King's Queen

by Marie Johnston

  Would I have invited him to?

  We had all this acreage and I rarely did more than grow a few flowers and take walks. It was made for kids to roam, build snowmen, and find frogs.

  Violet sat up. Her fine blond hair stuck up in a million directions, a dandelion gone to seed and ready to blow away.

  I rubbed her back and murmured for her to go back to sleep, but she shook her head and stumbled to the bathroom.

  She’d managed to stay awake long enough to yell Happy New Year at midnight with my intoxicated family and her overstimulated brothers. Then she’d fallen asleep on the drive to the house.

  I’d taken way too much pleasure watching Aiden lift her out of the pickup and cradle her into the house. We’d put her in the guest bedroom across from our room, but as soon as I’d wiggled between the covers next to Aiden in our bed, she’d cried out.

  A strange room in a strange house.

  I’d led her to our bed and she’d been asleep before her head hit the pillow.

  She trudged out of the bathroom. “Can we have pancakes for breakfast?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I made Aiden’s protein shake and left it on the island instead of taking it down to him. Violet helped me measure ingredients. Flour dusted the counter and the floor by the time we were done, along with the residue of an egg I’d swiped up right away.

  Seeing my kitchen dirty like this filled me with a sense of rightness. And that gave me pause.

  Aiden bounded up the stairs, wearing his usual workout gear plus a shirt, since we had company. He smiled at us. Lines of fatigue fanned around his eyes. He spotted his shake and beelined toward us.

  “Thanks.”

  “Welcome.” I peeked at him while pretending to watch Violet whisk the eggs. I loved seeing him after he worked out. Sweaty. Casual. His thoughts weren’t as rigidly guarded. He usually smiled easier, laughed more. But this morning his shoulders hung lower, and when he closed his eyes to chug his shake, he left them closed a few heartbeats longer.

  “Did you get enough sleep?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” was all he said. He put his empty shaker in the dishwasher. “I’m gonna shower. Let me know when breakfast is ready?”

  Violet bounced on her toes. “I’ll make you a special pancake, Uncle Aiden.”

  Another fatigue-lined smile. “Thanks, Petal.”

  She giggled. “Welcome, Bud.”

  The nickname was cute. They’d come up with it last night when Violet asked why people called her dad Mattie instead of Matt. Could I be called Violetie? Aiden had countered that nicknames could also be a play on a name. Like Flower, Petal, or Bud for Violet. She’d lobbied hard for Petal. Then started calling Aiden Bud.

  With her help, making pancakes and eggs took longer than normal. Aiden hadn’t come out of the bedroom yet. I wiped counters while Violet swept. Aiden still wasn’t out.

  “Do you mind getting silverware and napkins? I’ll get Aiden.”

  Our bedroom door was closed. His voice drifted through the door. “I get it.”

  I hated to bug him, but I’d just signal him somehow that breakfast was ready. I cracked the door. He was on the edge of the bed, his head in his hand while he listened. His damp hair was pushed back like he’d run his fingers through it a few times since he’d gotten out of the shower.

  “No, I know, but I’m going to be objective.” He glanced at me. The resounding pressure in his eyes faded, but didn’t disappear. “Yes, I’ll get those too.” His shoulders went rigid. “I remember what happened, Grams. All I’m doing is compiling numbers. Yes, I know we’re on the downswing of a boom.”

  Aw, heck. Emilia had caught wind that the board was getting approached about adding high-level positions and she was readying herself. Why couldn’t she see what it was doing to her family?

  “Bye, Grams.” He clicked off and tossed the phone aside. Scrubbing his face, he muttered, “I shouldn’t have answered.”

  In all the years I’d witnessed him giving one thousand percent to that company, I’d never heard him say that. That he’d said it in regard to his grandmother was depressing. “How’d she hear of it?”

  He reclined on his hands. “Kendall sent the agenda out yesterday, hoping Grams would think about it over the holiday before she bombarded us. We didn’t want the board to think we were jumping them with this request. We want to be transparent.”

  “And what is your grandmother’s problem with taking a day to think about it?”

  He gave his head a little shake. “Unfortunately, they’re valid concerns. Not insurmountable, but valid.”

  “Okay?” I took a seat next to him.

  “How are current employees going to feel about new positions with market-comparable wages? New hires making more is never good for morale. Even if all current positions get the same bump, there are still those employees who will point out how much less they made when they started. Then there’s the promotions. Could any in-house promotions cause declines in morale? Competition in the workplace can be good to a point, until an employee feels like they’ve lost a chance for upward mobility, or that the promotions weren’t fair. If we hire outside of the firm instead of promoting from within, how will that look to lower-echelon employees? We could have a mass exodus, which would increase costs as we recruited, filled, and trained those positions.” He dropped his head back. “I haven’t even run the numbers for the meeting yet. It’s in two weeks. I was going to do that today.”

  “Violet and I will stay out of your way.”

  “I know. I just wish…” He rolled to his hip to face me. “Why have we never had sleepovers?”

  The sudden change in subject made my head spin. Sleepovers? “I don’t know, but I’ve been wondering that. You were working. And I guess if you weren’t, I wanted my time with you.” I picked at the comforter. Brushed off invisible lint. I’d been greedy about my time with him, wanting him to myself for the scraps I was given.

  He frowned and sat up. “Damn, Kate. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. They’re welcome whenever you want. I’ll try to carve out time—” His frown deepened. “We haven’t talked about kids since before we married.”

  No. We hadn’t. I tried not to think about the march of time passing me by. The heaviness in my chest when I saw friends with their babies and kids. Coworkers sharing the trials of motherhood with each other.

  “You said you wanted to settle into the marriage first,” I said carefully. “Do you feel like we’re there?”

  I squeezed air out of my lungs and wicked in another breath as he thought about the answer.

  Violet leaned through the door, one hand clutching the doorknob and the other on the doorframe. Her little shoulders stuck out and she cleared her throat like we were the ones interrupting her. “Your special pancake is getting cold, Uncle Aiden.”

  His soft grin kept hope simmering in my heart. Was I still naïve, still thinking Aiden could strike the balance he was so certain of?

  “Can’t have that.” He pushed off the bed and held out a hand for me.

  I slipped my fingers into his strong grip. I met his gaze and smiled. I shouldn’t slip into my default nothing’s wrong here mode, but I did. For now.

  Chapter 17

  Aiden

  * * *

  Kendall was slumped in a chair across from me in my office, one booted leg crossed over the other as she leaned on the armrest. “That was a train wreck.”

  The office building was mostly empty, the board meeting over. Kendall, Dad, and I were in my office with the door closed. Emilia had said her piece. A long spiel about company integrity. A family-based business straying from its roots. How would it look?

  Dad and Kendall had been prepared. Data. Figures. Projections. How our current efforts exceeded the grass roots of the place in all the best ways.

  But Grams had a way of picking up on weaknesses and exploiting them with emotion. An amazing talent from a grandmother who’d never shown much emotion besides anger and derision.

&nbs
p; It’d been enough to split the vote. Without a resounding yes, we had to come up with another proposition that included fewer positions and lower wages.

  “She’s always been resistant to change,” Dad said. “We’ll keep trying.”

  Kendall pressed her fingertips to her temples. “We’re already close to bare minimum. Her morale argument is bullshit. We can promote from within for the marketing and human resources positions. Even for the more general VP and the finance VP.”

  “She’s going to want that one cut.” I shouldn’t have spoken. Kendall and Dad had done all the talking during the meeting, presenting information, including detailed stats of the hours they worked in the office and out of it.

  Grams had scrutinized me. Years ago, she’d been the one to back me when I’d proposed eliminating the financial VP position after Sebastian was fired. Today, Grams had perceived my silence as a lack of support for the proposition. Maybe she thought she was championing me. Did I want her to?

  I didn’t want to directly oversee anyone, but that didn’t mean I thought our family company hadn’t outgrown the constraints Grams had set decades ago.

  I should appreciate the support, but my gut churned. I might need to stop after work and grab a few Tums.

  Dad leveled a fatherly gaze on me. “Do you really think you can keep going like this?”

  “I’m making it work.”

  “Life needs to be about more than making it work.”

  I spread my hands. “What do you want? You wanted numbers; I got you numbers. You wanted me to work things out with Kate; we’re back together. You wanted me as CFO; I’m a damn good CFO that can do the job of three employees.”

  Kendall nibbled her lip while she watched us. I hadn’t meant to get so defensive.

  “I never wanted you to be the CFO if that wasn’t what you wanted.”

  Shock kept my mouth shut for several moments. “What do you mean?”

  He looked at me like I should already have a basic understanding of what he’d said. “You wanted to work at King Oil. I helped make it happen.”

  “You said…” What? I struggled to recall conversations we’d had before I left for college. They’d been superficial. Logistical. About what degree I should get. When I could start. What position would best benefit me until I became CEO. Anything to tap-dance over what we’d really been feeling in the moment.

  Dad’s mouth tightened. “All I wanted was for you to do something that made you happy. All of you. I was sucked into the business because I didn’t have a choice. I was having a family before I graduated high school. My parents’ health wasn’t the best. Your grams and DB had all the answers. I was a scared kid who just wanted to ranch, but I had a baby on the way and no money. Then another baby.” His lips quirked. “And another and another. I worked my ass off to provide so you and your brothers could do what you wanted in life. I’ve given everything to this company so all of you could have the choice in life I didn’t.” He reclined in his chair, realization dawning simultaneously with mine. “You didn’t want to work here?”

  I couldn’t respond. Anything other than “Yes, I wanted to work here” would be a lie.

  “Aiden?” Dad asked gently. “Did I make you feel like you had to?”

  I shook my head and avoided his gaze—and Kendall’s compassionate one. He hadn’t made me feel like I didn’t have to either. We hadn’t gotten that in-depth in any of our discussions. If he’d spoken up, would I have let it sway me from Grams and DB’s expectations? It didn’t matter all these years later, so all I said was, “It’s a good job.”

  “It’s an excellent job,” Dad agreed. “There are others out there who want to do it.”

  “I want to do it.”

  “Do you? Or since you’re here, are you going to make sure you do the best job possible because that’s your personality?”

  “It’s not a personality trait, it’s expected. And it doesn’t matter. I’m the King Oil CFO now.”

  But Dad wasn’t to be brushed off. This wasn’t the same dad from high school. This dad didn’t give up. “Is that why you took the layoff incident so personally? Because you wanted to do something else and you thought that was what’d caused the oversight?”

  Maybe because Dad had held the position open after the previous CFO resigned. He’d held the position open, hadn’t promoted Sebastian, and slid me right in. I’d gotten the job over other qualified candidates. And I’d fucked up. Sebastian had fucked up, but he might not have if he’d been CFO and some other vice president had had to run the numbers and make their best educated guess.

  “It’s in the past,” I said, my desperation to move beyond this conversation and never think about it again growing.

  “It feels like it’s firmly in the present, Aiden.”

  “Dammit, Dad.” I jumped out of my chair and stalked to the window. Many days, this was my only dose of sunshine. The heat from the window eased the pressure in my head. Damn headaches. “Can you just fucking drop it?”

  In the reflection of the glass, Kendall’s wide gaze was on Dad, but his maddening, steady gaze was glued to my back.

  “Do me a favor, Aiden.” His calm tone only stoked the unreasonable anger coursing through my body. “Think about the opportunities your neutral stance on these positions are costing people. If the way it affects Kendall and me doesn’t bother you, think about how Mrs. Chan might be job hunting because she’s hit the top of the ladder. About the qualified, ambitious applicants out there who’d love to work with a company like ours but had to take jobs with corporate goliaths who only see them as a number and treat them worse. King Oil has been growing for over forty years. Society is going to be dependent on oil-based energy for decades to come, and not only that, we’re uniquely situated to support and develop other energies. It’s an exciting time. There are people out there who want to be a part of it. What’s your part in that?”

  I didn’t turn around but watched in the window as he rose and held his hand out to Kendall. She stood and hugged his waist, leaning her head on his shoulder.

  “It’s not too late to do what you want in life, Aiden. If this is it, so be it. If it’s not, you have an entire family willing to support you. But you need to tell us. You need to talk to us. You can’t keep it all inside. You and I have both experienced the drawbacks of doing that.”

  I stuffed my hands in my pockets. Kate had said something similar not long ago. I was working on opening up with Kate. That was to secure a future with her. My future with the company was secured. I was roped to it no matter what I said.

  He brushed a hand down Kendall’s face and they turned to leave. By the time they reached my office door and opened it, they weren’t touching. Professional coworkers.

  Dad’s words sank in, inch by inch, like a struggling man in quicksand.

  You have an entire family willing to support you. But you need to tell us.

  What would I say? Hey, Dad—can you work even harder than you have because I just want to check out? No, I don’t have a plan. It’s just that work has been an oppressive Groundhog Day since I started. Oh, and can you disrupt my brothers’ lives like they don’t have their own jobs and families who are counting on them?

  No.

  You take after her.

  I leaned my forehead against the cool glass. I was becoming Grams. Stubborn. Unwilling to ask for help. If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up alone like Grams too.

  Planks of cork flooring were piled at the edge of Xander’s garage. He punched the button on the door and closed us in. Savvy and Kate had gone thrifting for office decor. My sister-in-law’s new hobby, now that she had a big garage to work in and a home office that cut out commute time, was to repurpose items for home decorations and sell them at booths in the summer.

  I stayed behind to help Xander put in the floor of her office. Savvy had liked the look of Xander’s office so much, she’d asked him to do her office the same. I eyed the color. Not quite the same. She’d gotten a deal on stock that had been
returned to the supplier. A contractor had ordered the wrong shade of walnut and his customer had been pissed. Sections had been trimmed already, and it was up to me and Xander to complete the puzzle in Savvy’s office.

  Just the challenge I needed to take my mind off the dismal talk in my office a few days ago.

  Kate had sensed something was off, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her anything other than the meeting hadn’t gone well but that we were going to keep working on it. I’d also said I’d add my support to getting an assistant at the very least, and for implementing a round-robin of VP positions.

  During my research, I’d intentionally duplicated Kendall’s attempts. I didn’t second-guess her. I wasn’t micromanaging her. But I’d stumbled across a topic I hadn’t given much thought to.

  Leadership styles. The bios of several of the execs in the companies I’d looked through had referenced transitional leadership. Transactional leadership. What worked better in which environment.

  At no time did any of the execs claim to micromanage, nor did they discuss the long hours they put in. I didn’t doubt that they did. What I doubted was that they were plugging away after everyone else had left because they were doing the tasks better suited for people under them.

  Like I had been doing since Sebastian had been fired.

  I might have the right to take responsibility for what had happened then, but as I read through company ethos, objectives, and mission statements, I could see that I had taken the wrong responsibility. I hadn’t nurtured those under me. I’d let them do their job, but I hadn’t stopped in and asked how they were doing. What they needed from me. What they liked or disliked about their job. Part of me—most of me—had sensed I was part of what they’d disliked. I’d gotten a top corporate gig straight out of college because of my last name. They didn’t know what I’d sacrificed to stay on the fast track through college. I’d given up wrestling and a social life as I’d diligently chiseled away at the mountain of schoolwork to prove I deserved to be King Oil’s CFO.