty life.

Then he thought about Katie and it was like a cool, soft breeze wafted through his mind. “She’s … different.”

“This gets better and better.” Sean leaned back in his booth and waited.

Frowning, Rafe took a sip of his beer. When he spoke, it was a warning not only to his brother, but to himself. “Don’t make more of this than there is. I just find her interesting.”

“Interesting.” Sean nodded. “Right. Like a bug collection?”

“What?”

Laughing, his brother said, “Come off it, Rafe. There’s something there and you’re looking. And about time too, I want to say. Leslie was a long time ago, man.”

“Not that long,” Rafe countered. Although, as he thought about it, he realized that he and Leslie had been divorced for more than five years. His ex-wife was now remarried to Rafe’s former best friend, with a set of toddler twins and a newborn, last he heard.

“Long enough for her to move on. Why haven’t you?”

Rafe shot Sean a glare that should have fried his ass on the spot. Typically enough though, Sean wasn’t bothered. “Who says I haven’t?”

“Me. Lucas. Tanner. Mac. Grady …” Sean stopped, paused and asked, “Do I have to name all of our brothers or do you get the point?”

“I get it, but you’re wrong.” Rafe took a bite of his truly excellent burger and after chewing, added, “I’m not carrying a torch for Leslie. It’s over. Done. She’s a mother, for God’s sake.” And if he was to be honest, he hadn’t really missed her when she left. So what did that say about him?

“Yet, you’re still living in a hotel suite making do with the occasional date with a beautiful airhead.”

“I like living in a hotel and they’re not all airheads.”

“Good argument.”

“Look,” Rafe said, reaching for his beer. “Katie’s a nice woman, but she’s off limits.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she’s got white picket fence written all over her,” Rafe explained. “She’s the settle-down-and-get-married type and I’ve already proven I’m not.”

Sean shook his head and sighed. “For a smart guy, you’re not real bright, are you?”

“Thanks for the support.”

“You want support?” Sean asked, digging into his burger. “Then stop being an idiot.”

“Shut up. I tried the happily-ever-after thing and it blew up in my face. Not going to do it again.”

“Did you ever consider that maybe the reason it didn’t work was because you married the wrong woman?”

Rafe didn’t even bother answering that jibe. What would have been the point?

Monday morning, the guys were still fighting with the pipes and Katie was ready for a week in Tahiti. She’d hardly slept all weekend. Though the peace and quiet were great, she’d been so busy filling cookie orders she hadn’t had time to appreciate it.

Now she sipped at a cup of coffee and winced every time the whine of a drill shrieked into the air.

“The noise is worst the first week,” someone from nearby said.

She turned to look at Joe Hanna, the contractor. “You’re just saying that so I won’t run away.”

He grinned. “Once the new pipes and drains are installed, the rest will be easier for you to live with. I promise.”

He had no sooner made that vow when a shout came from the kitchen. “Arturo! Shut off the water! Off! Off!”

“Crap.” Joe hustled across the yard just behind Rafe while Arturo sprinted for the water shutoff valve out front. Katie was hot on Joe’s heels and stepped into the kitchen in time to see Steve crouched over a pipe with water spraying out of it like a fountain in Vegas.

Katie backed out of their way while the men grabbed towels. Then Arturo got the water off and the three men in the kitchen were left standing around as what looked like the incoming tide rolled across the floor and under the house.

“That fitting wasn’t on there right, damn it,” Steve muttered and dropped through the hole in the floor.

“Should have checked it out with the water on low,” Joe pointed out and got a glare from Rafe in response.

“What happened?” Katie asked and both men turned to look at her.

“Nothing huge,” Joe assured her. “Just got to tighten things up. Looks worse than it is.”

Katie hoped so, because it looked like a lake was in her kitchen and she couldn’t think that was a good thing.

Joe slapped one hand on Rafe’s shoulder and said, “I should have checked his work personally before we tested it. Rafe’s been out of the game for a while, so he may be rusty. But he’s got potential.”

Katie saw the flicker of annoyance cross Rafe’s features and she shared it.

“Isn’t Steve the plumber?” she asked pointedly.

“Yeah,” Joe said, “but Rafe did the joint work on that pipe.”

“It was fine,” Rafe said. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

“Sure, sure,” Joe told him, then looked at Katie. “My fault. Like I said, I should have kept a closer eye on the new guy’s work.”

Rafe was biting his tongue, no doubt worried about defending himself and maybe losing his job. Then she realized that he could be fired anyway, if Joe decided that his work was too sloppy. So before she could stop herself, she stepped in to defend him. “Rafe does excellent work. He set up my temporary kitchen, allowing me to keep my business going. He’s stayed late everyday cleaning up and making sure I’m inconvenienced as little as possible. I’m sure that whatever happened with that pipe was unavoidable.”

“Yeah,” a voice came rumbling up from under the house. “Found the problem. The first joint worked itself loose, so the water had to go somewhere. My bad. I’ll get it fixed and we’ll be back in business.”

Katie gave Joe a look that said quite clearly, See? You blamed the wrong man. She smiled at Rafe and left them to clean up the mess and get back to work.

“What was that all about?” Joe wondered.

Steve poked his head up from under the floorboards and smiled widely. “Sounds to me like the boss lady has a thing for Rafe. Lucky bastard.”

“Shut up, Steve,” Rafe said, but his gaze was locked on the empty doorway where Katie had been standing only a moment before.

Joe was riding him because he could and Rafe would take it because it was all part of the bet he’d lost. Good-natured teasing was all part of working a job. But Katie’s defense of him had surprised him. Hell, he couldn’t even remember the last time someone had stood up for him—not counting his half-brothers and cousins.

Katie Charles was like no one he’d ever met before. She didn’t want anything from him. Wasn’t trying to get on his good side. But then, that was because she thought his name was Rafe Cole.

It would be an entirely different story if she knew he was a King.