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

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 easy 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