King's Treasure (Oil Kings Book 3) by Marie Johnston (great novels .TXT) 📗

left home to travel. I support myself. Not my dad, and not the company.”

Grudging respect replaced a portion of my mounting panic. Neither of us wanted to be reduced to our last names. We wanted our privileged upbringings to go toward being more than just a drain on society.

But to do that, we needed jobs, and between us, I was the only one who had one. I couldn’t support the two of us on the salary Chief paid. Add in housing in DC and I’d be working for Abbot Security until I retired. I didn’t care that Chief had a good pension plan. “If we go to DC, we’d be living with my parents. Where would you work?”

“I’d do the same thing I always do.”

“What about your photography?”

“Savvy . . .”

I was willing to work for my future, not coast through my present like I was starting to suspect he did. “No, I’m sorry. I’ll meet up with Brady and go back to DC. I’ll give you my contact info so we can resolve everything. This marriage wasn’t a good idea, and it’s my fault. I brought it up and I’d had too much to drink and—”

“Is it the money?”

“What?”

“You want freedom to do what you want professionally without being dependent on anyone, right?”

“I want to be free to make my own decisions.” My family’s money came with strings attached. I’ll pay for college, but you have to get the degree I tell you to. You can live here, but you need to come to dinner with me and be nice to Lex. You can work for me, but you can’t pursue your silly environmental ideas.

“What about fifty million?”

I laughed. “I thought you didn’t use your family’s money?” He could stay in the Four Seasons, or the equivalent of it in any country he wanted, with that amount of money. Not couch surf with a friend in Kosovo.

“I’ll tell you the story on the walk to your hotel.” He stepped in close. My head tilted back. He was only four inches taller, but he towered over me. My lips parted like my body anticipated a kiss when we’d done nothing more than hold hands since leaving the hotel room. “But after you hear it, I want you to remember that getting married wasn’t just about Grams or the money. It was about being with you longer.”

He held his hand out and we both stared at it. Getting married wasn’t about Grams and the money. Did he really have fifty million?

Why had he married me? We’d been carried away, bitching about meddling parents and grandparents, and then I’d brought up a Vegas wedding. He hadn’t hesitated more than three seconds. And I hadn’t asked myself why.

Grams or the money. I had to hear this story. I twined my fingers through his and nearly sighed. Touching his skin shouldn’t have such a drugging affect.

He walked slow. “How are your feet?”

“Oh. Good.” I’d been too distracted to think about them. Listening to Xander’s voice on the way back would help keep my mind off these shoes and when I could clean and donate them.

He talked low, keeping our conversation private from the gamblers and tourists flowing around us. How many hungover couples were questioning their nuptials right now? “Not long after we were born, my mom’s parents, Grams and DB, sold off some lease holdings. They gave Mama the money to put away for us. And she put it in a trust.”

A fifty-million-dollar trust? That was stupid-rich money. That amount would make Chief salivate. Even my mother would lift a finely manicured brow.

“Only this trust has special stipulations.” His hand tightened. “We have to get married by our twenty-ninth birthday and be married for a year by the time we’re thirty.”

“Why would she do that?” Though did I really have to ask? I could imagine my parents putting similar restrictions on my trust. They would attempt to control me in death as they had in life.

“I have no idea. The thing is, if we fail, the money goes to our neighbor, Danny Cartwright. He’s a jackass of epic proportions. And he’s got a daughter a few years younger than us, but I can only guess from the way Bristol acts that she despises us as much as he does.”

“Why the hard feelings?”

“The Boyds and Cartwrights used to be close but had a falling out over money. Cartwright claims Grams and DB screwed his family out of mineral rights and drilled on land my grandparents had sold them. Then the Cartwrights turned around and screwed my dad’s family, the Kings, out of some land, I guess because trying to buy land the legitimate way had bitten them in the ass with the Boyds. Then my mom married my dad and not Danny Cartwright, who for some reason had been sure Mama would forget everything and fall into his arms.”

I struggled to keep up with the story. “Whoa. I think that rivals the gossip I hear at my mother’s dinner parties.”

“Yeah, it’s a mess and one reason why I stay away. Danny Cartwright is a mean drunk and he’s always plastered. Bristol is a thorn in our ass too, but I can’t help but feel sorry for her. Growing up with Danny couldn’t have been easy.”

“So your birthday is tomorrow and you got married.” He’d married me for money? Not even my money, which would somehow be easier to brush off. It would’ve meant there was something about me that was irresistible. But it was his own money that was tied up in a trust. My hand went lax.

He gave it a squeeze. “Remember what I said. That wasn’t my reason. Until I met you, I was ready to let it go.”

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