Resigning to be His Brother's Wife

Three years running Colton Kingsley's life, and his engagement present to me was a pink slip.

His fiance wanted every woman who worked close to him gone.

I made the list.

To soften it, he offered to set me up with his older brother.

Richer than me, built like a dream, and I hear he doesn't disappoint. Only catch, he's got a kid.

He grinned. "You in? Go meet the guy."

I was in.

That kid he mentioned? I'm the one who gave birth to her.

Chapter 1

Here's what Colton doesn't know. His brother and I have history.

If he knew, he wouldn't have spent three years working me like a rented mule.

I was twenty-two when I met Everett. Fresh out of school, all thumbs, one rejection letter deep.

I mistook the future heir of the Kingsley empire for a guy who'd bombed the same interview I had.

He looked the part. Decent suit, but rumpled, gray with dust, parked on a curb eating a sad little takeout box with a thick stack of paperwork beside him.

He looked wrecked.

I'd just gotten turned down. I was in my feelings. So I bought two of the double-meat plates from the place on the corner and handed him one.

"Eat this instead," I said. "Yours is all wilted lettuce and dried-out meat. That won't fill anyone up."

I sat down three feet away and did the math on my own odds.

Wondering how bad it would get if I never found work. Whether I'd end up on a curb too, letting strangers feed me.

I was so deep in it I never caught the look on his face. Stunned. Thrown. Then, quietly, interested.

One meal. We traded the short versions of our lives. We traded names.

That was the first mistake.

I'd assumed he came from nothing, same as me. And Everett was more than happy to play a man who came from nothing.

After that I kept running into him. Every time felt like coincidence.

When he told me he wanted me, I still thought it was fate.

Then came the scene straight out of a bad romance novel.

I was in a luxury mall, picking out a gift for one of my boss's big clients. And there he was. Everett. Dropping money like it meant nothing.

One hand in his pocket. Spine bent in that lazy, bored curve. Toe tapping the floor.

Impatient, but humoring some girl through every option until she landed on the one she loved. Then he exhaled, lifted a hand, and had them put it on his account.

The night before, he'd been in my rented walk-up, wheedling me into rubbing his head. Complaining about his boss. About the pressure.

I stood there a long time.

Deciding whether to keep playing house. Or hold out my hand and ask him to pay up.

I did neither.

I picked the option that cost me the most.

I called it out, and I didn't ask for a dime.

He wasn't surprised. He owned up to who he was, clean and fast.

Then he graced me with an invitation. Come see the house.

His house.

A place I couldn't have earned in ten lifetimes of selling myself off, piece by piece.

In his study I saw the paperwork. Stacks of it. For a golden boy, he took the job seriously.

Turns out, the day we met, he'd been inspecting a port. A major Kingsley project, and it had gone sideways.

Dead of summer. He'd shown up at the site himself with blueprints and a pack of engineers. Walked the problem, rewrote the plan on the spot, moved resources around while someone logged a phone book's worth of notes.

Nobody expected him at a construction site. So nobody arranged lunch.

When it came time to eat, Everett sat on a curb with his notes, reading and eating, waiting for his people to report back.

And then he ran into me.

I laughed at myself. Every coincidence, every curbside lunch, every time I called it fate. He'd handed me the pen and let me cast myself as the fool.

Chapter 2

I never clocked what his watch was worth. Or how sharp the suit was cut.

He asked me if we really had to end it.

He said loving one person was the same as loving another. What mattered was the arrangement. The interests.

I was twenty-four. Too young. Young enough to think love couldn't survive a single grain of grit.

"It's different," I said.

"We're different."

I didn't cry. I didn't say goodbye. I got in the car and left, calm as a woman who'd just been laid off.

The world had other plans.

Inside a month, I understood exactly how much money mattered.

Because a month later, my period still hadn't come.

I was pregnant.

And the company was cutting people. A whole wave of them. Pregnant women included.

The boss put the word out. Pay them their severance, sure, but send every one of them home to mind her own kid. Keep this up, he said, and we stop hiring women altogether.

Before I showed, I went straight to him and swore my loyalty. Promised it wouldn't touch a single project.

Then I took three days off. To end the pregnancy.

He was pleased. Held me up as the model employee.

I looked in the mirror and saw a workhorse. Not a person.

Coworkers whispered behind my back. I had nothing to say to them.

I booked the appointment. I was on my way to the clinic when his security caught up with my car.

Everett was overseas. He got on a plane that night and crossed six hours of dark to be standing in front of me by morning.

He didn't strong-arm me. He didn't take it out of my hands.

He just asked me to keep her.

The terms were generous. And maybe it was the six hours, or the way he asked. I said yes.

When she was born, I didn't let myself look at her. Not once. It was the only way I knew to keep from loving her.

Everett took her home and named her Jade. Something precious.

He wanted her. I could tell. So she didn't need anything more from me.

I left New York and went south.

Turns out you can't outrun the Kingsleys.

Everett's younger brother, Colton, ran the Atlanta branch.

I carpet-bombed the city with rsums. Somewhere in the pile, without even clocking it, I'd applied to be Colton's assistant.

The interview went smooth the whole way through. Somehow I ended up his executive assistant.

I ran his calendar. Fetched coffee. When the chief of staff was out, I covered a few of the big clients myself. Most days I didn't travel with him.

A lot of little tasks, not much strain. The pay was good.

With the money Everett had given me, I'd already bought a place. Between that and the job, I could have had a quiet life.

Then Colton's fiance blew it up.

"Sloane. Sloane?" Colton tapped the desk. "It's not that hard a question. All this hemming and hawing. Is he not good enough for you?"

The smile was there. The irritation underneath it was too.

I squared the day and slid the schedule across the desk.

"Eleven to eleven-thirty, you've got a meeting. Noon, lunch with Mr. Lawson. His family's celebrating something, so I wrapped a gift. Take it with you. Two to four is golf, but Mr. Jennings booked you for riding at the same time, so you'll have to cut one. Five, you're walking a client through the R&D floor and closing the contract over it. Dinner's at the hillside place, menu's already set. It's ten forty-three now. Lawson says a few of the execs want to brief you early. You've got time for them now."

I paused. Then I said the rest.

"About the setup with your brother. I'll pass."

Colton tipped back in his chair. Toed the floor, spun a slow quarter-turn. Studied me for a long beat.

"Huh." Half a smile. "Sloane. The way you're acting. You hiding something from me?"

So I told him.

Chapter 3

"I know your brother."

Saying we'd dated felt like too much. No family, no friends had ever known. It didn't count.

"Oh? You know him?"

He nodded. Then his toe went still on the floor.

He read my face, drew a breath, and landed on it, certain.

"No. No. You were with my brother. Weren't you."

I'd seen that particular contempt from men at the top before. Still, the word went in like a splinter. Were with.

"Yes," I said.

He was up in a flash, all smiles, steering me to the couch. Poured me a cup of tea like I was the guest of honor.

"Okay, okay. Do you know who had his daughter? Which woman?"

"We've all asked. Whole pack of us. Never gotten a word out of him."

"Guy hates kids. He kept that one, so he must've been crazy about the mother."

"You were close with him. Come on. Who's his favorite?"

Who, indeed.

The girl he'd trailed through a mall, patient as a saint? Or maybe she was just one more woman in the rotation.

I pressed my lips together.

"No idea who his favorite is. Wasn't me, though."

Colton laughed out loud.

"That's a lot of bitterness. My brother's not a stingy guy."

"Maybe not with other people. When I was with him, I lived in a walk-up rental."

For a few seconds his face just stalled. Slack-jawed, like he couldn't get the words to compute.

"You lived where?" He said it again. "A rental? He let you live in a rental?"

I smiled and said nothing.

"Not exactly. I rented it myself. He didn't live with me."

"Jesus. Didn't even cover the rent? That's low. That's beneath him."

Colton smoothed his lapel, got up, paced. Kept cutting glances at me.

"Never would've guessed, Sloane. You're a hopeless romantic under there. A face like yours, he should've handed you a condo and called it a Tuesday. How did you not walk?"

He was appraising me. Pricing the goods.

The old me would've torn a strip off him for it.

I fixed my expression and made myself small.

"I was young. Didn't know better." I kept it light, a joke. "Speaking of which. Want to bump my severance a little, for old times' sake?"

A knock. Someone leaned half through the door.

"Mr. Kingsley? Your meeting."

Colton nodded, straightened his shirt. I stepped up quick and held the door for him.

He grabbed a folder and swept past me.

"The layoff doesn't touch you. Go back to work."

Shame.

I'd been angling for a little more severance out of the whole thing.

Now I'd just have to quit on my own.

Colton's fiance had become a name around the office lately.

Granddaughter of some big deal up in New York, family loaded on both sides. Not an ordinary pedigree. Not an ordinary temper, either.

The day they got engaged, she'd ordered Colton to fire every woman who worked close to him.

He had two chiefs of staff. A man and a woman, his right hand and his left. The woman was too good to lose, so he kept her.

The executive assistants, me at the top of the list, and the junior aides weren't so lucky.

And even if I stayed, it wouldn't be pretty. Some morning the future Mrs. Kingsley decides she doesn't like the look of me, and that's that.

Back in the office, a few people from other departments had come by to get forms stamped. They saw me and turned, all sympathy.

"When's your last day, Sloane? We should grab lunch."

I dragged out my chair and folded onto the desk.

"Next month at the earliest. Paperwork takes time."

"Paperwork? You don't wait around to get canned."

"Not canned," I said. "He's not going to fire me. Somebody send me a resignation template."

Chapter 4

Thank you for the opportunity to grow with the company.

For personal reasons.

I've decided to resign.

I hit send.

I pushed back from the keyboard and let out a long breath.

Colton's throwaway line came back to me. He kept the kid, so he must've been crazy about the mother.

The truth was, I didn't know what Everett felt for me.

Back when I worked in New York, my building was the kind of place people landed in their first year in the city. A little of everything. A lot of nobody-knows-who.

It was where I got followed for the first time in my life.

And then where someone jimmied my door for the first time.

I wasn't sleeping deep that night. My phone buzzed me awake.

The peephole cam was throwing an alert. Someone had been standing outside my door too long.

The man on the screen was masked. Hat, gloves. I couldn't see his face, and the bulky coveralls swallowed his build.

He worked the lock like a professional. Quick, clean. Every so often he'd glance back and trade a low laugh with someone behind him.

I stood frozen in the living room for a few seconds. Then went for a knife in the kitchen on instinct.

I backed into the bedroom, eyes locked on the cam, and stumbled through a 911 call.

Then I called Everett.

His voice came rough, dragged up out of sleep. "What is it."

"Someone's breaking into my apartment," I said.

A one-second stop on his end.

Then the rustle of him sitting up, pulling on a shirt. Awake, all at once. Completely.

"How many are outside. Are they armed."

"I only saw two. No knife that I could see. I don't know what's on them."

His voice smoothed out. "Don't cry. Get in the bedroom and lock the door."

The cam went black.

The front door sighed open. Footsteps crossed into the living room and came closer.

The thief started pushing on the bedroom door.

I gripped the knife and thought about rushing out, getting the first hit in.

Adrenaline had me swaying on my feet. I clenched the handle and couldn't make my hand feel sure of it.

Then noise erupted on the other side of the door.

A few heavy thuds.

Cursing tangled up with cries of pain. Glass cracking, things hitting the floor, clatter everywhere.

"Everett?"

"Here." His voice came muffled, winded. "Stay in there. It'll be done in a minute."

I wiped the sweat off my face and sat on the edge of the bed, wrung out.

Until the knock came. I dragged the furniture off the door.

The living room was wrecked. One of them lay on the floor, barely breathing, getting hauled toward the door by an ankle like a dead hog.

Everett wiped the blood off his knuckles and pulled me in against him.

Cold clung to his coat. The chill smell of tobacco loosened off his skin as my warmth found it.

He held me tight. Bent his head and kissed my hair.

The men with him cleared their throats.

"Boss. What do we do with them?"

"Check if they've got priors. See that they do a few extra years."

He kept his hand at the back of my head. Voice flat, even.

I stayed buried in his shoulder and mumbled into it.

"Are they your friends? Coming all the way out here this late. We should feed them dinner sometime."

"It's nothing," he said. "Go rest. I'm staying tonight."

The cops came. Everett lit a cigarette and steered me back toward my room.

The low blur of talk didn't last long.

He climbed into bed and locked me against him from behind.

I was still shaking.

"You're not scared anymore," he said. "This won't happen again."

I turned over and kissed him, fast, hungry.

Everett went still for a second.

He was never slow about this. I knew him quick and certain, no ceremony to any of it.

That night, for once, he took his time.

Chapter 5

He only caught my hands and looped them behind his neck.

Rolled us, pressed me down light, and kissed me back.

Late-autumn wind snapped outside. His skin ran hot.

When he cupped the side of my face, I felt it, honestly. Loved.

But I'd chewed the old story over too many times. It had gone flavorless, like gum chewed long past any taste.

Sitting across a negotiating table from him in the Kingsley house, I couldn't lie to myself with that thin sweetness anymore.

He loved me about the way you love a pretty pet. Wouldn't touch me himself, wouldn't stand for anyone else's hands on me either.

That was all.

Then it was Friday, and the day ended.

The resignation email was already sent. Monday, earliest, before anyone would answer it.

I cleared the odds and ends off my desk, erasing myself from it slowly.

I didn't expect the call.

Colton phoned Sunday night. Sounded like he'd just landed, noise behind him.

"Sloane. This 'personal reason' in your letter. What's the reason?"

"I'm twenty-nine, Mr. Kingsley. Time to settle down."

He went quiet a second.

"This isn't because you're scared I'll still try to set you up with my brother, is it? Don't overthink it."

"It's not," I said. "I met someone through matchmaking. Good fit. I was planning to leave around now anyway."

"What's his background?"

"Nothing flashy. Associate professor at a university."

"Huh. Fine. Work your last thirty days and I'll cut you a bonus. Call it a wedding gift."

"Thank you, Mr. Kingsley."

"One more thing," he said.

"Pick out something a little girl would like. You're flying back to New York with me Friday."

A little girl.

I went blank for a moment.

"...Of course, Mr. Kingsley."

It was my first time inside the old Kingsley house.

The main hall was warm with laughter. Staff moved through it refilling tea and trays like they could do it in their sleep.

I trailed behind Colton with the gift box.

Every eye in the room slid past him and landed on me.

His fiance's went up like struck matches.

"And who is this?" Miss Pennington looked me over, wearing a smile that reached nothing.

Colton dropped onto the couch beside the old woman and answered without a care. "Just my assistant. Had her pick out something for Jade. She's only dropping it off."

The room eased.

I dipped my head at them, again and again, and handed the box to a staffer. "I'll get out of your way, then, Mr. Kingsley."

He lifted a hand, careless.

I turned to go, and my eyes snagged, out of nowhere, on a girl at the top of the stairs.

Five, maybe six. A wine-red tartan cape dress, and she was hopping down the curve of a spiral staircase.

Behind her, a man with his eyes lowered. No jacket, bands clipped around the arms of his shirt, sleeves rolled back off lean, hard forearms.

Two fingers hooked lightly into her collar, holding her steady.

Something in my chest gave one small, hard shudder.

The girl locked onto me. Then she bolted down the last of the stairs and ran.

On the sofa, the old woman opened her arms, beaming. "Come here, sweet Jade. Come to Grandma."

I couldn't take my eyes off her.

Jade Kingsley.

Something precious.

She was Jade.

I dragged my gaze back, scrambled to fix my face, and moved to leave.

And got caught around the leg, held tight.

Her hands were hot. She hung off my leg like a little weight, heavy and soft.

She tipped her head back, looked up at me, and said it like she had no doubt in the world.

"Mama