King of Greed (Kings of Sin, #3)

by Ana Huang

Once upon a time, I’d loved my husband.

Dominic didn’t care about anything that didn’t make him money.

I was one bad decision away from losing everything. How I was and always would be the butt of every joke, the foster kid whose own biological mother abandoned him and who flunked sixth grade twice.

I shouldn’t have to chase him down or guess his whereabouts. Then again, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what he was doing right now. Working. Always working. Even on our ten-year anniversary.

“I don’t have the money to buy you all the flowers you deserve yet,” he said, sounding so solemn and formal I couldn’t help but smile at the contrast between his tone and the jar of colorful paper flowers in his hands. “So I made them instead.”

A solitary tear turned into two, then three, then a whole flood as I sank to the floor and cried. Every heartbreak, every disappointment, every piece of sadness

and resentment I’d harbored poured out in a river of grief edged with anger. I’d bottled up so much over the years that I was afraid I’d drown beneath the waves of my own emotions.

Then I finally did what I should’ve done a long time ago. I left.

DC. Anniversary. Six p.m. No wonder I’d been walking around with an impending sense of dread all evening. I’d forgotten our goddamned wedding anniversary.

“I’m asking you one last time,” I said quietly. Blood roared in my ears, nearly drowning out my words. “Where is my wife?”

I was already second-guessing my choices. In the bright light of day, my ring finger felt impossibly bare and my decision to leave seemed impossibly rash.

“What good is any of that if I never see you?” My frustration bubbled over to its tipping point. “I don’t care about the fancy penthouse or clothes or jet. I would rather have a husband. A real one, not one just in name.”

Even if it killed me, even if the easiest thing was to fall into his arms and sink into the memory of what we used to be, I had to go through with it. I was already a shell of myself. If I didn’t get out while I could, I’d dissolve into dust, nothing more than a collection of lost time and unrealized dreams.

Divorce meant breaking up. Breaking up meant separating. And separating was simply impossible. It was something that happened to other people, not to us.

“You know I would choose you.” “That’s the thing. I don’t.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “Because you haven’t chosen me. Not in a very, very long time.”

“You honestly think we’ll be happier if we divorce? That I’ll be happier without you? This is us.” The word ripped from my throat, raw and loaded with emotion. “Você e eu. Para sempre.” You and me. Forever.

“We’ll work this out.” The thought of living without her was incomprehensible, like asking a heart to stop beating or the stars to give up the night. “I promise.”

We had to.

“Mrs. Davenport.” The words were lethal in their quietness. “As in my wife. If she wants to see me, she sees me. Don’t ever prevent her from doing so again or the only part of a New York office you’ll see is the outside when I throw you out. Understand?”

I usually got a small brush of his lips or brief, blissful moments of our bodies connecting in the middle of the night, but he hadn’t touched me like this—casual, familiar, intimate—in ages.

“You think this is what this is about? My ego?” His eyes flashed. “Dammit, Ále, it’s been a week. One week, and you already have that asshole lawyer serving me

divorce papers. We haven’t even tried to fix things yet. There’s

I’m sorry I missed our anniversary dinner and so many more dinners before that. Flowers alone won’t make up for it, but give me a chance to make amends in person and I will. A thousandfold.

So many promises. He’d only kept a fraction of them, but I fell for them every time. Not this time.

“Ask me again on another day, and my answer might be different. I would stalk you if it meant you’d talk to me again.” “How romantic.” “I’m past romantic, Alessandra. I’m desperate.”

A smile ghosted his mouth when I sighed, and I caught the tiniest glimpse of the man he used to be—the one who carried me uphill in the pouring rain because my heel broke, who kissed me good night every night no matter how late he came home, and who attempted to bake one of the elaborate cakes I’d saved on Pinterest for my birthday.

A stab of sentimentality drained the fight out of me. I sighed again, already exhausted from keeping myself together in his presence. “Sign the papers, Dom.”

I would’ve balked at the thought of losing half my fortune, but all I could think about was how badly I wanted to kiss her. A real kiss, not like the perfunctory ones I usually gave her when I came home because I’d been too tired from work.

I wanted Alessandra back in our bed, our house, our life. I’d been missing a vital piece of myself since she walked out, and it was incredible to think I’d somehow taken her for granted when I needed her more than I needed to breathe.

I hated the effect he had on me. I hated how my eyes always went to him in a room full of people and how I couldn’t stop thinking about him no matter how hard I tried. Most of all, I hated how I couldn’t hate him, not even a little bit.

No matter how many times he broke my heart, there would always be a piece that belonged to him.

“When the chaos erupted and everyone was running, you were the first person I looked for. I didn’t want to, but I did.”

I was usually in the office by six, but I didn’t want to wake up and find out last night had been a dream.

“You’re right. I do still love you. A part of me always will. But you’re not the person I fell in love with anymore, and all this time that I’ve spent trying to pretend you are? It’s killing me.”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever loved.” I didn’t recognize my voice. It was too raw, too laced with emotions I’d sworn I would

never feel. “Even if I didn’t show it. It’s always been you.”

I retrieved a pen, slid a sheaf of documents out from the waiting manila envelope, and, after one last, agonizing heartbeat, I signed our divorce papers.

“You can go on as many dates as you want, amor,” Dominic said softly. “But no one will love you like I do. Você e eu. Não tem comparação.”

I watched as he broke the kiss halfway through, threw his girlfriend over his shoulder, and walked deeper into the ocean with admirable ease.

“Josh, don’t you dare! I’m going to kill you!”

Josh and Jules ♥️

“You invited my ex-husband to dinner! We divorced two months ago, and he followed me to Brazil!”

“You shouldn’t be here.” A strange mix of fatigue and adrenaline coursed through my veins. “This isn’t healthy for either of us. We just got divorced. We can’t move on if you insist on following me everywhere.”

“I signed the papers because you asked me to, not because I wanted to.”

“By not pushing me away.” His throat flexed. “That’s all I ask. A chance for us to talk and get to know each other as we are now. I want to know what makes you laugh, what makes you cry, what your dreams look like when you sleep and what keeps you up when you can’t. I’ll spend however many lifetimes I need to rediscover those parts of you, because you’re it for me. In every iteration of every life. Things may have changed since we got married, but you and me? We were always meant for forever.”

I couldn’t believe she was real, and partly because it took her leaving the city, leaving me, to find happiness again. Out of everything, that hurt the most.

“I actually have something for you.” She reached into her pocket and retrieved a small silver object. She pressed it into my free hand, her eyes so tender it wrenched at my heart. “A reminder. No matter how dark it gets, you can always find a light.”

“I’m not your wife anymore.” I shouldn’t have drunk so much.

“No.” He didn’t take his eyes off mine. “But you’re still my love. That hasn’t changed.”

Some wanted the myth and legend of Dominic Davenport; I wanted the man. Used to want. Past tense, a stern voice reminded me.

“That’s what I pay you for. Take care of the problem, Caroline, because I’m not leaving Brazil until Alessandra does.”