“Start with the good,” Lucas told him. “It’ll give me strength for the rest of it.
“Okay, good news is, we got the deal.”
Rafe and Lucas both laughed in relief. “Well, why the hell didn’t you say so?” Rafe crowed.
“I knew you could do it,” Lucas said. “I told Rose just last night that nobody can stand against Sean when he turns on the King charm.”
“Hmm…” He would have agreed a couple of days ago. But, since meeting Melinda Stanford, he had to admit that his charm apparently had limits. She hadn’t proposed to him because she was blown away by his wit and seductive powers. And she sure as hell wasn’t tumbling into his bed. Yet.
“Okay,” Rafe said. “Let’s have the bad news.”
“How bad can it be?” Lucas said, still grinning. “We got the deal. We can start construction right away and—”
“Let him finish,” Rafe said without taking his gaze from Sean’s.
Sean kept his eyes fixed on Rafe, since there was no point in trying to avoid it anyway. “Okay, the thing is, looks like I’m getting married.”
Silence.
His brothers just stared at him. Then they turned to look at each other before shifting their gazes back to Sean in a move that was so smooth it looked choreographed.
“Married?” Rafe said.
“Are you nuts?” Lucas asked.
“The black-haired woman?” Rafe asked.
“The very one,” Sean told them. “Melinda Stanford.”
“Walter’s granddaughter. That’s why the phone call.”
Sean looked at Lucas and nodded.
“You met her, fell in love and proposed all in twenty-four hours?” Rafe demanded, his voice hitching higher with every word.
Sean stiffened. “Who said anything about love?”
“Then what the hell, Sean?”
“I made a deal with Melinda. We get married, the Kings get the land.”
“Oh hell no,” Rafe argued. Clearly outraged, his spine went stiff and his chin jutted out as if he were stepping into a knock-down, drag-out fight.
“This is ‘taking one for the team’ to a whole new level,” Lucas put in.
Sean rubbed one hand across his face and prayed again that the aspirin he took would start working before his head exploded. “It’s done. I made the deal, and I’ll stick with it.”
“Why would you do that?”
He snapped, “I didn’t see any other way to get the property.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“No, I’m not,” Sean said, reeling in the irritation starting to churn inside. “It’s a temporary thing. Two months and we’ll get a divorce. But the Kings will still have the land.”
Lucas shook his head as if he couldn’t think of anything to say—which under other circumstances might have been funny. Rafe, on the other hand, wasn’t having that problem.
“You can’t do this, Sean,” he said tightly. “Getting married knowing you’re getting a divorce just isn’t—”
“What,” he asked, “right?”
“What I want for you,” his older brother finished pointedly. “When you get married it should damn well mean something.”
Sean gritted his teeth and bit back the words he wanted to say. That getting married didn’t mean anything to some people. That he’d already tried marriage a long time ago and wasn’t interested in repeating that mistake. That the only reason he had agreed to this farce was so that his family could get what they needed—and because he had an escape clause written into the bargain.
His brothers were happily married to wonderful women they each loved desperately. They would never understand Sean’s point of view. And why would they? His brothers didn’t know that Sean had already been married once before. In fact, no one knew about that very brief, very messy marriage and divorce and that was how he wanted it.
Kings made mistakes, sure. But they didn’t talk about them and they for damn sure didn’t share their feelings about them. It had been Sean’s mistake, and he’d cleaned it up. Dredging it back up now wouldn’t serve any purpose at all.
When he felt like he could speak without clenching his teeth even tighter, Sean said, “Don’t think of it as a marriage. Just a merger.”
“Damn strange way to do business,” Lucas muttered.
“Strange or not, we’re getting what we want out of it,” Sean told them. And that’s what he had to keep uppermost in his mind. This was for the Kings. For their future. Going into business on this hotel with their cousin Rico would take their construction company to an even higher level than where they already were and that was something that was worth any risk. “Walter’s going to have the deed to the property drawn up for our signatures before the wedding.”
“Which is when?” Rafe wanted to know.
“By the end of the week,” Sean said and swallowed hard as if there were a noose around his neck, tightening. Ridiculous. He had agreed to this, and he wouldn’t back out.
“A week?” Lucas stared at him, stunned.
“Tell us when,” Rafe said. “We’ll be there.”
“No.” Sean shook his head, in spite of the throbbing behind his eyes.
“What do you mean, no?” Lucas demanded, with a glance at Rafe to make sure he was just as pissed.
He was.
“Of course we’ll be there for you, you moron,” Rafe said. “We’re not going to let you do this on your own.”
“Damn it, Rafe,” Sean said, “it’s not like this is the real deal. It’s business and that’s all it is.”
“Doesn’t seem right not being there,” Lucas muttered. “We support each other. Always have. Always will.”
He smiled in spite of everything, grateful for his brothers and the strong family ties they had. But love his brothers or not, he didn’t want them there for the wedding. There was just no point. And damned if he’d listen to Rafe and Lucas—or worse yet, Katie and Rose—giving him grief for doing what he knew he had to do.
“It’s fine,” Sean insisted, meaning every word. “It’ll be easier on me if you’re not here.”
“Won’t Stanford expect your family to be there?”
Damn. Wincing, he silently acknowledged that he hadn’t really considered that.
“Probably,” he admitted, but shook his head again anyway. “I’ll just tell him it happened too fast for you guys to get out here.”