King’s Queen by Marie Johnston
Chapter 3
Aiden
Four years ago…
I wasin Dad’s office to update him on development expenditures and plan for the board meeting we’d usually prep for over the weekend. But I was getting married this weekend.
Nerves spread through my stomach. I never got nervous. I was always prepared. But this wedding was out of my comfort zone. A lot depended on Kate saying “I do,” and it wasn’t just money. As worked up as Grams had been, I couldn’t let her down. She’d called me more in the last six months than all the previous years of my life combined.
Then there were my brothers. How would they react to me failing to secure the trust that Mama had left for us? Word would get out and then we’d have to deal with rampant gossip in King’s Creek. Hell, in all of Montana. Which would pale to the hell storm Danny would create if he got the money.
And Dad. Me getting married was supposed to help his stress, but the furrow in his brow was back now that I’d mentioned I’d be driving to King’s Creek tonight with Kate to help Dawson prepare the house for the ceremony. The disapproving looks Dad had been giving me since I’d told him I’d proposed to Kate and she’d said yes were pushing the limits of my patience.
“Say it, Dad.”
He didn’t act surprised, or abashed that I was onto his not-so-subtle scowls. “It’s just money, Aiden. Don’t start your marriage with a lie.”
He assumed that I hadn’t told Kate about the trust. I hated that he was right. I refused to get into how I felt about Kate with anyone. I couldn’t talk to my dad or my grams or my brothers about it. I couldn’t talk with them about anything, really. Not since Mama’s death. I hadn’t been allowed to then, and the words just wouldn’t come now.
Grandpa DB’s voice resonated in my head, like it so often did. Jesus, Aiden. You’re the oldest. If your brothers saw you out here crying, what do you think they’d do? Hold yourself together.
And Dad had been working all the time. When he hadn’t been working, he’d been out having a good time. Getting lost in success and women. He hadn’t cared about how any of us were feeling, how we were dealing with Mama’s death.
Would I like to tell my brothers about Kate? About how I’d met her and what I thought about this wedding? Sure. And it’d go something like, Look, there’s this girl. She’s lovely in every way. She grew up in a trailer park, so I took her to places I don’t give a shit about but impressed the hell out of her so that when I popped the question weeks after asking her out, she’d say yes. Take notes. You’ll all be turning twenty-nine soon enough.
“My marriage, my business. My money, my business.” My business had been serving this company. My work was in the public eye, fodder for the media, my coworkers, Grams, and my brothers. Kate was my business and I wasn’t letting anyone else in it.
“You let your grams make it her business.”
I scoffed. “Not even Grams can force me to marry.” Force? No. Badger? Maybe, but I understood all her one hundred million reasons. “Kate’s a nice girl. What are you complaining about?”
“Exactly. She’s a nice girl. How do you think she’ll feel to know you’re not with her because you love her?”
This lecture was rich coming from my father. He chewed up nice girls and spit them out without so much as a backward glance. He didn’t know me, but he assumed I didn’t love her? He hadn’t even bothered to ask.
If he had, I wouldn’t have told him anyway. He’d lost his chance to be involved in my private life. “Women are a means to help us get what we want. Isn’t that what you’ve always taught us?”
His recoil at my words was satisfying. “I loved your mother, and when she died—”
“Did you? Or was it because you walked right into a multimillion-dollar job and a marriage once she got pregnant? Because you sure jumped into her best friend’s bed quick enough after she died. And then everyone else’s.” Years of repressed anger threatened to explode. I’d been left behind at the ranch with three grieving brothers while Dad had buried his sorrows in work and other women. I wasn’t going to let him weigh in on how I acted with Kate. “Women got you through your grief. Women got you through your midlife crisis. Women get you through the stress of your job. So, Kate is going to help me get what I want, and if you don’t want to see her hurt, then don’t tell her.”
The words were cold, emotionless. If that’d work to get him off my back and keep my secrets from Kate, then I could live with it. That didn’t stop more words from clamoring on my tongue. To tell Dad everything. To ease his fears. To explain that Kate meant more to me than a ton of money, but that the restrictions of the trust made me little better than her dad. But the words went unsaid. I’d learned a long time ago that talking was a waste of time.
* * *
Present day…
The doorbell rangthrough the house while my phone buzzed to alert me that someone was at my front door. On any other day, it’d be just another notification, one of many, that I’d get at the office.
I worked most weekends, but Kate had served me on Friday. I hadn’t been into the office since I’d shattered the monitor. Dad had suggested in a way that sounded more like an order that I go home and process what had happened while he cleaned the mess and kept my private life private.
I filed for divorce.
How convenient I lived in one of the few states that let us divorce quietly. By mail.
Would getting served at my house have been better?
I sighed and hit the button to unlock the front door. I didn’t bother to see who’d come to visit me. I wasn’t up for talking. Besides, Kate wouldn’t ring the doorbell.
Would she?
When I’d gotten home two days ago, the bed had been made, like always. But the laundry basket had contained only my clothing, and her part of the closet had been cleaned out. Her toiletries were gone from the bathroom. Her toothbrush no longer stood in the holder opposite mine. She’d never put her toothbrush in the slot next to mine. Always across. I’d wanted to tease her about being afraid to swap germs. But I never had.
There were a lot of missed opportunities when it came to Kate.
The front door opened and closed. I pried my eyes off the TV to see who the poor bastard was that thought I’d be any sort of company.
My brother Beck ascended the stairs, his head clearing the half wall that cut off the split-level flight of stairs from the front door. His cowl-neck sweater and jeans told me he wasn’t in town for business. He’d come because of me.
His gaze found me right away and swept down my wrinkled black slacks and the button-up shirt that was hanging open and missing half its buttons. I’d tried to undo the top two but my fingers had fumbled and I’d just ripped the damn thing open.
“Aiden? Shit.”
I turned my focus back to the TV. I’d picked a show where the characters were having a shittier time than I was. Shameless I think it was called. It also had double digits of seasons so I didn’t have to expend the brain power to find something else. Endless Shameless.
Beck didn’t move from the top of the stairs. His stare bored into me.
“That bad?” I asked dryly.
“Not good.”
I didn’t have to look at him to know that he was taking in the empty beer bottles at my feet. Those were from yesterday. The empty vodka bottle on the end table was from Friday night—no, Friday afternoon. The Ararat brandy I kept for Dad had run out Saturday morning. And I’d drunk all the beer the rest of Saturday. Good thing I didn’t keep much alcohol in the house. My brothers drank beer and they weren’t over very often.
So today, I let the hangover steep me in suffering. I wasn’t fit for going out in public.
“Have you at least eaten something in the last twenty-four hours?”
I screwed my face up, but my head throbbed. “Maybe?” At some point, I’d stuffed leftover lo mein and an egg roll in my mouth when I’d gone to the fridge for a new beer.
Beck let out a frustrated sigh and went to the kitchen behind me. He rustled around, opening cupboards and banging plates. Each sound ricocheted through my head.
The microwave started and a full water bottle was set on the end table. Beck leaned over the back of the couch and held out his hand. Two white pills sat in his palm.
I accepted them, popped them in my mouth, and took a few pulls from the ice water. I didn’t care what they were, but since I’d had to scrounge for alcohol, the pills were probably just Motrin. “Thanks.”
“You smell like a liquor store got into a fight with itself and lost.”
“What the hell does that smell like?”
“Have you been in the same clothes since…”
“Since Kate left me?” My chest squeezed. “Yep.”
The microwave dinged and he disappeared. A sex scene unfolded on the show. They were doing it in the back of a van.
I hadn’t had sex with Kate in the back of a vehicle. I’d wanted to. Several times on the way to King’s Creek, I’d been tempted to pull onto one of the side roads, find an approach, and make use of the tinted rear windows of my pickup. She wouldn’t have had to undress. I’d crowd in the back seat behind her, tug her pants down, and take her from behind until we fogged up—
Beck found the remote and clicked the show off. A ham and cheese sandwich appeared on a plate in front of me. He’d warmed it enough to melt the cheese and soften the sourdough bread Kate liked.
“Did Dad send you?” I took a bite. It could’ve been dust between two slices of mud and I wouldn’t have known it.
“You weren’t answering your phone. I told him I’d check on you.”
Because Dad was doing all the work I should be doing. And after all these years, he knew I wouldn’t talk to him about my personal life anyway.
Beck sat on the ottoman in front of a high-back chair to my left. “After you’re done eating, you’re going to shower and change clothes.”
I didn’t want a shower. But I needed one. I ate the sandwich, one bite at a time. Beck watched me. My stomach was both grateful and upset at the onslaught of food.
“Dad told me what happened,” he said quietly.
I set the plate aside. “Yep.”
“You’re really upset.”
I cut him a glare. “Why wouldn’t I be?” He peered at me, and I pressed. “Wouldn’t you be fucked up if Eva left you?”
“She did leave me, before we got married. I was fucked up, and you didn’t bat an eye.”
“What do you mean?”
“You sent me a message that said ‘Sorry it didn’t work out with Eva’ and that was all.”
I rubbed my aching temples. The pills couldn’t kick in soon enough. “I did more.” Hadn’t I? I had made sure my brothers were taken care of, that they’d done their homework and eaten supper. I’d even set up a chore chart. Then I’d graduated and left home. On to my next role in life. Scion of the family company.
But I still cared if they were hurting. It’d been clear how much Beck had fallen for Eva. I had to have sent more than a bland message.
“Nope.” He tented his fingers. “But I didn’t expect anything from you. You’ve been a robot for so long I almost forgot that you must still have real feelings.”
I scowled and winced. Feelings hadn’t done me a damn bit of good in life.
“So when Dad said you weren’t answering even his calls—and that you’d trashed your office—I realized how mistaken I was.”
My stomach clenched around the sandwich I’d eaten. This might be my first hangover, but I wasn’t going to throw up. I could only be so pathetic, and I’d tipped the scales too far already. This was why I never drank. Losing control had never done me any good, and no one cared anyway.
“You love her.” He said it as if it was a little-known fact he’d never heard before.
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
“Robot.”
I tossed out his old nickname for being the family ass-kisser when we were growing up. “Gooder.”
“It’s not too late, Aiden. If you love her, it’s not too late.”
“She’s going to think I want to keep the fifty million and not her.”
“Then prove you love her.”
I kicked my feet up onto the coffee table that ran in front of the couch. I refused to let hope creep in. This was Kate we were talking about. She wasn’t impulsive. She was measured. Even-keeled. She hadn’t rushed into the divorce. She’d thought about it. Contemplated it. She wouldn’t have had the papers drawn up if she was undecided.
“You don’t know Kate,” I said.
“Do you?” That earned him another glare, but he remained unmoved. “Look, I know we haven’t been the closest since you left for college, but you’ve been stuck in your own little world for so many years, I think you’ve forgotten that the people around you need you.” He leaned forward. “You. Not what you can do for them. You.”
He meant to make me feel better, but he was forgetting that he was one of the people who’d needed what I could do for them. He didn’t even realize it—in that, I’d been successful. His lucrative tech company? That would’ve been a dream, a side hustle at the most, if I hadn’t taken up the reins at King Oil. Falling for Eva? Yes, he’d thought he was pulling a fast one when he’d made the fake marriage deal with her. But he wouldn’t have had the chance had the public learned about the trust—and they would’ve, if I hadn’t gotten Kate to marry me in time. Our neighbor would’ve gleefully sold his story to the press. Hell, Danny Cartwright would’ve given that story away for free. But Danny had gone to his grave oblivious. And Beck had been able to take his time and move forward with the right girl instead of wondering if every woman who talked to him had dollar signs dancing in her head.
So he could get on me about being in my own little world, but he reaped the benefits. They all had. Xander with his travels that didn’t revolve around where the oil company sent him. Dawson got to stay at the ranch, which had helped him reconnect with Bristol. Even Dad, who’d had the luxury of dealing with his grief in his own way on his own time. I was the one who’d paid.
Only, Kate had suffered the price with me.