I rocked forward so suddenly Dad flinched. “Of course I have.” He couldn’t step out of my life whenever it was convenient for him and then charge back in and assume the worst about me when it came to Kate.

“Does she know that?”

I’d never strayed. Never. “She should.”

“All she knows is that you didn’t tell her about something that she thinks was your sole motivation for marrying her. All she knows is that you didn’t tell her she’d get half and so she assumes that’s why you’re still married. Does she know you didn’t give her your mother’s wedding ring?”

I winced. Those rings were Mama’s. She’d never liked me abusing the entitlement I’d grown up with. So ironically, I’d bought a giant ring for Kate. One that she looked at as if it’d grow fangs and bite her. “I bought her a ring that’s her own.”

Dad’s infuriating, steady gaze told me I hadn’t answered his question. “She’s going to question everything. The late nights. The work trips. The hours you spend on your phone or your laptop around her.”

“You do the same around Kendall.”

He ticked a finger out. “One, Kendall works at the company. She knows what I do better than anyone.” Another finger. “Two, I didn’t have a trust hanging over my head with stipulations.” A third finger went up as his gaze intensified. “Three, and this one is the most important, we talk. We talk about how we feel, we talk about work, and we talk about us.”

I clenched my jaw. I lost on all three points. No wonder my marriage had been taken down by a little gossip.

“It’s the talking, Aiden, that’s the most important. When your mother died, I held it all in. I did what felt good and took the pain away. I filled a gaping hole with temporary company and kept it all to myself and it wasn’t until you—” He rubbed his temples. “It wasn’t until it looked like you married Kate for the money that I realized I’d been a piss-poor example of a man.”

This was the first time Dad had acknowledged, to me at least, that his promiscuous behavior had been tied to grief, to not knowing how to deal with Mama being gone and having four kids to raise on his own. He’d had the luxury of getting away, of finding some solace in someone. I hadn’t had that.

The sharpest edge of my resentment dulled. He’d been hurting, and I’d been angry at him for so long, so damn furious, that I hadn’t been able to look at it directly. Instead, I’d focused elsewhere: single-minded determination to secure the fiscal future of all things King.

I was exhausted.