But now he didn’t have to. I’d thrown myself at him and made it easy. I swallowed my hurt. I could deal with it later. I needed details. “And if we stay married for a year, you get fifty million?”
We stepped out of the casino. The sun shone bright, but we were shaded by the overhang. Vehicles cruised through the loop in front of the building, dropping off and picking up tourists. “No, Savvy. If you wait to divorce me until after my thirtieth birthday, then you get half. The trust is one hundred million. You’d get fifty.”
Xander
Savvy was quiet all the way to her hotel. I’d expected excitement. I suppose that was too optimistic after the way she’d shut down at lunch. But surely she’d tolerate me for a year?
I let her work through everything I’d told her. I’d meant what I’d said. I wanted to be with her for much more than a year, and when she’d come up with the idea to marry, I’d jumped at it.
Yes, I wanted the money. I didn’t need it, just a small portion that I would keep. The total amount was staggering, but I could do a hell of a lot more good in the world with it than the Cartwrights. They’d buy up land and businesses in King’s Creek, where my family had been for generations, and do their damnedest to push us out. Or worse, Danny would kill himself drinking it away, but only after he’d spent every penny, whether it was on boats, lakes for that boat, or a herd of horses and cattle he couldn’t take care of. And the one thing he wouldn’t spend that money on were competent employees to care for those animals.
I knew that better than anyone, except maybe Dad.
We wound through the hotel, the soft dings of the slots fading the closer we got to the elevator bank. We didn’t speak as we rose to the thirtieth floor. The hallway was quiet and there were only a few doors on this floor.
Savvy let us into her suite. Music blasted from a Bluetooth speaker propped on an end table in the vestibule.
“Brady?” Savvy called.
“Savvy,” a man drawled.
I wasn’t a jealous guy. Never had been, but as Brady swaggered out with only a towel slung over his hips, grinning at Savvy like he knew her better than I did—because he did—my vision turned a little green.
He was about Savvy’s height. His hair was fresh from the shower, but styled with more effort than I’d ever given mine a single day in my life. His was the wiry sort of muscular.
He stopped when he saw me. “Well, well, well. I can guess part of your long story.”
“This is Xander.” The bold, confrontational woman I’d met last night had vanished once we’d met with Chief, and she wasn’t making an appearance with this Brady either, who was supposedly one of her best friends.
Brady stepped forward, his gaze guarded, but I couldn’t tell if it was for Savvy’s benefit or because he thought he should be in my place. And since he didn’t know my place was as her husband, I was even more curious. He held his hand out and I shook it. “Brady Younger. How’d you two kids meet?”
“On the Strip, not far from here,” Savvy answered easily. “He was taking pictures.”
“Oh yeah?” Brady ran a hand through his dark wet locks. “Then you focused on Savvy?” He grinned at his pun.
This was weird as hell, but more comfortable than meeting her dad. Brady didn’t dismiss me like Chief had. But he didn’t size me up like Lex had either. He wasn’t overly concerned that Savvy had brought a strange man back to their suite. My muscles eased. Towel or not, I didn’t sense any animosity from Brady.
“That’s about how it went, yeah.” She’d been my focus since I’d met her.
“We, uh . . .” Her gaze flicked to me. “We got married last night.”
That wiped all of Brady’s humor away. “Be serious now. I’m not hungover, but I haven’t gotten much sleep.”
“I am serious. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Ouch.
As the story spilled out, Brady’s brows shot up and for the first time, I could see real concern. When it came time to tell him about the money, she glanced at me and I nodded. All my brothers knew about the trust, so it was only fair she had someone in her corner who knew.
Brady shook his head. “Savvy, if what he says is true, that amount could be revolutionary. But do you even know this trust is real?”
Savvy looked at me, vulnerability and uncertainty mixing in her expression. She hadn’t thought about not believing me.
“I can have Grams fax you a copy of it.”
“Maybe you should send it to my family’s lawyer.” She grabbed her phone, her fingers flying. “I’ll send you his info.” She paused and glanced at Brady. She chewed on her lower lip a moment before asking me, “What’s your number?”
Brady barked out a laugh. “You exchanged vows but not numbers? Classic Savvy.”
What was so classic about that?
As if he’d heard my thoughts, he added, “Our Sav can be impulsive. Hence how she’s in debt with her parents for majoring in something that isn’t business or, I dunno, how to be pretentious.”
I got the part about owing the parents for college money, but Savvy hadn’t mentioned that she was in debt to them for it. Her cheeks flushed when she met my gaze. “I insisted on majoring in environmental science, and I had to pay for it. Fiscal consequences and all that. But they paid my loans when I moved home, and I’m repaying them. Saves me from interest.”
I’d thought the cost of living in the city was the reason she was still with her parents, but after meeting Chief, this explanation made more sense. He was willing to let her stretch her wings, but he’d make sure she lost a few feathers for it.
Brady’s head bobbed. He’d heard it all before. “What’d your sisters say?”
“They don’t know yet.”
Brady’s mouth dropped and he put his hand to his bare chest. “The proper Mrs. Abbot?”
“I’m sure Chief’s told her by now.”
Brady’s gaze slid to me but he addressed Savvy. “You gonna tell them about the trust?”
Savvy shifted from one bare foot to another. “They don’t need to know. I’ll tell the lawyer I’m the one paying for him to look at it so he’d better not say anything. I’d rather work this out without the extra pressure.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t tell them either. Otherwise, the Chief will keep you too busy to file for divorce.” Brady looked between us. “Then once you get the windfall, you’re home-free.”
“You’re right about that,” Savvy muttered. “I got a notification from Chief that he put more money in my account. For Xander to fly home with us.”
She worried her lower lip. Chief had invited me to DC whenever we were ready to leave Vegas. She hadn’t. Leaving me would be easier if I wasn’t around.
“I have no problem flying home with you,” I said and her forehead crinkled. “It’ll give you time for your lawyer to review the trust.”
Please take me with you.
Brady’s smile was wide. “Do it, Savvy. If what he says is true, you’d never have to worry about being cut off again. You won’t find yourself in a flat with asshole roommates like me.”
She folded her arms and studied me, then Brady. Her gaze swept around the room. The sitting room. The TV that took up half the wall. The bedrooms on either side that she’d said came with private master baths. An extravagant room that Chief was paying for since her old boss couldn’t.
“Brady, can you give us a minute?”
Brady held his hands up as he went to his room to dress and pack. “It’s your decision. Just remember that you’re still paying for the last one.”
“College?” I asked.
“I hadn’t eaten for three days when Brady asked me out. I only said yes ’cause I hoped he’d buy me dinner.”
“You and Brady dated?”
“One date. He found out my parents cut me off for college and took me under his wing.” She sighed and trudged to the sofa. I leaned against the small part of the wall the TV didn’t take up. “We both wanted a friend more than an ea
sy lay. My roommate had no sympathy and laughed at my privileged ass. Brady comes from a family like mine, but they kicked him out when he graduated high school. He worked a couple of years and then went to college. I couldn’t even figure out how to cook ramen.”
“You didn’t get any help?”
She shook her head. “Not until I graduated. I guess I proved something to them by sticking it out, so they let me move back home and humored me while I worked for Saving Sunsets. I guess it was another lesson they thought I would learn. Like they knew I’d eventually go into the family business.”
“But you said your mother doesn’t work.”
“She doesn’t. I don’t know what her deal is. She’s stricter than Chief with money, yet it was her idea to pay off my student loans and have me pay them back directly—to save on interest. And while she let me live at home after I was done with college, she set a time limit. I had six months to find a job. She didn’t think much of Saving Sunsets, but she didn’t insist I look for something else. Hopefully working for Chief is good enough to keep living with them.”
Fear welled in Savvy’s eyes. She didn’t want to be that hungry girl who couldn’t cook for herself. “Why’d you marry me, Savvy?”
She chewed on the inside of her lip and lifted her gaze. “In school, I would’ve quit and gone back home without Brady’s help. I live with my parents and I lost my job. Chief stepped in. I can’t say no without being kicked out again.”
“And I seemed like a guy who could live on nothing with no one’s help.” Only I wasn’t the pauper she wanted.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m pathetic.”
I hooked my hand in hers. My family didn’t have to worry about money, but Dad and Mama had made sure we knew how to take care of ourselves. I could make a meal and do my own laundry, which were the first steps to living on your own. I doubted Savvy had learned basic life skills, but she was expected to navigate loans and rent without help. “You’re human.”
“What’s worse is that I’m thinking of what you said. Staying married for money. That seems worse. That even after college I got married so I would be taken care of when I quit my job with Chief and that I’ll stay married to get the payout my parents won’t give me. Yet, if I get divorced, or annul the marriage, or whatever, I risk the wrath of Chief. I don’t know what Mother would do. I can’t see her explaining a Vegas wedding, but I certainly don’t know how she’d handle the embarrassment of a Vegas wedding and subsequent breakup.”
I swallowed my disappointment. I’d asked her why she’d married me and I’d gotten a brutally honest answer. I had an answer too, but she didn’t ask. Those moments she was thrilled about who I was and what I did had burrowed under my skin. I wanted more of them and more of her.
“Either way it sounds like it’s better to stay married,” I said as casually but as seriously as I could without sounding desperate. As long as we were still together, I had a chance to win her over.
She tugged her hand free of my grasp and buried her face in her hands. “Then I’m selling myself out. Or selling myself out even more than I did last night.”
Guilt gnawed at my insides. This would’ve been prevented if I’d been the reasonable one. If I’d thought through any part of a marriage beyond getting to be with this woman and fulfill the terms of my trust. “Whatever you choose, Savvy, it’s no one’s business but your own. You don’t have to justify what you’ve done to anyone.”
She was going to go through with ending things between us. To preserve the identity she was struggling to build for herself, she was going to ask that lawyer to draw up a divorce contract instead of reading the trust.
She dropped her hands from her face. “If we stay together, I need to go home. I’ll work for Chief. I’ll build my skills so when we divorce next year, no one can say that I freeloaded until I had your money.”
I heard what she didn’t say: just in case she was left without a dime to her name, she wanted to have a foundation. A fallback plan that wouldn’t burn bridges with her parents or leave her without resources.
Hardly the most romantic reason to stay together. But it gave me a year to win over the woman I wanted to spend my life with. The romance could come later. I’d make sure of it.
Chapter 6
Savvy
I got out of the Uber and faced the historic Tudor mansion before me. Slate gray with miles of pristine white trim, the two-story house was covered in square windows, all gleaming due to the teams of people my mother hired to care for the place. Home, sweet home.
Our lot was just as ostentatious. We had two acres on the edge of Chevy Chase, Maryland, and each bush and tree was manicured to within an inch of each leaf’s life.
How pretentious did Xander think this was?
Or was this his normal? I mean, he came from a family as well off—or even more loaded—than mine. He ranched, but that didn’t mean he’d grown up in a shack. I had no idea what ranch houses looked like. Or a ranch, for that matter.
“Nice place,” was all he said. His backpack was slung over his shoulder and he rested our suitcases at his feet. While I had stared at the family home I’d seen nearly every day of my life, he’d gotten my stuff. I was used to our driver, Davis, getting it for me.
“It is.” I pointed to the far right corner. “That’s my room.” After what we’d done together, my throat shouldn’t be closing off from swelling panic. I’d have to share a room with him. My parents thought we were married. And we were. I’d decided on the trip home that I’d stay with him. Money aside, I had to save face, and being married at least a year would help. That didn’t change that our marriage was nothing more than a business transaction.
“We’re staying in your childhood bedroom?” His voice rang with doubt, and as unflappable as he’d been on the ride to the airport and while getting tickets to come meet my mother and sisters, his expression now said he’d rather run than sleep in some room better suited to a five-year-old girl.
“Relax, it’s not pink. Anymore.”
“It used to be?”
“With a canopy bed and ruffles. After you meet Mother, you’ll see.” My family had fallen into a well of stereotypes and never been rescued.
I hadn’t had a chance to warn him about Mother’s and my sisters’ idiosyncrasies on the plane ride. After the rush of getting tickets and boarding, and after a short night and stressful day, I’d passed out on his shoulder each leg of the trip. I suspected he’d slept too, but we hadn’t talked much. The car ride had been more silence as the magnitude of what we were about to do sank in.
We would pretend to be happily married.
I might as well mitigate what I could now. “My mother is a Stepford wife past her prime. Her fashion is on point and she participates in all the committees expected of someone of her station. She takes her role in society seriously. She’ll smile and say all the right things until I don’t know what she really thinks or what she thinks she should say.”
Xander ducked his head, having no reason to question me after I’d told him about Chief. He’d seen for himself how right I was about that.
I sucked in a deep breath. “You already know about Chief. My father grew up being told he was the best and then proving it. He used Mother’s money to get status he couldn’t earn with his military clout. And since his career in the military was mostly dominated by males, I don’t think he knew what to do with three daughters.”
He thought my sisters and I needed guidance and direction instead of fatherly support. I wish I hadn’t proved him right.
“He thinks marrying you each off is a good first step?”
“Basically.” I twisted my fingers and glared at the beautiful house I should have been glad to see standing before me. I should have felt relief and happiness to be back home. I didn’t. “That’s what he did with Em. She’s the oldest. He won’t try it with Pearl. She wanted to join the military and he wanted her to go to an Ivy League school instead. So after she finished high school, she told
them she was going to study abroad for a semester. Then she ran off and joined up, didn’t tell anyone until she got to her first post.”
“How’d Chief take it?”
“He set Em up with a guy that worked for him, but he actually let me go to school somewhere else besides Georgetown.” As if I’d ever be brave enough to outright leave like Pearl. “Pearl’s back home now to get her degree.” At Georgetown, but not with our parents’ money. She’d earned what she needed through enlistment benefits and savings. Chief never demanded she work for him or get married. “Her room is next to ours.”
Xander adjusted his backpack as his gaze swept the lawn. Old snow that held only a few rabbit prints spread over the expansive lawn. Growing up, that lawn was the most nature I’d seen outside of field trips.
“Em’s husband is like Lex?”
“You probably won’t see him much. He works all the time like Chief. Em doesn’t, so you’ll meet her. She’s into volunteering and stuff.” Em was our mother, minus thirty years.
The front door opened and Pearl came out. Her smile was sly, and mischief glittered in her eyes. Her blond hair was growing out from the bob she’d kept in the army. She flew down the front steps, no jacket and her feet stuffed into my boots that were kept in the front closet.
“Oh my God, Savvy. I thought Chief had gone out of his damn mind when he told me what you did!”
Mild curiosity seeped into Xander’s expression. “This must be Pearl.”
“If she’d been born a redhead, she would’ve been named Ruby.” Mother said my eyes were so blue there had been no question they’d stay that way. Thus, I was Sapphire. “But she’s a blond, so she got Pearl.”
My sister barreled forward, her arms out. I thought she’d slow, but I should’ve known better. Pearl didn’t do subtle.
“Oomph.” My breath whooshed out as she swept me into a giant hug.
“I’m so glad you’re home.”
“I’ve only been gone a few days.” But I sank into her hug. Pearl was the devil on my shoulder, daring me to be my impulsive self. But the older I got, the more I realized that it was only me dealing with the outcome, and Mother and Chief were left thinking I had to be cared for.
King's Treasure (Oil Kings Book 3) Page 7
