Trusting the Billionaire

Chapter Three: Family dinner

The King family townhouse smelled like it always did on Sunday evenings, rosemary and butter, and beneath that, the faint ghost of his mother's perfume lingering in every room she'd passed through that day. Marshall loosened his tie in the foyer, already regretting that he'd said yes to this.

He knew exactly what this dinner was. His mother had said she missed him, which he interpreted as "I have found another girl to pressure you to marry." He did not even understand why she was so damned insistent on him settling down. She had said one too many times that the earlier one married, the earlier they'd retire from raising a child, she didn't want her kids to end up bringing up children when they were much older and should be vacationing instead.

The moment she saw him taking off his coat in the foyer, she walked up to him and said, "I have invited someone for you to meet, and you will be gracious about it."

"You know my best friend Carol, her daughter has grown up to be quite a sweetheart," she continued as they both walked to the dinner room. She wore a beautiful blue gown which complemented her eyes, and a cream-colored pearl necklace which she favored for casual outings with friends.

"You remember Jane. Aunt Carol's daughter."

"Jane, darling, pardon me for leaving you unattended. Marshall is here." "Both of you were quite inseparable in kindergarten."

Marshall could only groan inwardly. How was he supposed to remember a close friend from kindergarten?

Jane was pretty in an unassuming way soft brown waves, a cautious smile, the look of someone who'd been told this evening mattered more than it should.

Marshall shook her hand, murmured something polite, and resigned himself to two hours of small talk he had no interest in. They settled into the sitting room while the last course was finished in the kitchen. Jane made a valiant effort at conversation, asking about his work, admitting she didn't understand half of what a hedge fund actually did, laughing a little at her own honesty. Marshall found himself softening despite his better judgment. She wasn't unpleasant. She just wasn't what he wanted. He couldn't imagine himself being responsible for another person's peace and happiness, or seeing her face alone for the rest of his life.

A face flashed in his minds eye a beautiful face he had seen four days ago. Audrey Bellamy. He wondered why, but quickly tried to dismiss it. Instead, the face stayed, lodged in his mind, and a peaceful feeling settled over him. For a moment he thought perhaps the evening would pass without incident. He should have known better. Nothing involving his family ever stayed that simple.

They were barely through the first course at the table when the front door opened without a knock, and Kyle's voice carried in ahead of him too loud, too pleased with itself, as always, always trying to be the center of attention. Tatiana, his wife, followed a step behind, elegant and faintly bored, the way she always looked when she was bracing for her husband to make a scene.

"Did I miss the interrogation?" Kyle grinned, dropping into an empty chair at the dining table like he'd been invited, which, Marshall was fairly sure, he hadn't.

"Mum's still trying to marry you off, I see," said Kyle. "I knew it immediately I saw your car and a lady's car in the driveway," he continued, as though anyone had asked for an explanation.

Eleanor's voice carried a warning, gentle but unmistakable. "We weren't expecting you."

"I'm always welcome, aren't I? Family dinner." He reached for the bread basket without waiting to be offered any, and turned his attention to Jane with the kind of smile that made Marshall's jaw tighten on principle.

"You must be the latest volunteer. I'm Kyle. The better-looking brother, if anyone asks."

Jane laughed politely, uncertain, glancing toward Marshall as though checking whether this was normal. It was, unfortunately. Marshall said nothing yet, just watched his brother the way he watched a market he didn't trust, waiting to see how bad it would get before he decided whether to intervene.

Tatiana took her seat beside Kyle with the quiet resignation of a woman who had done this dance before. She caught Marshall's eye once, briefly, something almost apologetic in it, before she looked away and reached for her wine.

Dinner limped along for a while, Eleanor steering the conversation toward safer waters, Jane trying gamely to keep up, Kyle trying to get under Marshall's skin with each glass he poured himself. It was the kind of tension Marshall had learned to sit inside without flinching, the way he sat through hostile board meetings, waiting for whoever was posturing to run out of material. Kyle didn't run out. He rarely did.

"Don't get your hopes up, sweetheart," he said to Jane, cutting straight through a comment she'd been making about the roast. "My brother's about as capable of settling down as a hurricane. Ask literally anyone who's tried."

Jane's smile faltered, her fork pausing halfway to her plate. "Kyle," Marshall said, low and even, the tone he used in boardrooms right before someone lost a great deal of money or their position.

"I'm just saying what everyone's thinking." Kyle spread his hands, all mock-innocence, glancing around the table as though hunting for allies. "No offense, man. It's not your fault you're wired that way. Some men just aren't built for it. Too busy running the empire, not enough room left for anyone else."

Marshall said nothing. He didn't need to raise his voice to make a room go quiet he never had. He simply set down his fork with a precision that felt louder than shouting, and looked at his brother with an expression that made Tatiana suddenly very interested in her wine glass.

"Kyle, that's enough," Eleanor said sharply, but the damage was already sitting on the table between them like a spilled drink no one wanted to clean up.

Jane, to her credit, recovered first. "please excuse me, I want to use the rest room," she said softly, and excused herself from the table with the practiced grace of someone who'd learned to leave a room before it became a story people told later.

Eleanor shot Kyle a look that could have stripped paint. "Was that necessary?"

"What? I'm being honest. Somebody should be." Kyle reached for the wine bottle like he hadn't just detonated something. "He runs a whole empire and can't hold onto anyone longer than a fiscal quarter. It's not an insult, it's an observation. Everyone in this city knows it, I'm just the only one willing to say it to his face."

Marshall felt the anger settle into something colder, more controlled, the version of fury he'd learned to wear like armor, because rage that showed on his face was rage that could be used against him. He'd spent years building a reputation men like Cross couldn't touch, a name that meant something in rooms full of people who wanted to see him fail. It was infuriating that the one person who still knew exactly how to get under his skin, after all these years, was his own brother.

And yet, strangely, he wasn't really offended. No woman had ever held his attention for more than three days. Running his hedge fund business his family's construction company took up all the room a person would need, he only had women for pleasure, most one night stands not lasting more than three outings. So Kyle wasn't entirely wrong. Until Marshall realized, with a jolt he didn't care for, that one woman has held his attention far longer than three days: the CEO of Bellamy Trust.

"You've had your fun," Marshall said quietly. "Don't push it."

"Or what?" Kyle's grin didn't waver, but something flickered behind his eyes the old resentment that never fully went away, the one that had followed them both since they were boys, since Marshall was always the one people expected great things from and Kyle was always the one left standing in the doorway of that expectation, watching.

"Relax. It's a joke," Kyle said.

It wasn't, and they both knew it. It never was, with Kyle. The jokes were always just sharp enough to leave a mark and just deniable enough that he could call them harmless afterward.

Marshall rose from the table, his expression grim, yet he replied calmly, "I am in a relationship. No one just knows it."

"That's bullshit," Kyle said, rising too.

"Language!" Eleanor ordered.

Marshall smirked with the quiet victory of a man who'd just turned a market against an overconfident opponent.

"Prove it," Kyle said.

"Bring your girlfriend to Thanksgiving dinner. Six weeks." He poked Marshall's chest, eyes blazing.

"Fine. Not just my girlfriend, my fiancée." Marshall was never one to back out of a dare; if anything, he raised the stakes.

"And if you don't, you resign as CEO of Kings Construction."

"Now, boys," Eleanor stood, trying to lighten the atmosphere. "There's no need for dares and threats. We're a family, and I'd have a far more peaceful life if you two learned to—"

"Deal," Marshall said, before she could finish.

Tatiana's sharp gasp couldn't even break the tension.

"Well then, I'll see you at Thanksgiving," Kyle said, giving his mother a peck on the cheek. "Thank you for dinner mother."

"honey, he called his wife, shall we?"

He brushed past Marshal with a smirk. Marshall just looked at him blankly, no emotion in his eyes.

Everyone knew Marshall never lost a dare or a bet — but Kyle was certain of one thing: Marshall couldn't find a girlfriend in six weeks, let alone convince anyone to play the part. He was simply too cold for any woman to want to stay.

Marshall offered a curt goodnight to Tatiana. He found Jane in the hallway, coat already in her hands, and apologized — for his brother, for the evening, for the whole miserable performance of it.

"It's not your fault," she said, kind enough to mean it, or kind enough to sound like she did. "Families are complicated." He didn't fully believe her, but he appreciated the lie enough to offer her one of his rare smiles. They parted at the door with the quiet, mutual understanding that neither of them would be calling the other.

He drove himself home instead, jaw still tight, the city lights blurring past the window in long streaks of gold.

He did not know what prompted him to declare he has a girlfriend or even accept such a bet, he had nothing to loose either way. King Construction CEO position which he held, is in his father's request to keep the company running, he had already made a name for himself with Kings Capital.

He told himself he wasn't thinking about the evening anymore by the time he reached his building. He told himself he definitely wasn't thinking about the woman with the five-year plan and the steady voice, who'd sat across his desk four days ago, unshaken by her situation and much less his cold demeanor.

That, of course, was a lie too.