The Fearless King (The Kings #2)(2)

Her stomach twisted in knots, the knots growing thorns when Anderson didn’t immediately jump in to contradict their father. The walls inched closer, the large room morphing into something too tight and close and cramped to fit three people. Not enough air. I can’t get enough air. She lost the battle for calm and clenched the armrests of the chair.

Anderson shifted, drawing her attention to him like a drowning victim seeking a life preserver. His blue eyes, so similar and yet so different from their father’s, held rage and regret. “Unfortunately, he’s telling the truth. It appears the Bancroft family helped fund the initial seed money that got Kingdom Corp off the ground. Elliott stood as silent partner while our mother ran the company, but he’s technically in possession of twenty percent of the company shares.”

Quadruple what she and her three other siblings held individually. Journey gripped the chair tighter, digging her nails into the wood to keep herself from bolting. Damn you, Anderson, you had to know this before today. Why didn’t you tell me? “Mother signed over her shares to you. That should put you firmly as the main shareholder with twenty-five percent.”

If anything, Elliott’s smile widened. “Her shares have to, by contract, be divided equally among our children. That puts each of you at ten percent—and leaves me as main shareholder. No, sweetheart, you won’t get rid of me that easily. I’m here to stay.” He shifted ever so slightly, and Journey flinched. Elliott chuckled and crossed over to sink gracefully into the unoccupied chair next to Journey. “Like I said, there are going to be some major changes happening here at Kingdom Corp now that I’m in charge.”

I know what happens when he’s in charge.

The pressure cooker inside her exploded, forcing her into motion.

She had to get out of there. Out of the office, out of the building. Getting out of Houston itself sounded even better, but that wasn’t an option. Kingdom Corp needed her—and needed her more now than it ever had. The company was theirs, by right and by blood. She hadn’t worked her ass off and bent over backward to meet her mother’s every demand just to hand over the reins to Elliott fucking Bancroft.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she told her brother as she leapt from her chair and strode out of the room as quickly as she could in her heels.

Journey passed her office and took the elevator down to the ground floor. If she could just get to her apartment, everything would be okay. She’d cook some extravagant recipe that required intense concentration and blocked out all the jumbled thoughts kicking around in her head. She’d even work remotely so it wasn’t a wasted evening. At some point, Anderson would come over and he’d anchor her until she was strong enough to face the world again.

If she went home and hid, he won.

Journey stopped on the sidewalk outside Kingdom Corp. Turn left, walk home, go through the same series of events she enacted every time her past showed up to slap her down.

Or turn right, and try something new. She didn’t have to go home yet. She could walk for a while. Go get a drink. Dance a little. Live. Do something—anything—to prove to herself that she wasn’t still that broken little girl.

Even if it was a lie.

*



Frank Evans kept one eye on the monitors as he went over the financial reports a third time. He’d purchased Cocoa’s with the sole goal of getting access to Houston’s elite who frequented the club, and several months in, it had already paid for itself several times over. Deals were made and broken within these walls. Now Frank didn’t need an extensive network of people reporting information to him—he just needed the VIP section of Cocoa’s.

It didn’t hurt that the club made money hand over fist, either.

A stir on the cameras had him leaning closer with narrowed eyes. He knew who it was the second she strode into the VIP section simply by the way the men’s body language shifted. They turned to Journey King like flowers seeking the sun. Even the women weren’t immune, though most of their attention wasn’t sexual in nature.

Frank could hardly blame them. He’d spent far too much time watching Journey since they met. She presented a puzzle box he couldn’t unlock. The woman had more personas than he’d ever seen, and even with his substantial resources, he couldn’t nail down which was the real woman and which was pretend. Party girl. COO of Kingdom Corp. Loyal daughter. Shunned almost royalty. Friend.

It didn’t help that she was gorgeous and confident and showed every evidence of being a decent person despite having a harpy for a mother and working for company he disliked on principle. Her mother trying to have Frank’s best friend murdered should have cooled his interest.

It hadn’t.

He studied her as she cut around the dance floor and made a beeline for the velvet rope dividing the VIP section from the rest of the club. It created the effect of putting the rich and powerful on display for those drawn to that sort of thing, which should have been enough to dissuade said rich and powerful from showing up, but people with money were never logical when it came to soaking up attention from what they considered the rabble. Frank banked on it.

Even obviously distracted, Journey moved with the confidence of a woman who’d never once questioned her role in the world. And why should she? The King family was a staple in Houston since Journey’s great-grandfather settled there and invested in the oil business. Though many of the families who’d done the same thing had fallen off in the intervening years, the King fortune and influence only grew.