King’s Queen by Marie Johnston

Chapter 2

Aiden

Present day…

I hookeda finger around my tie, wishing for the ten thousandth time I could loosen it. Tension rippled across my shoulders, tightening muscles that screamed to break out of this constraining white button-up shirt.

But in a small community where everybody felt free to drop in, I couldn’t risk a haphazard appearance. As the chief financial officer of King Oil, I wasn’t the face of the company, but I was the backbone. I had to look like I could run a billion-dollar organization.

Even if it came with a suit and shoes that I’d rather trade in for blue jeans and cowboy boots.

Another notification pinged. An email. I had a quick bell sound for my IM. A chime for the group chat program employees used. And a visual alert that streamed across my computer screen when an app on my phone had a notification.

Another ping. And another.

Most days, I could ignore them and answer when I had a spare minute. I excelled at prioritizing. Some days, like today, I fantasized about closing all my accounts until my electronics were blissfully quiet. But then those people would come hunting for me and I’d rather keep people out of my office so I could get shit done.

Thanks, Grams. As the board president of King Oil, Grams got what Grams wanted, and she was every inch the micromanager, from her brilliantly bleached teeth to her thousand-dollar alligator-skin boots. She expected Dad and me to run the company the same way. The inner office, as we called it, had one assistant who didn’t have time for more than fielding phone calls and scheduling meetings. There was Kendall, but she was Dad’s executive assistant. She took the burden off him more than me. She could do half my job with her eyes closed, but I wouldn’t wish this schedule on my worst enemy, much less my dad’s second wife, the woman who’d turned him back into the dad I’d grown up with. The dad before Mama died.

Another ping.

There was a knock at the door. Phillip opened it and popped his head in. “Kate’s here to see you.”

Kate could walk in whenever she wanted, but she wouldn’t. My wife was too respectful of my job. She was a damn saint for putting up with my hours.

“Let her in.” I leaned back in my chair, easing the pressure between my shoulder blades. Anticipation crawled in my gut. I put my elbow on the armrest and leaned my chin on my hand.

Kate slipped in, giving Phillip a flash of a smile. Phillip closed the door behind her. My tension vanished at the sight of her, and the way her hips swayed made me want to say fuck this job and carry her out.

She wore simple black trousers and a loose-fitting knitted sweater. The deep blue enhanced the amber color in her hazel eyes. Her light brown hair brushed her shoulders and I restrained myself from yanking her over the desk and onto my lap to bury my hands in the soft strands of her hair. To capture that gasp that left her every time I kissed her full lips.

I changed position before I could tent my trousers like an unprofessional jackass. I could have all the fantasies I wanted of spreading my wife over my desk and losing myself in her soft body, but I’d never indulge. This job was too important. Too many people counted on me.

She took a seat, sitting like a timid mouse. I was watching her like a hawk, but I couldn’t help it. I always left in the morning when she was still asleep, and many times she was already asleep by the time I got home.

Her brows knitted together. Worry pinched her eyes. I’d been too busy checking her out to notice something was bothering her.

I sat straighter. “Everything okay?”

She held a manila envelope in her hands. She spread one hand over it and the emotion in her eyes thickened. Worry? Fear? Sorrow?

“We need to talk.”

“All right.” I checked the time. “I have a meeting in ten minutes.” I could push it back. Kate hardly asked me for anything, so yeah, I’d be late.

Annoyance crossed her face, but she covered it, evening out her expression. I leaned my elbows on my desk. Something was wrong.

She glanced at the envelope in her hand, a deep emotion I couldn’t identify buried in her eyes. I knew my wife, but this was foreign territory. I couldn’t read her expression, I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. I didn’t like this twist.

She let out a steady breath and met my gaze. “What’s with the trust?”

Ice washed through my veins. Shit.

The trust. Full of stipulations I should’ve told her about but…hadn’t. And my brothers sensed I hadn’t, so they hadn’t said a thing either. Nor had their spouses. Years had gone by and Kate hadn’t found out about the trust and I’d continued to gamble on not telling her.

Kate was smart. I respected her too much to bullshit her. Ironic, since I should have showed her the utmost respect by telling her about the trust before I proposed.

I was a man who dealt in numbers, who waded in reality, who made the tough decisions others wouldn’t. Kate finding out had been inevitable, yet I’d tempted fate and now fate was flipping me off.

“Mama set it up.” Tightness crept across my shoulders, bunching muscles that would take days to relax. “She, uh, she made some rules in order for us to get it.”

“Like marrying before you turned thirty?” Her voice was nothing more than a whisper but it echoed between us.

“Yes.” Words clawed their way into my throat. I was the oldest; I couldn’t fail. It all depended on me. How could I tell you that I had a hundred million reasons to propose when I did? And that I’d done it after you’d told me how I didn’t lie to you like your dad lied to your mom? I stuffed them down like I always did. I’d hurt Kate enough with what I hadn’t said.

“And what else?”

“We had to stay married a year.” I swallowed hard. Speaking the rules out loud, to my wife, left a sour taint on my tongue. “Though we’ve been married for four,” I pointed out. Lame.

Hurt resonated in her expression. “And if you hadn’t married, you’d have lost it?”

“To the Cartwrights, yes.” The neighbors my family had feuded with for generations. Until Bristol Cartwright had married my youngest brother, Dawson, a month ago.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It didn’t matter.” I uttered those words with the same finality I did in the boardroom, but they sounded off to my ears.

She tilted her head and those intelligent eyes pinned me in place. Eyes that had seen through my salary and my lifestyle. Eyes that had always seen down to the real me. “You don’t think that marrying me before you lost a ton of money mattered?”

“We’ve been married for four years.” As if repeating it would make it all better. The trust had stipulated a year, but I’d held on to Kate for longer.

She huffed out a gust of air that might have been a laugh. “Four years. I hardly see you and we live in the same house.”

Another ping. Another email. I tried to ignore the way the notifications intruded on my time with my wife. “My hours—”

“And we’re millionaires? You mentioned a trust once, acted as if it were insignificant.” She shook her head and pressed the back of her hand against her mouth.

“It is insignificant. It doesn’t matter.” The trust had seemed to matter so much when I’d first learned about it. Now, it was nothing. My brothers were happily married and for all the right reasons.

A chime. Goddamn messages.

“You keep saying that,” she snapped and I blinked. Kate was the most even-keeled woman I’d met. The lack of drama around her made her my oasis, one I hardly saw in my vast desert of work. “But it does matter. It matters because hearing it from someone who’s not even a part of the family sucks. It sucks a lot.” Pain brimmed in her eyes. “And everyone knows?”

Thanks to my job, I could always answer hard questions. “Yes.”

She let out a sob and sucked it back in, her back ramrod straight. “I’m so stupid.”

“Kate, you’re not—”

“You married me right before—” She squeezed her eyes shut and sniffled. I know what she’d meant to say. We’d married right before I turned twenty-nine. I’d learned about the trust, asked her out two months later, proposed two months after that, and we’d married shortly after. Before I’d turned twenty-nine.

She rose and thrust the folder at me.

I scowled at it. I wouldn’t like what was in that thing. Not one bit.

She dropped it. “I filed for divorce.” A tear spilled out of each eye. “Um, in Montana, we can file through the mail. We just have to notarize everything.” Her voice wavered but she took a steadying breath while my world caved in around my ears. “Since I signed a prenup, it should be pretty straightforward. I have what I earned. You have everything else. The house is yours of course. I make a decent wage at the library, and I have a retirement plan, so no need to worry that I’m going to fight you for anything.”

“You get half,” I mumbled. Why did I say that? I didn’t want her to go, but I’d kept the specifics from her long enough. She needed to know everything. Another ping. My email could go fuck itself. “Of the trust. We’ve been married over a year. You get half. Fifty million.”

The amount meant nothing to me. The trust meant nothing. The urge to tell her that nearly choked me, but then I’d have to explain why. She might be angry with me, but I couldn’t have her leave me because I was pathetic.

“Fifty mil—” She blinked and another tear snaked down her cheek. “Good thing we’ve been married for four years, then.”

Her bitter sarcasm stoked my desperation. Divorce? No. It wasn’t possible. “Kate—”

“Goodbye, Aiden.”

Panic clawed in my gut. “Aren’t we going to talk about this?”

“If you wanted to talk about this, you would’ve by now.” She turned away from me.

I’d had so much time to tell Kate everything. But I hadn’t. Talking had gotten me nowhere and there had always been a reason not to. Wrong time. Work. My brothers. Now…four years, gone. Just like that.

I stood. She had no idea how many times I’d wanted to tell her. To bury myself in her arms and spill everything. I needed more time. “Kate.”

My wife walked out the door and out of my life, softly closing the door behind her.

No. This wasn’t my life. I planned. I researched. I deliberated. I went home to Kate. But she dropped divorce papers on my desk and vanished?

“Kate!” I hadn’t raised my voice in so long, it cracked at the end. There was no reply as the world imploded so quietly inside the office that had become my prison.

I could go after her, but Kate would hate being the center of drama like that. My feet stayed rooted to the floor. “Kate!”

Another ping, followed by a ding.

A roar ripped out of me, scorching my throat as it banged off the walls. I yanked my screen off the desk and heaved it across the room. It hit the wall, but I couldn’t tell if the clatter was coming from the plastic bits that went flying or my heart.

* * *

Kate

Stale cigarette smoke surrounded me.Mom had quit smoking in the trailer house ten years ago, but smoking in the attached one-car garage when it was chilly out didn’t offer a lot of ventilation. The smell matriculated into the house. I found it oddly comforting. An old scent that reminded me of home and simpler times.

Mom patted my back as I sobbed in a heap on the floral sofa that was older than I was. They don’t make ’em like that anymore, her rough voice said each time I offered to buy her a new living-room set. I could still afford to buy her a living-room set. Even without the trust.

Fifty million.

I inhaled a shuddering breath and let another sobbing moan echo off the walls.

“Aw, hell, Katie.” Mom didn’t have a nurturing bone in her body, but she rubbed my back. If I couldn’t go back to my home, this was the only place I wanted to be.

My family was the definition of trailer trash, but they told the truth, no matter how crude and decorated with swear words it was. A few “ain’ts” never hurt anyone.

At least my empty marriage with Aiden had shown me how much I missed the loud, crass love my parents and brothers showed each other.

“I don’t understand why you have to divorce him,” Mom said.

“Mom!” I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and sat up. “He lied.”

She flopped one purple sweats–clad leg over the other. “It’s a lot of money.”

I sniffled and grabbed a tissue. “He treats me like crap,” I mumbled as I wiped my nose.

She narrowed her eyes and leaned toward me. “What?”

“He treats me like crap.”

“You never told me about that.”

I never talked to anyone about my marriage. I might’ve had to admit it was failing otherwise. I might’ve had to reevaluate how my own personal Prince Charming had turned into the Wolf of Wall Street. I’d never seen the movie. I didn’t know if it was an accurate parallel, but dammit. I’d married Aiden King!

And I was divorcing him.

“Do I need to send Mattie after him?” Mom’s tone was menacing, like she was asking if she needed to order a hit. With my oldest brother, Matt, that could be the same thing.

“No, Aiden wasn’t abusive.”

“Then what?”

“He ignored me.” I was a forgotten accessory when we went out. I was there, but if someone else was talking to him, he focused on them—an endearing trait for everyone but the wife losing one hundred percent of his attention.

Mom cocked a brow. Her way of telling me to elaborate. An effect of having a daughter that was her polar opposite.

“If we went out and another woman struck up a conversation with him, he talked to her. And I just sat there.” Like a knockoff designer purse. Everyone knew I was a cheap imitation failing to look like the real thing.

“Fuck. Him.”

“Right?” And this was why I came home. Nobody crapped on a McDonough. “And he worked all the time. I thought I could live with it, but then I found out about the trust. If that weren’t bad enough, to learn he’s staying married to me to keep me from getting half…” Another wave of tears gathered in my eyes.

“You gave him four years. Fight him for the money, Katie.”

“I signed a prenup.” I’d insisted. I hadn’t wanted anyone to think I was marrying an Oil King for his money. I loved Aiden. Not his job, or his cash. The joke was on me. “Half the trust is supposed to be mine, but I don’t want it.”

She grabbed my hand. “Honey, you put your life on hold for him. Don’t walk away with nothin’. If you don’t take it, I’m sending both Mattie and Jason.”

I wished I hadn’t brought up the trust. I’d wanted our marriage to be authentic, but in the end, I’d only fooled myself. “Aiden beat Jason in state wrestling, remember?”

“Pfft. That was years ago. Jason does hard physical work all day. Aiden sits behind a desk.”

Aiden still had more muscles. More abs. So many abs. He worked out every morning—weekends too. And he fit in another workout most days. My husband punished himself in the gym.

It must’ve been better than spending time with me.

How stupid could I have been? Had I really thought he’d singled me out during the tour King Oil had given to the library staff because I was that alluring to one of the most wanted bachelors in the country?

The coiled strength. The quiet power. He hadn’t gloated when he’d dominated my brother, a promising candidate for state champ. Aiden had evaluated him until it was time to wrestle. Then he’d methodically worn my brother down and won.

When it was over, he’d shaken hands and walked away. No boasting. No arrogant grin. He’d done what he’d come to do. That should’ve been my first sign that he was all business and had no time for regular folk—like his wife.

I collapsed backward onto the other armrest. “I was stupid.”

“Girl, you ain’t been stupid a day in your life.” Mom tapped her fingers against her knee. She was jonesing for another smoke.

I should take the money. I had to be able to afford her health care when her lifelong smoking habit put her in the hospital. Jason and Matt each had kids to take care of.

I had no one.

I was thirty-three. I had the career I’d worked for. But my long-held mental image of a husband and kids had fragmented into a pixelated mess that day I’d chatted with Taya at her coffee shop in King’s Creek and learned about the trust. The day I’d removed my rose-colored glasses and seen my marriage for what it was.

Nothing.

“I was stupid for Aiden. His whole family knew, Mom.”

“Fuck them.” She said it so automatically, I doubt she realized when those words left her mouth. It was the McDonough family motto.

“I thought they were…” My in-laws were wonderful. Thoughtful. Witty. Each of them led interesting lives.

“Your shiny new family that was perfect?”

I scowled at Mom. Did she think I ignored them as soon as I’d gotten married?

Had I?

As a kid, I’d wanted to prove that I wasn’t a walking stereotype of poor and trashy. I’d worked to talk more like my teachers—one happened to live in the same trailer park. I’d idolized Mrs. Vance. She’d spoken eloquently and happily discussed the classics with me—and how much we’d disliked many of them. Mrs. Vance hadn’t stomped through town like she was permanently irritated, like Mom. She’d floated and worn colorful cardigans and T-shirts with witty sayings. She’d been a peaceful lake in my turbulent homelife.

Then there’d been Aiden and his family. The Kings were the opposite of how I was raised. Wealthy, with wide-open spaces. Aiden’s brothers were all good people. I had considered their wives friends. But I’d never fit in. Perhaps it was the secret they’d all kept from me that had made me flounder like a fish out of water when I was in their company.

“I liked them, Mom. But I was never one of them.”

“You’re as good as any of ’em.”

How many times had Mom told me that growing up? They’re no better than you, Katie.

My family dealt out body slams and half nelsons, not witty retorts, but the sentiment was the same. It’d given me the confidence to be the brainiac in class, the nerd no one invited to their party. No matter how different I tried to be, I always had a place in my uncouth family.

“You’re as good as any of them too,” I replied. Mom and my stepdad, Randall, had worked as hard as any of the Kings. Probably harder. And the return had been less. So much less, but they’d carved out a comfortable niche in this double-wide on the edges of Billings.

Mom arched another penciled-in brow. “That why you brought your deb-o-nair husband over so often?”

Aiden had been to exactly one Thanksgiving at my parents’ place, and he’d spent most of the time working on his phone. He’d have brought his laptop, but he knew my brothers’ reputation from their high school wrestling days and surmised that my two nephews and only niece would be just as rambunctious.

The holidays we didn’t go to King’s Creek, I hosted at our house. His house. “I didn’t want to get crap from Matt about Aiden working all the time.”

I don’t want to think about what you gotta do to get that guy’s mind off work, Katie-bear.

Aiden’s mind was never off work, so whatever I had to offer hadn’t been enough.

“Is it just working?” Mom asked carefully, her tone asking if Aiden had cheated on me. If the answer was no, Mom wouldn’t bother with Jason or Matt. She’d hitch up her sweats and charge to the King Oil headquarters building herself.

I twisted my fingers together. “I think so, but it’s not like I really know him.” I’d thought I had. I’d thought I’d understood him and I’d been willing to accept what he was like. But after that morning at the coffee shop when I’d learned that my husband was so dedicated to the family he’d married a near stranger to guard its money—I wasn’t sure how much I really knew him.

Long hours. Work trips. Meetings when he couldn’t be contacted.

My stomach churned. Would I know if he had a mistress, or another family entirely? I’d trusted him. And I’d been wrong.

Mom sucked her tongue against her teeth. “Men are known to think with the wrong head. Have you talked to him about the way you’re feeling?”

When would I have talked to him? Would he have cared? “I thought he was a good guy. That was all I wanted. To find a good guy like you found Randall.” My stepfather had married Mom and moved us from a dilapidated single-wide trailer to this double-wide when I was two. Randall was quiet, introspective, and a man of his word. “But maybe he’s more like Dad.”

“He ain’t like your dad.” Mom snorted and switched the way she crossed her legs. “You’d know better than me.”

Would I? Handsome. Charming when he needed to be. More experienced. I’d fallen hard just like Mom had. Only Dad had been more obvious. I’d only been a toddler when my parents divorced. Jason was only ten months older than me, and Mattie was four years older. Mattie remembered the fights. Mom’s crying. He and Jason adored Randall, and so did I, but they’d taken to protecting Mom’s feelings like Randall did. Which was why I had a relationship with our dad and my brothers didn’t.

I loved my dad, but I’d heard all his faults. I knew that he contacted me when he was in town and left my brothers out. Dad went for easy affection, part of his issues with marriage. He would have to work for it. Aiden wasn’t like Dad. But lying by omission was still lying. And just because he didn’t argue with me didn’t mean he wasn’t sleeping around behind my back.

My insides twisted. Thinking about Aiden with another woman tore me in two. It wouldn’t be hard for him. The way he looked. The way he dressed. The confidence that oozed from him.

As Mom would say, That boy’ll attract ’em like fly paper tossed into a shit pile.

I sniffled and swiped the tissue across my nose. “Do you mind telling Randall for me? And the guys? Tell them not to mob Aiden?” I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth for talking my siblings off the edge of a cliff. Randall wasn’t volatile like my brothers, but he had a protective streak when it came to me and my brothers.

When I had told my family I was marrying Aiden, Randall had pulled me aside and grilled me about how Aiden treated me. At the wedding, he’d split his time between beaming at me and studying Aiden.

“Yeah, I can do that. You need time to think and those boys can make it hard.” Mom cleared phlegm out of her throat. “So where are you staying?”

I’d had enough time to think, but Mom had always liked Aiden and the way he devoured her cooking. I fiddled with my tissue. “Can I crash here for a while?”

“Here? You can afford to go anywhere.”

“I told him I didn’t want any of his money.” My wages were funneled into a savings account that I now had to learn to live on.

“What would a McDonough have if it weren’t for pride?” She sat forward and slapped her hands on her knees. “All right. I’ll get the extra room ready, but, Katie—I don’t want you staying here for long. Not because I don’t love having you around, but because I know the lows you hit after divorce. I’m not going to let you get stuck there.”

Another reason why I’d come here. “All right, and I’ll get the room ready.” It was my old bedroom anyway. My niece stayed in it when she slept over. “It’ll give me something to do.”

I’d taken the day off work. My coworkers thought I had planned a long weekend. No one but the lawyer and Mom knew about the divorce. I’d have to tell my coworkers eventually. At least taking off my ring wasn’t an issue. I’d quit wearing my ring a year after I was married. It’d been distracting at work, garnering comments from patrons. I’d told Aiden I was afraid I’d lose it, when the truth was, I just hadn’t wanted to force another grin and laugh when someone commented on how heavy such a large diamond must be. Aiden wasn’t the only one guilty of lying; he’d just done it first. So today, I’d lie in my old bedroom and wonder why all the fairy tales I’d read growing up couldn’t be real.