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

wasn’t taking leave until January. Em and Carter were going to his family’s for the holiday. I was going to ring in another year married, but all by myself.

Thinking about that wasn’t going to solve anything. I puffed hair out of my face. My holiday position had dissolved after Christmas, and I’d have to find something else to support me while I got my business going. I could job hunt while I watched a movie.

“Sapphire?” Mother’s voice filtered in from the hallway.

Crap. Had a courier sent the papers over? “I’m in here,” I called, stuffing my hand as far as I could reach through the seat cushions. Had Pearl lost that damn thing before she’d left and never bothered to tell anyone?

“You have a visitor.”

Me? I straightened and pushed a mass of hair off my face. Facing the door, I froze. Air whipped into my lungs and stopped. My face, flushed from being nearly upside down searching for the remote, turned cold. I was stunned. Speechless. Unbelieving of what was in front of my eyes.

Xander stood in the doorway, his hands tucked into a pair of new jeans. A Henley-style shirt I hadn’t seen before hugged his muscles and caressed his hard abs. His hair was still on the long side, but it’d been trimmed and was brushed off his face. His backpack was slung over a shoulder.

Damn, he looked fine.

I looked like one hard blow would send dandelion puffs all over the room. The only thing I had going for me was that I’d showered this morning. Otherwise, this college sweatshirt and black leggings had seen better days. I blew hair out of my face. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

A gentle hand pushed him inside and shut the door behind him. I was locked in with Xander. The dark circles under his eyes did nothing to detract from his handsomeness. I drank him in. Tall. Broad.

His boots dug into the carpet. New ones. Had he bought everything to come see me? Or had it just been time to swap in a new set of clothes for the ones he’d trashed going all over the world?

“I . . . uh, got your papers.” His jaw muscles flexed, but he wasn’t angry. Determination simmered in his gaze.

“I thought it was for the best. The money isn’t mine.”

He didn’t argue that it wasn’t his neighbor’s either. He didn’t beg me to wait until we’d both filled our bank accounts and our pockets. He just nodded. “How’ve you been?”

Shitty. Depressed. Bored out of my mind. Caught between wishing I’d never met him and treasuring every second we’d had together. “Good. You?”

He nodded again. “Same. I’ve been working on my new business.”

My brows popped. “Where’d you go?”

He blinked, trying to understand my question, then clenched his jaw. Well, he deserved it. It was a natural question. This was Xander. “I’ve been staying with Dawson.”

We’d had a big argument and he hadn’t gone anywhere?

Right, because I’d left.

“Is it what we talked about? Your business?” What we’d talked about doing together?

“Yeah. Want to see?” He lowered his backpack. He was going to dig out his computer, and then to look through everything, I’d have to sit next to him.

“No, thanks.”

He froze, then slowly slid his computer back into his bag. “No problem. I’m sure you have your own stuff to do.”

“Yep.” Words halted on my tongue to describe everything I’d been doing and all my thoughts and how I really hated turning his dad down because that would’ve been a dream. “It’s a start, and it’ll take a while.” Frustration welled. What the hell were we doing? Prolonging the pain? “What are you doing here, Xander?”

“I came to talk. I haven’t been very good at that.”

“Look, I know you don’t want the divorce, that we’re so close to the money—”

“I’ve been with Dad for the last few weeks.”

The words shocked me to silence.

After a moment, he pressed his fingertips together and continued. “I got the papers and realized that maybe a man who’s been married twice, pretty successfully, might be able to give me some advice.” His smile was wan. “He had a whole ton of advice banked. But we talked. I showed him photos and what I’ve been setting up. And we talked some more.”

It must’ve been significant enough to bear repeating. “You talked about your mom.”

“Mama. Me. Him. Everyone else. I told him about every country I’d been to. He had to take some time off. Kendall arranged it so he could work from home while I finished planning . . .” His gaze turned tortured, yearning gleaming in the brown depths. “Planning where I’d like to live.”

“Like a house?” He was going to stay somewhere? Long-term?

“Like a home. But Savvy, every time I think about a home, I think of you. It’s going to be just a house without you.”

“But I can’t . . .” What couldn’t I do? Live with the man I’d fallen in love with? The man I married. “What did your dad say?”

“To talk to you. To find out what you wanted and if we could make it work together. Then he said from there, it’d all figure itself out.”

“Where would you live?”

“Wherever you want.”

That sounded like heaven. “But wouldn’t you have to travel for your new business?” Was it the same thing we’d talked about that day we confessed our love to each other and had toe-curling sex under the sun all afternoon?

Heat licked up my body. I’d purposefully avoided thinking about anything physical with Xander. Other than piling pillows behind my back every night, and maybe warming them with a heated blanket so it felt like a semisolid body behind me once in a while—or every damn night—I’d been successful.

Forgetting what Xander felt like and tasted like and how good it could be between us was impossible with him standing right in front of me.

“We could still travel. Or I could, if you weren’t able to.” My expression must’ve given him alarm. He rushed on. “But we’d talk about when and where and how long I’d be gone. It wouldn’t