The King Next Door

by Maureen Child

  “Why should I?”

  “Because it was my idea for you to have this fling.”

  True. If Sandy hadn’t suggested it, Nicole might never have made that move out in the hot tub. And then she would have missed…a lot.

  “It was a good idea,” she admitted with a sigh.

  “How good?”

  Talking to Katie was out of the question, and if Nicole didn’t talk to someone soon, she’d burst. And Sandy was right, it had been her idea. Who better to talk things over with?

  “So excellent,” Nicole heard herself say, “that one night wasn’t enough.”

  Sandy blinked. “The fling continues?”

  “It does.” Oh, boy did it.

  Every time she told herself that was the best it could ever be, Griffin touched her again and set the bar a little higher. The man really did have magic hands. And a magic mouth. And a magic—oh, God, she really was getting herself deeper and deeper into a situation she wasn’t going to want to get out of.

  She was in trouble. She was starting to feel things for Griffin she had no business feeling, and she didn’t have the slightest clue how to turn them off.

  “Interesting.” Sandy leaned back in her chair, and Nicole stopped searching for the order sheet to meet her friend’s steady stare.

  “Interesting. Sure. That’s one word for it.” Another word might be dangerous. Or sexy. Or tempting.

  “And was it your idea to keep the fling flinging, so to speak?”

  Nicole laughed shortly. “No, it was his.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t make this more than it is,” Nicole warned Sandy, and realized it was the same warning she kept giving herself. She’d known that Sandy would react just like this, but if she could find a way to convince her friend this affair meant nothing, then maybe Nicole might eventually believe it, too. “It’s a fling, Sandy. More than a one-night stand, but a fling. That’s all.”

  “A fling would have been flung already,” Sandy said thoughtfully. “In one glorious night. Fling and move on. But this isn’t, is it?”

  “It’s not over, but it’s like a really long one-night stand, that’s all.” Good for her. She sounded firm. “No strings. No promises. That’s a fling.”

  “That’s an affair. You’re having an affair.”

  Well, that sounded…uncomfortable. And so not like her. An affair? Nicole shifted on the chair and took another bite of her cupcake. An affair implied a relationship. But she and Griffin didn’t have a relationship. Did they? Okay, yes, they lived in the same house. They had meals together every day. They laughed and fought and made up. They shared a bed together every night—but, that was just sex, right?

  Her stomach jittered a little as her thoughts flew in crazy circles around and around in her mind.

  Sex was just that. But after sex, they didn’t split up and go to separate rooms. They slept in the same bed. Woke up together. Laughed together. Played with Connor together. Heck, they even shared duties around the house—everything from cooking to bathing Connor and doing laundry. That was a relationship, wasn’t it? Oh, God, was she sliding into something she hadn’t wanted? Hadn’t been looking for?

  “Uh-oh,” Sandy muttered, “you look awfully pale all of a sudden.”

  “No,” Nicole argued, “I’m not. I’m…fine.”

  She so wasn’t fine.

  Sandy just looked at her and shook her head. “You’re really not, are you?”

  “No,” Nicole said softly. “I’m not.”

  Images of Griffin rose up in her mind, like she was flipping through the photo gallery on her phone, except it was a slide show of all Griffin, all the time.

  Him this morning, smiling at her over his coffee cup. Him last night, carrying Connor to bed, with the little boy’s giggles trailing behind them like a bright ribbon floating on the air. Griffin leaning in to kiss her as he used his body to push hers into heaven. Griffin sitting with Connor on his lap, reading the little boy a story and cuddling both Connor and the stuffed alligator close.

  Griffin in the hot tub, holding out a glass of wine to her as she joined him. Making love under the shade of the elm tree in the yard. Griffin, a streak of grease across his forehead, bending over her car to fix the radiator. The picnic they’d had in the living room, candlelight dancing on the walls in softly shaded shadows.

  There was more between them than she had realized. She didn’t know what it was, didn’t know how long it would last, but the one thing she was sure of was that when it ended, it was going to hurt. Bad.

  She’d walked into this, completely sure of herself and her decision. Nicole had been so certain she could have a little fling without letting her heart get involved. Turned out that she just wasn’t the have-an-orgasm-or-two-and-move-on kind of girl.

  “Oh, God.”

  “Sweetie…”

  She came up out of her thoughts to see soft concern and worry in Sandy’s eyes. That pride she and Griffin had fought over reared its head.

  Instantly, Nicole shook her head. “This is exactly why I didn’t want anyone knowing what Griffin and I were doing. You’re different, of course, since you knew even before anything had happened, but Sandy, if you feel sorry for me now, I might scream. Or cry. And I don’t want to do either.”

  “Yeah,” her friend said, “but I don’t like knowing you’re setting yourself up for pain.”

  “Not my favorite thing, either,” Nicole admitted, already dreading the misery she’d feel when whatever it was she shared with Griffin was over. “No, I went into this with my eyes open, and they’re still open.”

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Sandy asked.

  Sighing, Nicole admitted, “Probably. I can see the end coming, Sandy.”

  “It doesn’t have to end.”

  Nicole laughed shortly. “No sympathy or delusions, thanks. Of course it has to end. I’ve known that all along. It’s my own fault if I let myself forget that, even for a second.”

  Taking a deep breath, Nicole changed the subject, because she really couldn’t take much more of Sandy’s warm, sympathetic gaze. Pretty soon she’d start feeling sorry for herself and where would that get her? Nowhere.

  “So—” She tapped one finger on the sheet of paper she had slid in front of Sandy a few minutes before. “How about instead of my love life, we talk about this order from your supplier for the week’s flour and sugar? I couldn’t make out the amount at the bottom of the bill. Your handwriting sucks. Haven’t we talked about you entering all of your bills on the computer?”

  As if understanding that her friend was close to the edge, Sandy picked up the paper and smiled. “But if I did that, I wouldn’t need you, would I?”

  “Good point.” The only reason Nicole had a successful business was because her clients unilaterally loathed or were confused by the bookkeeping software available.

  While Sandy studied her own handwriting as if it was hieroglyphics, Nicole thought about Griffin. Again. About the end that was coming and about the nights she still had to look forward to.

  She was making memories, she told herself. Memories that would both comfort and torment her long after this affair with Griffin was over.

  *

  “Are the new cabinets in yet?”

  “What?” Griffin looked at Nicole over the dinner table. This was getting so damn comfortable, he could hardly remember sitting in his empty condo with a nuked dinner and the sound of silence hanging over him. Funny, but he really wasn’t looking forward to having his nights to himself anymore. Okay, maybe that wasn’t funny, but it was a little unnerving.

  “The cabinets?” she repeated.

  “Oh. The cabinets.” He nodded and told himself to pay attention. “Yeah, they’re in.”

  And they were light oak instead of pine, but she hadn’t asked him that, had she? He frowned down at his dessert. He wasn’t sorry he’d been upgrading Nicole’s kitchen, but he could at least admit to himself that he was beginning to regret lying to her about i
t.

  “Oh, good. Then the counter should be going in soon, right?”

  “Yeah, in a few days.” The granite guy they were working with was still searching for the right stone that would match the description Nicole had given Griffin when she’d described her dream kitchen. “They’re putting the floor in tomorrow, though.”

  Nodding, Nicole leaned over Connor and dropped a few sliced strawberries onto his high-chair tray. Instantly, the boy made a lunge for them.

  Griffin grinned at the action. The boy had sneaked up on him. He hadn’t meant to get involved with Connor; it had just happened. Those wide eyes and happy smiles had sucked him right in and now the boy had carved a place for himself in Griffin’s heart.

  He was going to miss the little guy, he thought, and scowled even more fiercely at his plate.

  “Do you think the linoleum I picked out will go with the green walls?”

  “Absolutely,” Griffin said, dropping a couple of spoonfuls of whipped cream onto his own bowl of strawberries. The cream-colored flooring Nicole had chosen would have been a good match with the wall paint. But it was linoleum—cheap, but hardly the best choice, and it wouldn’t last more than five years. The warm, cream-and-green-flecked tiles Griffin had approved instead would look better. And last longer.

  She still wouldn’t like it, but the deed would be done and unless she wanted to take a hammer to her new tile floor—which he wouldn’t put past her—she’d live with it. More, though she might not admit it, she’d love the changes to her kitchen.

  Sometimes, Griffin told himself, you just had to do the right thing whether other people agreed with you or not. And damned if he’d let her shortchange herself because of her damn pride. He was prepared for the battle that would erupt when all of this came out.

  He rubbed the back of his neck and listened to Connor’s laughter as he chortled at something only an almost-three-year-old would understand.

  “My friend Sandy said I was crazy for not keeping an eye on the remodel, but I told her I trusted you,” Nicole was saying, and Griffin looked at her. In the overhead light, her blond hair looked bright as sunlight. Her blue eyes met his, and there was a question in those depths that he had no intention of answering.

  The fact that she trusted him was working to his advantage here. And God, even thinking that made him feel like a bastard. But he was in too deep to change course now.

  “Thanks,” he said, swallowing the knot of guilt in his throat along with a mouthful of strawberries. “I appreciate that.”

  Outside, darkness crouched at the windows, but inside, the kitchen was warm and…cozy, Griffin thought. As soon as the thought appeared, he had to wonder when the last time he’d been around anything cozy had been. He couldn’t come up with a single example. Not since he was a kid, anyway. Back then, with his parents still alive and all of his brothers at home, there had been the same sort of feeling he had now: that sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself. To being a part of something.

  Well, that thought brought him up short. He didn’t belong with Nicole and Connor. This was temporary. A blip in his life. Nothing more. Once it was over, he’d go his way, she’d go hers and they’d never have any of this again.

  Funny.

  That should have made him feel better.

  It didn’t.

  “How much longer before the kitchen’s ready?” Nicole asked.

  “Not long,” Griffin muttered. It seemed his cousin didn’t give a damn about Griffin’s plans. Lucas wanted this job wrapped up so he and his wife could go visit their cousin Jefferson in Ireland.

  So now there were six guys working every day on Nicole’s place and in a matter of days, it would be complete. Added to that, in another week or so, Rafe and Katie would be back in Long Beach. This little interlude, or whatever the hell it was, was almost over.

  “Good,” Nicole said. “That’s…good.”

  He looked into her eyes and saw the same glimmer of mixed emotions that he was feeling. “Yeah, it is.”

  “Want a story!” Connor shouted and Griffin shifted his gaze to him.

  Strawberries stained the little boy’s face and clung to the wisps of hair falling across his forehead. Innocence shone in the eyes so much like his mother’s, and Griffin felt that soft slide into affection pick up speed. This was what he’d wanted to avoid. Hell, he had plenty of practice disentangling himself from women. But with a kid, things got messy.

  Walking away from Connor’s mother would be hard, but Griffin would be able to do it with a clean conscience, because Nicole understood. How the hell did you make a toddler understand that you weren’t a part of his life anymore? How did you wean yourself away from playing with the boy? From wanting to protect him?

  Big mistake this, he told himself. He should have held back from getting involved in anything more than sex with Nicole. But how could he not care for the boy when he was so much a part of the mother who already had Griffin twisted into knots?

  “Looks like you need a bath first, kid,” he finally said with a laugh.

  “Yes, he does,” Nicole agreed, already standing to free her son from the chair.

  “I’ll do it,” Griffin offered before he realized the words were coming from his mouth.

  “It’s my turn,” Nicole reminded him. “You had bath duty last night.”

  He tried to shrug away the offer as if it was no big deal. “If it’ll get me out of doing the dishes…”

  “No baf!” Connor cried.

  Griffin smiled. He could remember being a dirty little boy and fighting to stay that way. And he remembered his mom, harried and busy, overseeing five boys and cleaning the kitchen. But his father had been there to take over bath time and assist in getting Griffin and his brothers into bed.

  Pretty soon, Nicole would be on her own again with no one to turn to for a break. For help. Griffin wouldn’t be around. He’d be off somewhere in whatever house he bought, filling his nights with anonymous women and meaningless sex—and Nicole and Connor would go on with their lives without him.

  Something hard and cold settled in the pit of his stomach. Felt like he’d swallowed a lump of ice. Well, she wasn’t on her own yet, he thought, and heard himself say, “No. No tradeoff. Why don’t you go sit down and have a glass of wine? I’ll take care of Connor and the dishes.”

  Tipping her head to one side, Nicole looked at him, a confused smile on her face. “What’s the occasion?”

  He undid the strap across Connor’s lap and lifted him out of the seat. Instantly, the little boy hooked his arms around Griffin’s neck. The ice in his gut melted a little at the wordless expression of trust from Connor.

  “Not an occasion,” Griffin said finally, “just a favor.”

  Nicole walked toward him. “Is this the kind of favor one friend does for another?”

  “Is that what we are?” he asked, disbelief coloring his words. “Friends?”

  “What else is there?” she asked.

  He didn’t know the answer, either. The only thing he was sure of was that she wasn’t just his friend. She was more than that. How much more, he didn’t really want to think about.

  “Well, now,” Griffin murmured, lifting one hand to cup her cheek, “that’s an interesting question, isn’t it?”

  As he carried Connor out of the room, he felt Nicole’s gaze locked on him, and he wished to hell he had an answer to his own damn question.

  *

  Connor smashed the sand castle with all the vigor of a rampaging Viking. Chortling with glee, he rained tiny fists down onto the damp sand, and Griffin laughed aloud watching the destruction. He turned his head to see if Nicole was watching and when their gazes locked, even from a distance there was nearly a physical punch that hit him hard. He didn’t understand it. Usually he would have moved on well before now. Griffin didn’t stay interested in a woman once he’d had her. But Nicole was different.

  He kept waiting for whatever it was between them to cool off. It hadn’t. If anything,
it was heating up. She was in his mind all the damn time. He slept with her every night, listening to the soft sighs of her breath. He woke up with her every morning, his arms wrapped around her as she snuggled in close, allowing him to take in the scent of her peach shampoo with every breath. She was ingrained in him now. She’d become a huge part of his everyday world, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. Hell, he couldn’t even think about anything but Nicole.

  If he wasn’t on vacation already, he’d be damned useless.

  Even here, surrounded by the dozens of people still on the beach as the sun began setting, Griffin was hard put to keep a grip on his hormones.

  “Do more, Griff!”

  Connor’s voice dragged Griffin back from the danger zone in his mind. Looking at the smiling face of the little boy staring up at him with adoration, Griffin felt a completely dissimilar kind of jolt. Nicole was hitting him on a lot of levels, but Connor was arrowing straight into Griffin’s heart. A different kind of danger entirely. One just as treacherous.

  “Okay, little man,” he said and scooped the cold sand together into a haphazard tower. Connor’s tiny hands worked with him, patting and slapping at the sand. “Gonna help me, are you?”

  “Me do it!”

  “Attaboy.”

  When his phone rang, Griffin was almost surprised. When he was working, the damn thing was ringing all the time. But since his vacation started, he’d practically been living in a vacuum. A very sexy, very confusing vacuum.

  Still, he carried the phone because, in his business, he always had to have his phone with him. He never knew when a client or the office would need to reach him. He grabbed the phone from the pocket of his cargo shorts, checked the readout on the screen and grinned. “Hey, Garrett—how’s life in the palace?”

  “Oh, you know how it is,” his twin brother said with a laugh. “Another day wearing a crown.”

  “Yeah.” Griffin laughed, too, and reached out one hand to smooth Connor’s hair back from his face. “Must be tough. The villagers marching on the castle with flaming torches yet?”

  “Nope,” Garrett told him. “But my brother-in-law the prince beat the hell out of me in a horse race yesterday. That count?”