Page 4 of Cruel King
“Fine. Let yourself be pussy whipped. What do I care?” I say as I grab my sketch pad and a pencil.
Since I’m not going to get to see this damn game, it seems, I might as well amuse myself doing something I enjoy. I’ve shot enough games of pool for a lifetime, and I’m not in the mood for foosball, so doodling it is.
Theo breaks and sinks a few balls to start his game with Marius, but I know how this will end. Like every other game of pool played in this house with him, Marius will end up kicking his ass. He may be a jaded fuck who hates the idea of love even more than I do, but he’s a hell of a pool player.
My father strolls into the game room and looks around like he’s trying to find something. Or maybe somebody, except everyone who lives in this house is now here with his arrival. Well, not the staff, but he wouldn’t come up here looking for any of them.
“You boys look like you’re enjoying yourselves,” he says with a chuckle. “Why isn’t anyone doing anything with Ronan?”
The baby of the family, he’s the favorite of our father. Marius and Kellen look at one another and then at Ronan before rolling their eyes.
“He’s busy with his woman,” Marius says with a healthy dose of disgust in his voice.
My father looks over at the sofa where his youngest sits engrossed in his phone and then turns to look at me. “Ah, to be young again. Oh well. Get ready. You need to come to the city with me today.”
Instantly, dread fills every inch of me at the mere suggestion that I need to go to the city with him, which means he wants me to help him with something regarding the family business. “What for?” I ask, already knowing the answer and hating it.
He gives me a look of pure disappointment that morphs into a glare he thinks I deserve because I don’t care about learning anything about King Industries. “Because I want you to. It’s about time you start learning the business you’ll one day take over when I’m gone.”
When he’s gone. As if his demise is imminent. Maximilian King is all of fifty-five. Why does he act like he’s about to leave this earth any day now?
I know the answer to that without thinking too much about that question. Since my mother died, he’s been sure his own mortality is about to become all too obvious long before he thought it ever would. Losing your wife when she’s only forty-five will do that to a man.
As sympathetic as I am, that doesn’t mean I’m interested in getting involved in anything having to do with King Industries. I’m the oldest son, so it’s expected, but I’m not happy about it and want to put off that eventual inevitability as long as possible.
“I’m not really into it today, Dad. Some other time.”
I turn my focus back to my sketchbook, but that vague answer isn’t good enough for him. “No. Today it is. We’re leaving in a few minutes, and I expect you to be sitting next to me in that car when it leaves this house, Matthias.”
Great. Now I have to think up a lie on the fly so I don’t get roped into his business trip to the city on what’s supposed to be a vacation week. This is why he’s going to die earlier than he wants. The man never takes more than one day off at a time. I can’t remember the last time he took a vacation. Probably the year before my mother died, and that was seven years ago.
Mustering a cough, I pretend to be too sick to go with him. “Really, Dad, I wish I could, but I’m feeling like shit today. I think I might be coming down with something. You don’t want me spreading it to everyone at King Industries headquarters, do you?”
My father levels his gaze full of disbelief on me and stares into my eyes, as if he thinks he’s going to find the truth somewhere in them. He’s on the wrong path there, for sure. As the oldest, I’ve had to master the art of looking like something I’m not so I haven’t gotten stuck doing a million and a half things he thinks would be perfect for his firstborn. Faking a little sickness is nothing for me.
“You should be in bed then,” he says in his best attempt at being sympathetic, even though he likely doesn’t believe I’m anything close to sick.
I choke out another half-hearted effort at coughing and nod. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Maybe I should spend the day in bed.”
He twists his face into a grimace and turns toward my brothers still shooting pool. “Would any of you like to take a trip into the city? You won’t have to spend all of it at my office, of course.”
How nice for my younger brothers that they aren’t expected to keep their noses to the grindstone when they go into Manhattan. That chore is exclusively for me.
Everyone but Ronan jumps at the chance to get away from the house for a day in the city. As they hurry out of the room to get ready, my father turns to his youngest and smiles.
“So what do you have planned today, son?” he asks in a tone sweeter than anything I’ve ever been able to get from him.
“Just hanging out with Kate when she gets back from exchanging some sweater her grandmother bought her,” he answers, momentarily ignoring his phone.
My brother may be whipped by that girlfriend of his, but he’s not stupid. He knows ignoring his brothers for a text is fine, but to stay on our father’s good side, he should at least pretend like he cares what he says.
Not that it’s really necessary. As the baby of the family, Ronan could set the house on fire and stand outside watching it burn with the damn matches in his hand and my father would still fawn all over him. Such is the life of the youngest in the King family.
The oldest, however, doesn’t get that kind of treatment. I’m expected to excel at everything. In school, I needed to be on the Dean’s List every semester, or I heard about it. And no lounging around texting some girl for hours on end. Oh, no. Not for the firstborn son of Maximilian King. That’s not the way the heir to the King fortune should act.
Not that I’ve ever been the type to be whipped by a woman.
“Okay. Be sure to tell Kate I hope she and her family had a lovely holiday. Will her family be joining her for the party?”