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Blurb

When Aiden King asked me out four years ago, I went from mousy librarian to wife of the most wanted bachelor in Montana in four months flat. No longer the nerdy girl from the wrong side of the tracks, I was a CFO’s wife in a mansion by the river—and my husband was the man of my dreams. I almost couldn’t believe my good fortune.

Turns out, I shouldn’t have believed it. After years of rattling around that mansion alone while Aiden put in long hours at the office, I learned his secret: he’d needed to marry someone, anyone, to fulfill his trust requirements, and the nerdy girl from the wrong side of the tracks had been an easy target.

I never thought I’d be the girl asking a handsome millionaire for a divorce. Now, my pride and I just want to limp back to my family and start over. But to do that, I’ll have to swallow one question. If the trust only required him to be married for a year, why has it been four years since we said I do?

CHAPTER 1

Aiden

Four years and six months ago… 

My office door whipped open. Grams appeared in the doorway like an avenging angel in a business suit. Emilia Boyd never looked like she was relaxed and happy, but today her eyes were narrowed, her mouth pinched. The office LED lights gleamed off her silver bob. “Aiden, meet me in your dad’s office.”

My fingers hovered above my keyboard. I was in the middle of compiling a five-year historical financial report for King Oil’s stakeholders. “Now?”

She just gave me a look that told me to quit being stupid, of course she meant now. Patience wasn’t one of Grams’s virtues.

I saved my work. I had the process of compiling various historical reports down to an art, but it was still time-consuming. One of many time-consuming tasks I had on my list to get done before the next board meeting.

Grams had left my door open, and I stared at it for a moment. What was Grams doing here? Why the urgency? My dad, Gentry, was the CEO of King Oil, and I was the CFO. Grams wasn’t here on a work matter, or we’d know about it.

Oh, Grams wasn’t completely out of the game. King Oil had been hers, founded by her and my grandpa DB under a different name decades ago. Now she stayed on as president of the board of directors. Our monthly meeting had been last week. It didn’t mean she stayed out of the day-to-day operations, but she’d retired enough to give Dad and me breathing room at work.

I had no doubt we’d have to pry her cold, dead fingers away from the building before she ever retired completely.