King's Queen

by Marie Johnston

  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.

  Chapter 4

  Aiden

  * * *

  The lines of the mahogany conference table widened and narrowed in uneven waves along the surface. The table matched the mantel around the electric fireplace in the conference room. Did the mantel have the same grain lines as the table?

  “Mr. King?”

  Or had they
picked a slab of mahogany that was more refined for mantels? Did they sell them as matching sets? Here’s a meeting table, and if you happen to have a fireplace in your posh conference room, then do we have a table for you—

  “Mr. King?”

  “Aiden.” Dad’s voice cut through my pondering and I raised my gaze off the dark lines in the already dark wood.

  Shit. I was in the middle of a meeting on next year’s projected expenditures. A key meeting requiring my participation, and I’d spaced out. The monitor positioned above the fireplace was filled with faces of execs from our satellite offices in Wyoming, North Dakota, and the rest of Montana. In the conference room, Dad, Kendall, Phillip, and six more of our department heads waited on me.

  “Right,” I said as I scrambled to figure out what the hell to say.

  Kendall swooped in for the save. “Why don’t I compile the information and disseminate it? Watch for it in your inboxes tomorrow.”

  Dad jumped in with more instructions about the information he expected to reach his desk—information that needed to come from me, but I was too lost to even look at my files and figure out what to say.

  It was my second day back after taking a full week off. I couldn’t leave Dad and Kendall to clean up after me any longer. I’d lost my wife. I couldn’t lose this job or I’d have nothing. I also couldn’t cost anyone else their job. In order to do that, I had to be in my office, files in front of me, working like I always did.

  “All right, everyone. Have a good weekend.” Dad tapped twice on the table between us. He wanted me to stay behind.

  Kendall gathered her tablet and phone and chatted with Phillip as they wandered out.

  As the room cleared, Dad murmured, “Can I talk to you in your office?”

  I dipped my head and avoided looking at anyone. Dad followed me up to our floor and into my office.

  He closed the door behind us. “How’s it going?”

  I sat behind my desk. “Oh. You know.” If pondering wood grains in office furniture during important meetings was okay, I’d reassure him I was fine.

  I wasn’t fine.

  His concerned gaze brushed over me. My stubble was morphing into a full-fledged beard, my hair hadn’t seen more than a finger comb in days, and I was wearing the wrinkled suit that I’d worn the day before my world had been upended. I was running out of laundry and dry cleaning hadn’t occurred to me in the last week.

  He sat in the chair across from me. “Have you talked to Kate lately?”

  “We’ve messaged.”

  He cocked his head. “And?”

  I let out a gusty breath. Discussing my impending divorce wasn’t going to help me do my job. “And what, Dad? She wants to know when we should meet and sign the papers.”

  Dad’s sigh was quiet but so was my office. It was as loud as a tornado. Guilt snaked through me. He didn’t have time for this, for my lack of attention to tasks only I could do. He had to be swamped, both him and Kendall burning the midnight oil, sacrificing sleep and time together while I’d been useless on my couch, watching the whole damn series of Shameless.

  Protecting Dad from overdoing it used to be enough motivation to keep me in the office, especially after his heart attack. But this divorce had blindsided me.

  “Have you two actually talked?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid we’re past that point.”

  “You still have time.”

  I didn’t respond. First Beck. Now Dad. But neither of them knew my wife.

  “Where’s she staying?”

  I shrugged and stared at the black screen of my computer. Kendall had requested even visual notifications be silenced when IT set up my new monitor. “I dunno. Her parents’ place maybe. A hotel.”

  “Have you asked her?”

  “It’s apparently none of my business,” I said bitterly. Unlike me, Kate normally shared what was going on in her life. If she hadn’t told me, she didn’t want me to know.

  Dad let out a long breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Goddammit, Aiden. You’ve mastered everything you’ve done in your life. You made state wrestling. Magna cum laude at college. King Oil wouldn’t be where it is if you sucked at your job. You’re here because you’re the best. Direct some of that energy and determination to your marriage.”

  I ignored the part about my job. I was where I was because I was a King. I would’ve been fired years ago otherwise. I shifted my gaze to him and spoke slowly. “She had the papers already drawn up.” Behind my back, which had been easy, since I was never home.

  “Have you been faithful?”

  I rocked forward so suddenly Dad flinched. “Of course I have.” He couldn’t step out of my life whenever it was convenient for him and then charge back in and assume the worst about me when it came to Kate.

  “Does she know that?”

  I’d never strayed. Never. “She should.”

  “All she knows is that you didn’t tell her about something that she thinks was your sole motivation for marrying her. All she knows is that you didn’t tell her she’d get half and so she assumes that’s why you’re still married. Does she know you didn’t give her your mother’s wedding ring?”

  I winced. Those rings were Mama’s. She’d never liked me abusing the entitlement I’d grown up with. So ironically, I’d bought a giant ring for Kate. One that she looked at as if it’d grow fangs and bite her. “I bought her a ring that’s her own.”

  Dad’s infuriating, steady gaze told me I hadn’t answered his question. “She’s going to question everything. The late nights. The work trips. The hours you spend on your phone or your laptop around her.”

  “You do the same around Kendall.”

  He ticked a finger out. “One, Kendall works at the company. She knows what I do better than anyone.” Another finger. “Two, I didn’t have a trust hanging over my head with stipulations.” A third finger went up as his gaze intensified. “Three, and this one is the most important, we talk. We talk about how we feel, we talk about work, and we talk about us.”

  I clenched my jaw. I lost on all three points. No wonder my marriage had been taken down by a little gossip.

  “It’s the talking, Aiden, that’s the most important. When your mother died, I held it all in. I did what felt good and took the pain away. I filled a gaping hole with temporary company and kept it all to myself and it wasn’t until you—” He rubbed his temples. “It wasn’t until it looked like you married Kate for the money that I realized I’d been a piss-poor example of a man.”

  This was the first time Dad had acknowledged, to me at least, that his promiscuous behavior had been tied to grief, to not knowing how to deal with Mama being gone and having four kids to raise on his own. He’d had the luxury of getting away, of finding some solace in someone. I hadn’t had that.

  The sharpest edge of my resentment dulled. He’d been hurting, and I’d been angry at him for so long, so damn furious, that I hadn’t been able to look at it directly. Instead, I’d focused elsewhere: single-minded determination to secure the fiscal future of all things King.

  I was exhausted.

  I’d resisted defending myself for so long that it was difficult to form the words on my tongue. “I didn’t marry Kate for the money.” It came out flat and lacking conviction, but it was better than saying nothing. Would he believe me?

  Dad scooted to the edge of his seat and pressed his fingertips together like he was in a board meeting. The same move Beck had pulled. “If you want to stop the divorce, then you need to talk to your wife. But first, you need to think about what kind of husband you want to be, and if it’s the kind of husband she’d want.”

  What kind of husband I wanted to be? I provided. I could give her anything she ever wanted. Except Kate wasn’t a woman who gave a damn about things. If she did, she wouldn’t have been daunted by the money.

  She treasured the people in her life. Her family. Friends. Coworkers. Patrons at the library. I’d used her to land the family treasure and then had taken
her for granted. I’d put off talking to her, convinced I’d do it later, that there’d be a better time that would somehow make my lies hurt less.

  Later was here and she was gone.

  I had succeeded in securing the trust and the company. Could I secure a future with Kate?

  No, the question was, could I secure a future with Kate where she knew the real me?

  Did I even know who the real me was?

  Kate

  * * *

  It was an unusually warm autumn day. I’d made it through two weeks of work, and I’d done it without telling my coworkers I was getting divorced. I hadn’t been able to tell anyone since I hadn’t confirmed with Aiden a time to meet and discuss the terms of the divorce so we could each sign.

  It had been two weeks since I’d last seen him or talked to him. Our messages were short and infrequent.

  The confusion in his gaze when I’d told him I wanted a divorce haunted me. The way he’d shouted after me as I had left. He never raised his voice. Aiden was steady, restrained. Frustratingly so.

  “Katie can do it,” Jason taunted.

  I tipped my head up, straightening in the lawn chair I reclined in on the porch Randall had built off the back door of the house. It took up a quarter of the small yard, but when it was nice out, my family used it like another living room. Jason circled his oldest boy, Caleb, on the brown lawn. We’d gotten a dusting of snow earlier in October but the last of it had melted two weeks ago.

  The grass crunched as they circled. Caleb, a lanky twelve-year-old, would lash out with his hands, trying to capture his dad’s legs for a takedown or get a collar grip on his neck. Jason would dance out of his way.

  “Stalling,” I called.

  “Told ya,” Jason said to Caleb. “She knows what she’s talking about. Who do you think Mattie and I practiced with?”

  Caleb shot me a disbelieving look.

  With Mattie, I wouldn’t have called getting my face ground into the carpet practice. That had been his excuse when Mom had yelled at him to leave me alone. Jason had been serious about the sport and having someone similar in age and size—until he’d had a growth spurt—to work on takedowns with anytime of the day had been convenient.