King's Million-Dollar Secret. Maureen Child

Чтение книги онлайн.

       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 Of course, everyone else called it outdated and inconvenient.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, СКАЧАТЬ