Ready for King's Seduction. Maureen Child

and the designer had been given free rein in the kitchen. From the bamboo flooring to the glass-fronted cabinets, the granite counters and workstations and the island sink, the kitchen was the kind of room every cook dreamed of.

      And the most Lucas had ever made in it himself was the occasional plate of bacon and eggs.

      Now, though, he thought as he watched Rose moving through the room, he would always see her here. He would hear the echoes of her laughter. See the way she practically danced around the room with a sort of balletic grace. She cooed over the copper pots and pans and sighed deeply when she first opened the nearly empty butler’s pantry.

      She might have been a little nervous when she’d first arrived, but in his kitchen, she was right at home.

      “We’re using button mushrooms because they’re the most common. You can find them in any grocery store and they add just enough flavor to any dish to give it a hint of something … more.”

      “More fungus. Great.” He shook his head, reminded himself that he wasn’t here to enjoy himself—or her. He had set this up as a way of paying back a friend for the kind of betrayal that Lucas never forgave. Rose wasn’t a date.

      She was a tool.

      Grimly, he went back to the task of slicing mushrooms while Rose gathered up the supplies she’d brought along and set them out on the cooking island.

      “I brought enough with me for tonight’s lesson,” she said, “because this was all so sudden I figured you wouldn’t have the right ingredients.”

      “Good call,” he said, his knife sliding through button after button.

      “But it’s just a crime that you have this amazing kitchen and nothing in it,” she said with a long sigh. Shaking her head, she looked around the room as if studying an abandoned puppy and wondering how to find it a good home. “I’m going to leave a list of supplies for you to pick up. With a well-stocked pantry and refrigerator, you’ll always have options.”

      He lifted his head to look at her, and their eyes locked. A second or two of pulsing tension passed before he said, “Until I learn how to cook, being well-stocked really isn’t necessary, is it?”

      She plopped one hand on her hip. “How am I supposed to teach you how to cook if there’s nothing in your house to cook with?”

      “Good point again,” he muttered, then rallied. “Okay, leave your list. I’ll have my secretary take care of getting whatever you think I need.”

      “Your secretary.”

      He frowned at her. “Something wrong with that?”

      “Oh, no,” she said, lifting both hands in surrender. “Just typical, that’s all.”

      “Typical of what?”

      “Men like you. And Dave.”

      “Excuse me?” He stiffened. “I’m nothing like your brother, let’s get that straight right now.”

      Now it was her turn to stiffen up, and Lucas noted the flash of emotion in her eyes. “Look, I know you and Dave don’t speak anymore—”

      “That’s right, we don’t,” he said, cutting her off before she could try to do something as fruitless as attempt to salvage a friendship that was dead to him.

      It was good that she’d brought him up, though. Good to reinforce the fact that Rose was the sister of his enemy. A man he had once trusted. And the only reason Rose was standing here, driving him insane with her soft scent of lemons, was that Lucas was going to use her to get back at the man who had betrayed him. Revenge. Pure. Simple.

      Sweet.

      A minute or two of strained silence passed before she said, “All I meant was that men like you most often delegate work to your secretaries—even when it’s not something that’s really part of their job descriptions.”

      He looked at her, the knife in his hand still. “My secretary’s job description includes pretty much whatever I say it does.”

      “Uh-huh. Even grocery shopping?”

      “There’s something wrong with that?”

      She leaned both hands on the cooking island’s cool granite surface. Her skin looked even paler against the gleaming black stone. “How will you know what to get in the future? You plan to always have your secretary do the work for you?”

      Actually, it sounded like a good plan to Lucas. If he wanted to grocery shop, there would be actual food in his house right now. But why would he when there was a great diner just a half block away and enough restaurants in the city of Long Beach that a man wouldn’t have to eat at the same place twice during a six-month span?

      Rose shook her head. “Maybe I should be giving your secretary the lessons.”

      Okay, that was a little insulting. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll get the groceries. Make a list, and I’ll take care of it before tomorrow night.”

      Smiling, she said, “How about we do it together tomorrow? We’ll call it part of the lesson. I’ll show you how to choose your produce and what to look for at the meat counter.”

      Lucas nodded, and she smiled even wider. Grocery shopping. Not exactly a high-end kind of date, he told himself, but then he wasn’t dating her, either. This was a planned seduction. What he wanted to do was get her off guard and keep her there. Then, when she was relaxed enough, he’d tumble her into bed. Once that was done, Lucas would tell her brother just how good she had been, and he’d have the kind of revenge that would tear at Dave Clancy for the rest of his life.

      “But for now,” Rose was saying, “you finish slicing the mushrooms, then I want you to chop three tablespoons of fresh parsley.”

      He paused and frowned. “Isn’t parsley the decoration on plates that no one ever eats?”

      “Some of us actually do eat it.”

      “Amazing,” he muttered, but went back to his task. While he worked, he managed to keep one eye on Rose as she explored his kitchen. She drew down plates and wineglasses from the cupboards, opened up the fridge and grabbed the sour cream, cheese and butter she’d brought with her for tonight’s recipe.

      In a few minutes, they were working together amiably. But when she turned on the radio and soft jazz spilled from the speakers, Lucas began to worry.

      He was actually enjoying himself.

      And that wasn’t part of the plan.

      “So?” Rose asked an hour later, “what do you think?”

      She was sitting opposite him at the glass-topped table at the far end of the kitchen. Beside them was a bay window that overlooked a wide backyard. The garden lights were on, spilling small circles of golden radiance across the grass and neatly tended flowerbeds. The winter garden was sparse, but even in the dimly lit darkness, Rose could imagine how beautiful it all was in daylight.

      She didn’t usually stay after the lesson and join her students for the meal they had created, but Lucas had insisted and frankly, Rose thought with an inner sigh, she hadn’t wanted to leave. Probably not a good idea to start getting attached, she warned herself sternly, but then she had always had a soft spot for Lucas King. She couldn’t explain it. It just … was.

      Still, after two hours of working closely together in his amazingly wonderful kitchen, Rose still couldn’t have said that she knew Lucas any better than she once had. Oh, he seemed friendly enough, despite the thin thread of distance he insisted on keeping between them.

      But then, she reminded herself as she looked back at her memories, Lucas had always been a little closed off. That’s probably what had drawn her to him in the first place, Rose realized. In her own family, the men had been outgoing, gregarious. Whatever they were thinking, they didn’t keep to themselves. They were loud and emotional and easy to read.

      Meeting