The King Next Door (14 page)

“It’s way beyond pissed, Griffin,” she told him and felt her spine snap into place. “You disappeared. Connor’s been asking for you every day, and all I can tell him is that you had to go away.”

His jaw clenched, and he let his head fall back for a moment. “I know. And I’m sorry.”

“I heard you, you know,” she said, deliberately keeping her gaze locked on his. “That day on the beach when you told your brother you felt sorry for Connor. Well, he doesn’t need your pity. And neither do I.”

His head dropped to his chest before he looked at her again. “That was bull. I never felt sorry for Connor. Why the hell would I? He has everything. He has
you.
”

One small hurt washed away with his words. But it wasn’t enough yet.

“I’m sorry, Nicole. For so damn much.”

“I’m not the one you need to say that to. Well,” she corrected, “not the only one.”

“I know that, too,” he told her, meeting her gaze again. “The reason I came here now, in the middle of the night, was to make sure Connor was asleep. So if you tell me to go away, I will, and he’ll never have to know I was here.”

She flinched.

“But don’t tell me to go away,” he added quickly.

“Why shouldn’t I?” she asked warily.

He bent down to retrieve a large white bag that sat at his feet. She hadn’t noticed it before. No surprise, since she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him.

Reaching into the bag, he pulled out a small, green velvet box.

Nicole’s heart actually stopped. She slapped one hand to her chest as if to get it beating again. If this was a dream, she really didn’t want to wake up this time.

Opening the box, he showed her the ring inside. “A star sapphire,” he said. “Because it reminds me of your eyes. A deep, rich blue, but with stars and secrets hidden in their depths.”

“Griffin…” Shaking her head, she looked from the beautiful ring to his face, to his eyes, and what she saw there stole her breath.

This was way better than her dreams, Nicole thought. The promise, the love, the future she saw in his expression was more than her mind could ever have conjured.

“There’s more,” he said before she could say anything else. He dipped into the bag again and pulled out a fireman’s hat. “It’s for Connor,” he said unnecessarily. “He really loved sitting on that fire truck, so I thought…”

She reached out and took the hat from him, running her hands over the slick, plastic brim. It was bright red, with a shiny gold plastic badge, and Connor would love it. Tears filled her eyes as she looked up at the man watching her so stoically.

“Please let me in, Nicole,” he whispered.

How could she not? Even if she only wanted to cling to her anger and hurt, she would have been moved by this late-night visit. But she wanted so much more than to stay mired in pain.

Nodding, she stepped back, and once he was in the house, he closed the door, sealing them into the room together. He took the fire hat from her and set it down onto the nearest table.

The room was dark, lit only by the television and from the streetlights outside. Still clutching the ring box in one hand, Griffin reached out and used his free hand to stroke her cheek. The feel of his skin against hers again was magic, Nicole thought, and she fervently hoped that there was a forever here they could both grab hold of.

But first, she had to hear him out. Had to be sure that he’d never leave again. She could risk her own heart, but she wouldn’t put her son’s happiness on the line.

“I was wrong, Nicole,” he whispered. “I never should have left. Never should have risked losing you forever. My only excuse is, I hadn’t planned on falling in love. You caught me off guard.”

“You did the same to me,” she said.

“See, I never actually thought I was capable of the kind of love I feel for you. I never saw myself getting married or being a father—”

She pulled back instinctively, but he held on to her.

“That was then. This is now. I love you, Nicole. I love Connor. I want us to get married,” he told her. “I want to adopt Connor, if you’ll let me. I want to be your husband and his father. I want more kids. As many as we can have,” he said, warming to his theme, a smile curving his mouth. “Nothing the Kings like better than big families.”

“More kids.”

“Lots of ’em.” He swore it, his voice carrying the ring of truth, of desire.

For the first time that night, tears filmed her eyes and spilled over. Griffin reacted instantly, moving in to sweep the tears aside with his thumb and then pull her into him, nestling her body against his. “I swear to you, that’s the last time I will ever make you cry, Nicole. No more tears.”

She wanted so desperately to believe. To let herself grab this happiness and hold on to it. For her and for Connor.

“I’m asking you for a chance, Nicole,” he said, leaning back until their eyes could meet and hold. “One more chance to prove how much I love you both. To show you that I’m the only man in the world for you.” He bent down and kissed her mouth quickly, firmly. “I swear I’m worth the trouble.”

She laughed a little, and it felt as if the ice around her heart was shattering.

“I’m taking that as a good sign,” he said, giving her a half smile that tugged at her heart and soul. “But I want you to know, even if you say no to me tonight, I’m not going away. Not ever. I know what I want now, Nicole. And I’m willing to fight for it. I’ll wait for you to be sure. But I won’t give up. Not on you. Not on us.”

He caught her chin in his fingers and rubbed her skin with his thumb. “I’ll come back tomorrow night and the night after that and the night after that until I finally convince you.”

“You think you can?” she asked, loving this side of him. Loving being with him again and feeling the hope for a shiny future rising up inside her.

“Honey, I’m a King. There’s nothing we can’t do,” he assured her.

“Griff?” Connor walked into the room and both adults turned to the little boy in his sleeper jammies. Clutching his alligator in the crook of one arm, the child looked up at Griffin and gave him a huge grin. “Griff is back!”

“Yeah, buddy,” he said, giving Nicole a cautious glance. “I’m back. I promise I won’t go away again.”

Connor raced to him, and Griffin swung the boy up into his arms.

“Connor missed you,” the boy said solemnly.

“I know, and I’m sorry,” Griffin told him. “I missed you, too. But I brought you a present.” He reached for the hat, plunked it down onto the boy’s head and grinned at him.

“Fireman!” Connor shouted with glee.

Nicole’s heart couldn’t be fuller. She watched her son and the man she loved together and her whole world suddenly fell into place. Everything was just as it should be. All she had to do was take a single leap of faith. To trust in the love she felt and the love she could see in Griffin’s eyes.

“Mommy, Griff is back!”

“I see that,” she said, moving in closer to the two men in her life. “I think he should stay, don’t you?”

Griffin’s gaze locked on hers. His heart was in his eyes, and she read everything she needed to know right there. This wasn’t a gamble. This was the best thing that had ever happened to her. And she wasn’t going to miss a minute of it.

“Stay!” Connor blurted, then leaned into Griffin. “And a story.”

“You bet, little guy,” Griffin said and held out the beautiful sapphire-and-gold ring toward Nicole.

She lifted her left hand and watched as he slid the ring onto her finger. Its weight was perfect. Everything was perfect.

In the flickering light of the television, a family was made.

Nicole leaned into Griffin and felt his arm come around her. Here was her dream come true. Here was everything she would ever need.

“Let’s put our son to bed,” Griffin said with a smile, “then we can…
talk.
I’ll prove to you just how much I missed you.”

Love flared into life inside her and washed through her with a wave strong enough to wipe away disappointments and hurts and everything but the rightness of this moment.

There was only one thing left to say to him.

“Welcome home, Griffin.”

*

Keep reading for an excerpt from
One Winter’s Night
by Brenda Jackson

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One

A blistering cold day in early November

I
t had snowed overnight and a thick white blanket seemed to cover the land as far as the eye could see. The Denver weather report said the temperature would drop to ten below by midday and would stay that way through most of the night. It was the kind of cold you could feel deep in your bones, the kind where your breath practically froze upon exhale.

He loved it.

Riley Westmoreland opened the door to his truck and, before getting inside, paused to take in the land he owned.
Riley’s Station
was the name he’d given his one-hundred-acre spread seven years ago, on his twenty-fifth birthday. He had designed the ranch house himself and had helped in the building of it, proudly hammering the first nail into the lumber. He was mighty pleased with the massive two-story structure that sat smack in the center of his snow-covered land.

He was probably the only one in his family who welcomed the snowstorms each year. He thought the snow was what made Denver the perfect place to be in the winter and why his home had fireplaces in all five of the bedrooms, as well as in the living room and family room. There was nothing like curling up before a roaring fire or looking out the window to see the snowflakes fall from the sky, something he’d been fascinated with even as a child. He could recall being out in the thick snow with his brothers and cousins building snowmen. These days he enjoyed moving around the mountains on his snowmobile or going skiing in Aspen.

Riley got into the truck and after settling his body on the leather seat he snapped the seat belt in place. There really was no need for him to go into the office since he could work from home. But he had wanted to get out, breathe in the cold, fresh air and feel the chill in his bones. Besides, he did have an important appointment at noon.

Since his oldest brother, Dillon, had slowed down now that his wife, Pam, was close to her delivery date, a lot of the projects on Dillon’s plate at their family-owned business, Blue Ridge Land Management, fell on Riley’s shoulders since he was the next man in charge of the Fortune 500 company. The next thing on the agenda was the planning of the employees’ holiday party next month.

The event planner that had handled their social functions for the past ten years had retired and before Riley had taken over the project, Dillon had hired Imagine, a local event planning company that opened in town less than a year ago. The owner of Imagine, a woman by the name of Alpha Blake, had put together a charity event that Dillon’s wife, Pam, had attended over the summer. Pam had been so impressed with all the detailed work Imagine had done that she passed the woman’s name to Dillon. As far as Riley was concerned, you couldn’t come any more highly recommended than that. Dillon trusted his wife’s judgment in all things.

Riley was about to start the ignition when his cell phone buzzed. He pulled the phone off his side belt. “Yes?”

“Mr. Westmoreland?”

He lifted a brow, not recognizing the ultrarich, feminine voice but definitely liking how it sounded. He figured this had to be a business call since none of the women he dated would refer to him as “Mr. Westmoreland.”

“Yes, this is Riley Westmoreland. How can I help you?”

“This is Alpha Blake. We have a noon appointment at your office, but I have a flat tire and had to pull off to the side of the road. Unfortunately, I’m going to be late.”

He nodded. “Have you called for road service?”

“Yes, and they said they should be here in less than thirty minutes.”

Don’t count on it,
he thought, knowing how slow road service could be this time of the year. “Where’s your location, Ms. Blake?”

“I’m on Winterberry Road, about a mile from the Edgewater intersection. There’s a market not far away, but it didn’t appear to be open when I drove past earlier.”

“And chances are it won’t be open today. Fred Martin owns that market and never opens the day after a bad snowstorm,” he said.

He knew her exact location now. “Look, you’re not far from where I am. I’ll call my personal road service company to change your tire. In the meantime, I’ll pick you up and we can do a lunch meeting at McKay’s instead of meeting at my office, since McKay’s is closer. And afterward, I can take you back to your car. The tire will be changed by then.”

“I—I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“You won’t. I know you and Dillon have gone over some ideas for the party, but since I’ll be handling things from here on out, I need to be briefed on what’s going on. Usually my administrative assistant handles such matters, but she’s out on maternity leave and this party is too important to hand off to anyone else.”

And what he didn’t bother to say because he was certain Dillon had done so already was that this would be the fortieth anniversary of the company his father and uncle had founded. This was not just a special event for the employees, but was important to everyone in the Westmoreland family.

“All right, if you’re sure it won’t be an inconvenience,” she said, breaking into his thoughts.

“It won’t be, and I’m on my way.”

*

Alpha Blake tightened her coat around her, feeling totally frustrated. What did a person who had been born in sunny Florida know about the blistering cold of Denver, especially when it had snowed all night and the roads and everything else were covered with white?

But she was so determined to keep her noon appointment with Riley Westmoreland that she’d made a mess of things. Not only would she be late for their appointment, but because of her flat tire they would have to change the location of the meeting and Mr. Westmoreland would be the one driving her there. This was totally embarrassing when she had been trying to make a good impression. Granted, she’d already been hired by Dillon Westmoreland, but when his secretary called last week to say that she would be working with the next man in charge at Blue Ridge, namely Dillon’s brother, Riley, she had felt the need to make a good impression on him, as well.

She turned up the heat in her car. Even with a steady stream of hot air coming in through the car vents, she still felt cold, too cold, and wondered if she would ever get used to the Denver weather. Of course it was too late to think about that now. It was her first winter here, and she didn’t have any choice but to grin and bear it. When she’d moved, she’d felt that getting as far away from Daytona Beach as she could was essential to her peace of mind, although her friends thought she needed to have her head examined. Who in her right mind would prefer blistering cold Denver to sunny Daytona Beach? Only a person wanting to start a new life and put a painful past behind her.

Her attention was snagged when an SUV pulled off the road to park in front of her. The door swung open and long, denim-clad, boot-wearing legs appeared before a man stepped out of the truck and glanced her way. She met his gaze through the windshield and couldn’t help the heart-piercing moment when she literally forgot to breathe. Walking toward her car was a man who was so dangerously masculine, so heart-stoppingly virile, that her brain went momentarily numb.

He was tall, and the Stetson on his head made him appear taller. But his height was secondary to the sharp handsomeness of the features beneath the brim of his hat. There was the coffee-and-cream color of his skin, his piercing dark brown eyes, a perfectly shaped nose, his full lips and a sculpted chin.

And she couldn’t bypass his shoulders, massive and powerful-looking. It was hard to believe, with the temperature being what it was, that he seemed comfortable braving the harsh elements with a cowhide jacket instead of a heavy coat. It was in the low teens, and he was walking around like it was in the high sixties.

Her gaze slid all over him as he moved his long limbs toward her vehicle in a walk that was so agile and self-assured, she almost envied the confidence he exuded with every step. Her breasts suddenly peaked, and she could actually feel blood rushing through her veins. She didn’t have to guess about what was happening to her, but still, she was surprised. This was the first time she’d reacted to a man since her breakup with Eddie.

The man made it to her car and tapped on the window. She all but held her breath as she pressed the button to roll it down. “Riley Westmoreland?” She really didn’t have to ask since he favored his brother, Dillon.

“Yes. Alpha Blake?” he responded, offering her his hand through the open window while looking at her with what she thought was cool and assessing interest.

“Yes.” She took his hand and even through her leather gloves, she thought it felt warm. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Westmoreland.”

“Riley,” he corrected, smiling, and she felt her insides melt. He had a gorgeous pair of eyes. Dark and alluring. “The pleasure is all mine,” he added. “I’ve only heard exceptional things about you and your work. Both Dillon and Pam speak highly of you, Alpha. I hope it’s okay for me to call you Alpha.”

“Thank you, and yes, that’s fine.”

“I’ve made all the arrangements with my road service. Keep your emergency lights on and leave your car keys under your seat,” he said, taking a step back so she could get out of the vehicle.

She nervously gnawed her bottom lip. “Will it be safe to do that?”

He chuckled. “Yes, days like this keep thieves inside.” He opened the car door for her. “Ready to get inside my truck?”

“Yes.” She placed her key under the seat and then grabbed her purse and messenger bag. Tightening her coat around her, she walked quickly to the side of his truck. He was there to open the door and she appreciated finding the inside warm and cozy. It smelled like him, a scent that was masculine and sexy. She blushed, wondering why she was thinking such things, especially about a man she would be working for.

He closed the door just seconds before his cell phone rang, and she looked at the outside mirror as he spoke on the phone while moving around the front of the truck to get in the driver’s side.

Opening the door, he climbed inside and proceeded to adjust the seat to accommodate his long legs before snapping his seat belt in place. The call had ended. He put his phone away and glanced over at her with a smile. She thought she would melt right then and there. “Warm?” he asked in a voice that was throatier than anything she’d ever heard.

If only you knew,
she fought back saying. Instead her response was a simple “Yes. Thanks for asking.”

“No problem.” He then glanced into the rearview mirror before easing the truck onto the road.

*

The ensuing silence gave Riley the impression the woman was shy. And with her wrapped in a bulky coat and standing no more than five foot three, he figured she was probably short and stocky. He preferred tall, slender and curvy, but she had a pretty face that was eye-catching. She was definitely a looker. That had been the first thing he’d noticed. He was a sucker for a pretty face each and every time.

Deciding he didn’t like the silence, he reached out and switched on the CD player. Immediately the soulful sound of Jill Scott filled the air. After a few moments, he concluded the music was not enough. To get a dialogue started, he asked conversationally, “I understand you’re from Florida. What brought you to Denver?”

She tilted her head to look at him, and the first thing he noticed was her eyes. They were a chocolate brown and oval in shape. Then he was drawn to her hair, a beautiful shade of brown. The thick strands touched her shoulders and curled at the end. The coloring, whether natural or from a bottle, was perfect for her smooth, cocoa-colored complexion. And then there was that cute dimple in her chin, which was there even when she bore a serious expression.

“I’ve never been the adventurous type, but when my godmother passed away and left me enough funds that I could make a career change without going broke, I took advantage of it.”

He nodded. “So what were you doing before you became an event planner?”

“I was a veterinarian.”

“Wow. That was some career change.”

She smiled. “Yes, it was.”

He looked ahead, thinking that if she thought she would not have to explain why someone would stop being a veterinarian to become an event planner, she could think again. “How does a person go from being a vet to becoming a party planner?”

She pushed a lock of hair from her face and said, “Becoming a vet was my parents’ idea, and I went along with it.”

“Why?” He couldn’t imagine going to college for anything other than what he wanted to do in life. He did, however, know how a person could get their dream career waylaid, as in the case of his cousin, Ramsey.

Ramsey had always wanted to be a sheep rancher, and he’d gone to school to study agricultural economics. The only reason Ramsey had taken a CEO position at Blue Ridge Management after school, instead of going into farming, was to work alongside Dillon to keep the company afloat when their parents had died in a plane crash. But once Ramsey and Dillon had made it into a million-dollar company, Ramsey had turned full management of Blue Ridge over to Dillon to become the sheep rancher he’d always wanted to be.

Riley’s truck came to a stop at the traffic light, which gave him the opportunity to glance back over at Alpha just in time to see her gnawing her lips again and fidgeting with a sterling silver Tiffany bracelet on her wrist.
Umm, it seems “why” was another uncomfortable question,
he thought.

“I became a vet mainly to satisfy my parents. They own a veterinary clinic and figured I would join them and make it a family affair. I did so for a year, but discovered my heart just wasn’t in it. They knew it, but still, they weren’t happy when I decided to switch careers. However, they accepted that being an event planner was my calling when I put together their thirtieth wedding anniversary celebration.”

“Did a good job of it, huh?” he asked.

She looked over at him and the smile that touched her lips extended from one corner of her mouth to the other and was simply breathtaking. “Yes, I did a bang-up job.”

He laughed. “Good for you.” He paused a second and asked, “Are you the only child?”