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

wants to use the information to humiliate me in front of Chief’s crowd.”

Crossing her arms, she kicked a hip out. “Good luck with that. Chief won’t stand for it.”

No, he wasn’t that kind of man. And since he was trying to land King Oil’s account, Lex could lose his damn job over a little pride.

Yeah, I’d be pissed too if I thought I was about to be handed someone like Savvy on a silver platter of prestige and opportunity, only to lose her at the last moment. But she was a person who could decide for herself whom she wanted to marry. It wasn’t my fault Lex hadn’t even tried to win her over.

“It’s not just that.” Partygoers glanced at us, but as if sensing the deep conversation we were about to have, they kept their distance, offering us a little privacy. “Lex must’ve also seen how little money I have. Money that’s left over from my college days. Money that Dad gave each of us to go to school.”

“It won’t matter to Chief. You’re a King.”

I hadn’t told anyone what I’d done, and if I said that much, I had to tell her the rest. “My dad doesn’t know.”

Her mouth formed an ‘o’.

“I know,” I continued. “Shitty thing not to tell your dad. But, Aiden has a financial degree and helps run King Oil. Beckett went to Princeton, started his own business, and is worth millions in his own right. Dawson was given the ranch, but even he finished college and uses what he learned to make the ranch more successful than it ever was.”

Then there was me. I couldn’t wait another three years to get out of Montana, so I’d cashed out and traveled. Using the excuse I’d pay Dad back when I hit it big was growing weaker each year. So, I just never went home.

I’d taken all my college money and the cash meant for living expenses for four years and blown it. Not frivolously, but I’d gone through nearly all of it. I had no job and no home to show for it. I had a wife who thought I’d married her in order to get more family money that I’d done nothing to earn.

“My family’s extremely accomplished.” And rich. Each one of them. My brothers would never need the trust or to live off Dad. “I just didn’t tell them.”

Her smile was small. “And then kept not telling them.”

“Gets worse each year that goes by.” A huge weight rolled off my chest by admitting that. It was a pittance compared to what was still sitting on it after years of lying, but telling someone what I was most ashamed of brought relief I hadn’t expected. “He thinks I graduated and everything.”

Her eyes widened. And there it was. Not finishing college when I was given money and opportunity was one thing. Pretending that I had attended for four years and graduated was another, more pathetic, more pathological thing.

She cocked her head, no doubt trying to understand a preposterous scenario. “He thinks . . . Didn’t he visit? Didn’t he ask about the ceremony?”

“I brushed all his questions off. We weren’t close and Dad, during those years, wasn’t an invested dad.” The pre-Kendall years had been ugly. Dad had been a playboy, traveling the world for King Oil and living the high life. My brothers and I had been grown and on our own, officially severing him from any responsibility, and he’d used his newfound freedom to never be in Montana. He’d done the same thing when Mama had died. Cut loose. Stopped caring about what anyone thought, including his own kids.

Reconciling the current Gentry King with the dad of my teen years and early adulthood wasn’t easy. His marriage with Kendall was only a few months longer than Beckett and Eva’s. But by all accounts Dad was a changed man.

Didn’t mean he’d like finding out that he’d been lied to and essentially stolen from for almost a decade by one of his sons. His least favorite son especially.

Her gaze strayed to the left and I followed. Her mother was heading for us, her determined stare telling me everything I needed to know. We’d been on our own too long. Time to mingle and show everyone what a happy, well-adjusted couple we were and put to rest any accurate rumors that we’d just met a week ago and gotten married within hours of our first words to each other.

“I’d like to say you should talk to him and it’ll all be okay, but I don’t know your dad, and I can see why this money is personally important to you.”

“It’s not just the money.” Mrs. Abbot was nearly on us. “It’s my mom’s last gift to us. Something she created with us in mind. I don’t want to be the one to lose it when she created the trust to make sure we were okay. I can’t steal from my dad and then lose the trust money on top of it.”

Too much sentiment was wrapped up in that money. I hadn’t planned on fighting to keep it, but now that it was attainable, I couldn’t just let it go.

More importantly, after confiding in Savvy and having her listen to me, I couldn’t let her go either.

Chapter 9

Savvy

I hovered between asleep and awake, those peaceful few moments when nothing mattered but how comfortable, cozy, and warm I was. So warm. I snuggled further under the blankets. A hard body was at my back and a strong arm was banded across my waist.

I opened my eyes and stared at the wall across from the bed. A wall that had once sported a One Direction poster and my ticket stubs to one of their concerts in London. Now, it had a modern abstract painting with only a spark of color among the earth tones, done by a local artist and purchased for top-dollar. Remembering the day Mother insisted I redo my bedroom as befit a young woman helped take my