Californian Kings: Conquering King's Heart. Maureen Child

into her warmth and he knew.

      That taste of her was something he would never forget. Something he’d been dreaming about for three years. He finally had her in his arms again. Finally could hold her, taste her, touch her and as realization flooded him, he broke the kiss abruptly, stared down into her glazed, dark brown eyes and said, “It’s you.”

      She staggered a little. “What?”

      “You. On the beach. Three years ago.”

      She blinked up at him, rubbed her fingertips across her mouth and then drew in a long, shaky breath. “Congratulations,” she said at last. “You finally remembered.”

      “You knew?” he demanded. “You remembered and didn’t say anything to me?”

      “Why would I?” she asked, gathering up the clothes she’d dropped when he was kissing her. “You think I’m proud of that night?”

      “You ought to be,” he told her sharply. “We were great together.”

      “We were strangers. It was a huge mistake.”

      She tried to get past him, but Jesse grabbed her upper arm and stopped her dead. “I looked for you. The next day, I went back to the beach and looked all over.”

      “You thought I’d just be lying there on the sand, waiting for you?”

      “That’s not what I meant, damn it. But where the hell were you?”

      Bella pushed her hand through her hair and glared at him. “You didn’t look for me very hard. I went to see you the next morning and you blew right past me.”

      Frowning, Jesse tried to remember that, but truthfully, he’d been celebrating so much that most of that night and the following morning was a blur. All he’d really known was the touch of her. The taste of her. “When you saw me, did you tell me who you were?”

      “Of course not!” This time, she did push past him, dragging her arm from his grasp.

      “Well, how the hell would I know who you were otherwise?” he asked.

      “Oh!” She looked at him the way she would a splotch of mud on her shirt. “What kind of man can’t remember what the woman he’s had sex with looks like?”

      “One with a hangover,” he told her. “As I recall, we both had a few margaritas that night.”

      “Yes, but I still knew who you were,” she snapped, then took a long, deep breath and said, “You said you went looking for me. Just how did you plan to identify me?”

      “I don’t know…” He scrubbed one hand across his jaw and over the back of his neck. “Dammit, Bella, you could have told me—if not the morning after, then any time since I came to town.” He tilted his head to one side and studied her. “Is this why you’ve been so mad at me?”

      “Please,” she said with a sniff and a lift of her chin. “Could you think any more highly of yourself? This isn’t personal, Jesse,” she told him as she grabbed the doorknob and twisted it. “This is about you taking over my town. Don’t you get it? I hate you and everything you stand for.”

      “You can’t hate me,” he told her, bracing one hand on the wall and leaning in toward her. “You don’t know me well enough to hate me.”

      She laughed shortly, but her eyes didn’t shine with humor. “I got to ‘know’ you well enough three years ago.”

      “Yeah,” he said softly, “well, I think it’s time we got to know each other all over again.”

      “Never. Going. To. Happen,” she told him and opened the door.

      “Never say never, Bella,” he called after her and when she slammed the door, Jesse grinned. Three years he’d been thinking about that woman. And he wasn’t going to rest until he got her back where he wanted her. In his bed.

      Nothing a King liked better than a challenge.

      “Get Dave Michaels in here,” Jesse told his assistant as he stalked toward his office.

      He closed the door, walked directly to the window overlooking Main Street, Bella’s shop and the ocean. He told himself he wanted to stare at the sea for a few minutes, gather his thoughts, let the never-ending roll and slap of the waves ease his mind as it always did.

      But the truth was, he was watching Bella’s shop.

      “Dammit, why’d it have to be her?” he whispered, shoving both hands into the pockets of his slacks. His mystery woman had dogged his thoughts off and on for three years. After that one amazing night on the beach with her, he’d hung around town for a couple of weeks searching for her in every face he met. But she’d seemed to have disappeared. Hell, he’d actually come here to settle in Morgan Beach on the off chance that he might find her again.

      “Karma really is a bitch,” he muttered.

      Sunlight spilled through the window and if the glass hadn’t been tinted, Jesse would have been half-blinded by the brilliance of the light. The air conditioner clicked on and a soft hum of cool air pumped into the room. Even at the beach, September temperatures could spike into some serious heat.

      There was a knock on his door, then Dave walked in asking, “You wanted to see me?”

      Jesse turned and nodded. “Tell me everything you know about Bella Cruz.”

      Dave’s face lit up. “Seriously? You’re considering expanding?”

      Was he? Yes, he was. He might not have started out wanting to be a businessman. But he’d become one anyway. And as a King, he wasn’t going to do the job half-assed. That meant that it was time to stop treating King Beach like a hobby. He was going to make his company the biggest name in surf gear and swimwear in the world. To do that, he needed to get female customers.

      Bella was his ticket there.

      She might not know it yet, but it was only a matter of time before both Bella herself and her swimsuit line were taken over by Jesse King.

      “Where do you want me to start?” Dave asked, walking into the office and dropping into one of the chairs opposite Jesse’s desk.

      “Personal,” Jesse said flatly. “Family. Boyfriends. Husbands and/or exes. I want it all.”

      Dave frowned. “I thought this was about her business.”

      “It is,” Jesse assured him, sitting down behind his desk. He leaned an elbow on the arm of his chair, watched the man opposite him and said, “To get the jump on Pipeline, I’ve got to move fast. That means having as much information as possible.”

      “It just seems sneaky.”

      “It’s good business,” Jesse told him. “Besides, to defeat your opponent, you have to know her first.”

      “Opponent?” Dave echoed, sounding a little uneasy. “She’s not an opponent.”

      Jesse sighed, then grinned. “How long have you and Connie been married, Dave?”

      “Thirteen years, why?”

      “You’ve been out of the dating game so long, you’ve forgotten what it’s really like.” Jesse sat forward to lay his forearms on the desktop and continued, “Women and men are always opposing forces. That’s the fun, after all. If we understood women, where would the challenge be?”

      “Why does it have to be a challenge?”

      Jesse chuckled. “Doesn’t have to be,” he said. “It just is. The trick is, knowing the woman you’re interested in, figuring out how her mind works, if you can. Once you do that, everything comes more easily.”

      “If you say so,” Dave said, but he didn’t sound as if he believed him.

      “Trust me on this. If I want to win Bella over, keep her from