Chapter Text
“Do you, John Francis Kelly, take Katherine Ethel Pulitzer as your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do.”
“And do you, Katherine Ethel Pulitzer, take John Francis Kelly as your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do.”
“Then, by the power vested in me, by the state of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Two weeks earlier
Royal Wedding Update: Morgan-Pulitzer Wedding Planning in Full Swing
JP Morgan and Joseph Pulitzer, the closest we’ll get to American royalty, have decided to bury the hatchet in the wake of their children’s wedding. But rather than rehash old rivalries, let’s take a look at new love.
Katherine smiled—a tight-lipped thing that would pass as unbelievable if she hadn’t been smiling the same way in front of the paparazzi since she was thirteen—as flashbulbs went off in her face. She stood next to Jack, and they stood behind their fathers.
“Mr. Pulitzer! Joseph! How are you handling the decline of newspaper in an increasingly digital world?” one reporter asked, holding out their microphone.
Her father shrugged. “What can I say? People love their papers still. And thanks to my daughter, who had to set up my Twitter account, The World is taking steps towards a digital platform.”
“JP!” another reporter yelled. “How’s retirement? Was it difficult to leave Chase?”
Slapping her father’s shoulder, JP laughed. “What’s retirement? I may have cut my hours down to forty a week, but the company’s in good hands with my son at the helm.”
“And how has the transition, Jack? The Wall Street Journal reported a three percent dip in your stocks after you took over, care to comment?”
Jack nodded. “Like with any transition, there was a period of adjustment, and we knew there might be some flux in the stocks, but three percent is better than we could have hoped for, really.”
A handful of questions were lobbied towards the men, and Katherine allowed her mind to wander slightly as they did, keeping her careful, neutral mask as she was mostly ignored.
Do I have any food in the fridge at home? Mm, don’t think so… Maybe I should ask Lindsay to have something sent to my apartment—shit, did I miss her birthday? Wait, no, it’s still January. And her birthday isn’t even until after mine, so unless I missed my own birthday…
“Katherine! Katherine, over here!” she heard suddenly, and she turned her smile on the reporter. “Who are you wearing to the wedding? Is it true Vera Wang is making your dress custom?”
Swallowing a thousand retorts right at the tip of her tongue, Katherine simply said, “Vera is an old friend, and I’m so excited, I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s done.”
“Thank you, that’s all the time we have,” Amber, JP’s assistant, said before escorting them to the car. Katherine slid in first, Jack next to her, and their fathers across from them.
“In the future,” Joseph said, all niceties from outside gone in a second. “I do suggest you not jostle me so much.”
“Here we go,” Jack muttered, and she rolled her eyes, reaching for her phone.
“Oh, you always have something to complain about, don’t you, Pulitzer?” JP scoffed. “Tell me again what it’s like to be in a dying industry?”
“No, you know what, I’ll tell you again, my daughter is too good for that no-good son of yours—”
Katherine dropped her phone back in her purse. “Dad. We’re right here.”
“And, with all due respect sir, the marriage was your idea,” Jack added. Her father’s face turned red, and Katherine rubbed her temple.
“Don’t poke the bear,” she grumbled.
Thankfully, the car stopped then, and their driver turned to look at them through the divider. “Miss Pulitzer, this is your stop.”
“Thank you, Jamie.” She looped her purse over her shoulder and accepted the dry peck Jack gave her. “Dad, I’ll see you Friday night for dinner, okay? It was good to see you again, JP.”
Katherine ducked out of the car before any of them could reply and sighed, standing outside The World building. She couldn’t wait for the wedding stuff to die down so she wasn’t constantly ducking in and out of work all the time.
When she made it up to her office, Lindsay stood to greet her, wordlessly handing her a couple aspirin and a bottle of water, both of which Katherine took with a grateful nod.
“Any messages?” she asked, taking a long swig of water.
Lindsay reached back to her desk and picked up a handful of Post-Its. “One from Darcy Reid from The Trib, three from your wedding planner, asking about your decision on centerpieces, and four—no, five—messages from your mother.”
“Dinner or wedding stuff?” she asked, peering at Lindsay over her reading glasses that she’d fished out of her purse in order to read the notes in front of her.
“A bit of both.” Lindsay gave her a smile when she groaned. “Oh, and Sean Conlon is waiting in your office.”
Katherine perked up at that. Sean Conlon had been her friend since undergrad—they’d been in a business law class together and both managed to piss off the professor by asking too many questions apparently. He’d just finished law school and, once he’d passed the Bar, she’d helped him get a job with the law firm her father used.
“He is? Great. Uhm, call Marie back, tell her I like the daisies, I don’t care if they’re not traditional, then call my mom and say yes I will be at dinner Friday and I’ll call her later about the wedding, and have Darcy ready to call when I’m done here, okay?”
Lindsay noted something in her planner. “Got it.”
Katherine smiled. “Thank you so much,” she said, squeezing the other girl’s shoulder before turning towards her office.
Sean looked up as she entered. “Hey, Kathy.”
Pushing her glasses up on her head, she grinned at him. “Hey, Sean. What can I do for you?” She raised an eyebrow as she noticed how nervous he was acting, pulling at the cuffs of his suit jacket and drumming his fingers against his leg.
“Uhm.” He cleared his throat. “This’s… awkward.”
She laughed a bit, rounding her desk to sit down. “Sean, my first period made three gossip magazines. My whole life has been awkward, you’re going to have to do better than that.”
He blinked at her a moment before continuing. “Okay, so… M’—my boss gave me this t’ take an’ get processed before you an’ Jack sign ‘em—” His accent was slipping, a telltale sign of his agitation. “—an’ I couldn’t help it, I took a peek at it.”
“What, our prenuptial agreement?” Katherine asked, furrowing her brow.
He nodded jerkily. “Yeah. Didja read this?”
Tilting her head, she gave him her driest, most disbelieving look. “Sean, do I look stupid to you?”
Sean raised his hands in defense. “When was the last time ya read it?”
Katherine glanced down at her planner. “Week ago yesterday,” she said, tapping her finger against the appointment written in purple ink. “Why?”
He chewed his bottom lip, flipping through the pages in his hand. “Look, here. Addendum dated two days ‘go. Guessin’ you don’t know ‘bout it.”
“Why? What does it say?” Katherine’s blood went cold, though she tried to keep a neutral look on her face.
“In layman’s terms, Jack’s gonna come inta all your assets, ‘cludin’ trusts, stocks, shares… everythin’.”
She felt herself warm slightly. “Yes, both our names go on everything. Same goes for the stocks he has.”
Sean shook his head. “Yeah, but this says even if ya get a divorce, Jack keeps it all.”
“What?”
~*~
Her heels clicked against the pavement as Katherine marched down the sidewalk. Sean had walked her through the addendum, trying to soothe her when she demanded to know how the hell that had happened without her knowledge.
“S’less than a week from the signin'. He was prob’ly bettin’ on you not reading it too closely,” he’d said.
“But how did he get this added?” she’d seethed. “Don’t we both have to be… present, or whatever, both in agreement for something to be added, especially this late?”
“That’s what ‘m lookin’ into Kath. I swear.”
She’d stormed out just after he’d left her office, completely forgetting to call back Darcy. She didn’t take advantage in her role as boss’s daughter often, but no one was going to tell Joseph Pulitzer’s daughter she couldn’t take a half-day, especially when she stormed out the way she had.
Her marriage to Jack was… complicated, had been since the idea was brought up. She and Jack had only even dated to piss off their dads—the Pulitzer-Morgan feud was older than they were, and JP and her dad were in two vastly different fields—but after a year, maybe a year and a half, they realized they just didn't work. At all. The only thing they'd had going for them was they both knew their fathers would hate it.
Fact was, Jack was an Economics major and he kissed—among other things—like one. Katherine had been bored within six months.
But the media ate it up. The Pulitzers and Morgans were two households from where civil blood made civil hands unclean, and she and Jack were their two star-crossed lovers.
Stocks went up for both companies, their father's started acting chummy in front of the cameras, and the day she told her mother and father she'd broken up with Jack, she was sat down for a lecture about 'good will' and 'keeping up appearances' and something about compromises, and one thing led to another and she and Jack were getting engaged.
Jack was stuffier than their dads, dull in any conversation that wasn’t finances—no, actually, especially then—but Katherine never suspected he was capable of something like this.
She needed a drink.
Katherine had been walking for quite a while, a fact made apparent by the fact that she was now in DUMBO Brooklyn—she didn’t even totally recall crossing the bridge, if she was honest.
Ducking into the first bar she saw, Katherine barely hesitated before stalking to the open seat at the bar, plopping her purse in the seat next to her. She hadn’t checked the time before she left, just knew that it was after lunch and far before dinner—frankly, she was shocked that the bar was even open, but thankful for the relative quiet.
The bartender, who had been on the other end of the bar, didn’t comment on the time or her blustering entrance, just moved to stand in front of her and lay a cocktail napkin in front of her.
“What c’n I get’cha?” His voice reminded her of Sean’s, except his accent was thicker, unrestrained.
“Macallan sherry. Neat. Whatever’s the oldest you have.” And, oh, she could hear her mother’s voice chastising her in the back of her mind. Strong liquor like Macallan’s was for gifting and celebrations, not something she should be knocking back at two in the afternoon.
The bartender raised his eyebrows a bit, but turned to get her scotch. Setting the rock bottom glass in front of her, he asked, “Wanna talk ‘bout it?”
Katherine took a sip. “No.”
Her curt answer didn’t seem to faze him, and he shrugged. “Alright. Ya look decent ‘nough, so I’m gonna finish checkin’ inventory. Holler if ya wanna refill or settle.”
One scotch down and halfway through her second, the bartender had come back and was working on prep behind the bar in front of her. They hadn’t said more than a dozen words to each other, mostly her drink order, but now Katherine was bored.
“Do I know you?” she asked him, tilting her head in her hand. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
He shrugged. “Dunno. Don’t think I’s ever seen ya ‘round here, but I get lots’a customers, so.”
Katherine shook her head. “No, I’ve never come here… Did you go to NYU?”
Nodding, he said, “Yeah, class’a 2015. You?”
“2015? Me too.” She nodded as well, decisively, like that settled everything.
He chuckled a bit. “Alright, but NYU’s huge, no way ya just know me ‘cause we graduated same year.”
“Oh.” Katherine wrinkled her nose. That made sense, but she was still convinced that she’d met him before. “I’ll figure it out…" She leaned on her hand, looking up at him. "So, bartender? Did NYU have some secret amazing mixology program I never heard of?”
“Just m’day job,” he said easily, slicing a lemon. “Or night job, I guess, dependin’ on the shift.”
“What’s your, uh…” She waved her hand, looking for the word. “…Other job?”
“‘m an artist. Tryin’, anyways. What ‘bout’chu? Professional day-drinker? Ya look too nice t’ be a bum,” he said with a smirk.
Katherine sighed, loud and gusty, blowing her bangs off her forehead. “I am… about to take over The World from my father. And get married. In the same week.”
“Ah, congrats.” She was already waving him off before the word was fully out of his mouth.
“Keep it. I don’t really want to marry him.”
He cocked his head at her. “Then… why’re ya?”
“‘Because it will be a show of goodwill and hope for the future of our two companies if Jack and I get married’,” she recited dully, looking up sharply when the bartender laughed. “What?"
He shook his head. “Nothin’. S’just m’name’s Jack.”
For some reason, that pissed her off. She’d been forgetting why she even came in here, and the anger had ebbed some, but now it flared up again. And since she couldn’t tell off her Jack…
“Well, Jack,” she bit out. “If you were married, would you steal your wife’s financial assets, take over her shares in both companies, and then leave her with nothing?”
Jack considered that a long moment. “Well. Gotta say, don’t really know what most’a that is, includin’ this hypothetical wife, but can’t say I would.”
Katherine grunted into her glass, knocking back the rest of her drink, anger ebbing away again. This wasn’t her Jack. Her Jack was an asshole. This Jack helped her get drunk and forget her Jack. This Jack didn’t look like the type to screw over anyone.
The Jacks blurred together in her brain and suddenly she had an idea.
“Jack?” She looked up at him carefully
“Hm?”
“Will you marry me?”