it, yes. The day of the photo shoot opened my eyes. But you’ve only got yourself to blame for that,” he added, standing up straight and looking at her through eyes as blue as the sea. “You’re the one who showed me what a difference your swimwear could make on a woman’s body. You’re the one who laid it all out for me. Is it my fault you started me thinking?”
She never should have done it, she thought now. Never should have put on one of her own suits. Never should have risen to his challenge just because she’d wanted to prove him wrong. She’d wanted to show off. And all that maneuver had done was dig her a deeper hole.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head as she watched him. “Nothing’s changed. I haven’t changed. I’m still not interested. Do you think you’re the first company to try to buy me out? You’re not. And you probably won’t be the last. But I’m not selling, Jesse. This time, you lose.”
“God, you’re stubborn.”
“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” she countered and let the simmering fury inside bubble and boil. He was standing there smiling. As if he could change her opinion if he just smiled long enough. Did that technique work with most women? Of course it did. He probably never heard the word no.
Had to be a King thing.
“It’s in your blood, isn’t it?” she asked, voicing her thoughts. “You and every other member of the King family. You’ve always gotten what you wanted, so you expect nothing less. You’ve lived a charmed life,” she told him. “Not many people do.”
Instantly, he shifted position a bit, obviously uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. “Okay, I grant you that. But if you think the King cousins were raised to be lazy or indulged or pampered, you’ve got us all wrong.”
“Really.” She glanced at the wall of family photos again and said, “None of these people look like they’ve had a rough life.”
Jesse looked up, and pointed at one of them. “That’s my brother, Justice.”
Bella studied the photo. A gorgeous man with light brown hair, blue eyes narrowed, squinting at the sun. Justice King stood in an open field, arms folded across his chest, cowboy hat pulled low over his forehead. “Interesting name.”
“My dad had just won a huge lawsuit the day he was born. Somehow he convinced mom that Justice was a perfectly reasonable name.”
“Winning again.”
“That’s right,” he said, smiling. “But let me tell you about Justice and the life of the pampered rich.” Jesse eased down to sit on the arm of a brown leather chair. Looking up at her, he said, “Justice has a ranch about an hour from here. He’s up at dawn every morning, checking his herds and his fences and the weather report. I swear he lives by the Weather Channel. As if the weather changes that much in southern California.” Shaking his head, he laughed ruefully. “Our cousin Adam has a ranch too, farther north. He raises horses. Justice raises organically fed beef cattle. And grows acres of hay. He works twice as hard as any of his cowboys and wouldn’t know how to be pampered if somebody paid him to try.”
Bella frowned thoughtfully. “And that one?”
Jesse looked. “Ah, cousin Travis. He with the beautiful wife who loves emeralds.” He pointed to a few other framed photos. “Those are his brothers, Jackson and Adam, with their wives, Casey and Gina. They’ve got kids, too. Two girls each. And I hear Gina’s pregnant again.” Getting into it now, he touched another photo of two smiling men. “This one is cousin Rico and his brother Nick at Rico’s hotel in Mexico. For some reason their other brothers weren’t around on that trip. And that’s Nathan and Garret at some aunt’s wedding. Their brothers Chance and Nash and Kieran are the three in that picture and—”
“How many of you are there?” she asked, amazement coloring her tone.
“Dozens and dozens. And probably more out there we haven’t met!” Jesse laughed, obviously enjoying himself. “You can’t kick a rock in California without turning up a King.”
“It’s…”
“Too much?” he offered, still smiling. “Way too many Kings running around?”
“It’s wonderful,” she finally said, and her voice was a little poignant. A minute or so ago, she’d been furious with him, trying to steamroll her into giving up the most important thing in the world to her, her business.
Now that anger was pretty much gone, swamped by a tide of envy so thick she could barely breathe. She couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to have so much family. As a kid, she’d hungered for parents. Or for a single brother or sister. Someone to whom she was linked. Jesse really was rich and she wondered if he even realized that the King family’s real wealth wasn’t in banks, but in each other.
Jesse’s smile faded. “Are you okay?”
She nodded and pointed to another photo. She didn’t want to talk about herself. “Who’s that?”
“My eldest brother, Jefferson. He runs the King Studios. Makes movies and runs himself ragged because he doesn’t trust anyone but himself to handle the details.”
Jefferson King’s photo made him look like a dangerous man. He was wearing a white shirt, black slacks and giving the camera a hard glare, as if he resented being captured on film.
“How many brothers do you have?” Her voice was a whisper now and even she heard the yearning in it.
Softly now, he answered, “Three.”
“Three brothers. And so many cousins…who is he?” she asked. “The marine?”
Jesse grinned even more broadly. “My brother Jericho. Now there’s a pampered, lazy rich guy. A gunnery sergeant. Didn’t want to be an officer. Said he’d rather serve with real marines. He’s done two tours overseas,” Jesse said and frowned when he added, “and he’s about to be shipped out again.”
Bella sighed, folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked at the man who still filled far too much of her thoughts. He wasn’t what she’d expected. His whole family wasn’t what she’d expected. Hardworking ranchers. Marines. And apparently they were all so close that it felt natural for Jesse to hang family photos in his office.
She envied him that connection. That solid base with so much family. Lives intertwined, bonds strengthened by years of love. What must it be like, she wondered, to have so much? To know that it was simply there whenever you needed it?
“Bella? You okay?”
“Yes,” she said and looked at him. His blue eyes were narrowed on her and he was watching her as a soldier might keep a wary eye on a live grenade. “You just…surprised me, that’s all.”
“Why? Because I have a family?”
“No, because you love them so much.”
“It surprises you to know that I love my family?” His features were as taut as his voice.
“You just never seemed…” She broke off, shook her head and said, “Never mind. It was nothing.”
