“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 q
uiet, 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.
Chapter 3
Aiden
* * *
Four years ago…
* * *
I was in 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 mo
re 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 rang through 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.
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