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

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