I hurl my words like bullets and when his face turns red with anger, I know I hit my target. He grabs my wrists and pulls me back.
“You overheard me and Dare last night, but you still let me fuck you. Were planning to leave me when we woke up?” he asks angrily.
I flush because the way he says it makes it sound … treacherous. But I shake that off because it’s not remotely true.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do, Hayes. I was confused!” I shout at him.
“Did you know you were going to leave this morning?” he asks me coldly.
“Yes,” I answer. He flinches.
My family is no prize and has its fair share of shit. But I don’t want to live like this. I didn’t escape the frying pan just to jump into the fire.
“I mean, maybe if that craziness with Eliza had felt like a fluke, or the dinner guests hadn’t made me feel like something a dog dragged in from outside. Or knowing that your brother thinks I’m already measuring for drapes and counting your money. But I don’t want to live in chaos with people who hate each other—and who hate me. I mean, she slapped the housekeeper!” My arms fling out in front of me. His hands take the opportunity and grab hold of me. I don’t fight him. I
“I’m not them,” he grinds out.
“But you are. You can’t help it. They treated me the way you did the night we met,” I say with a stony glare.
He flinches.
Good.
“You have to forgive me for that. It can’t be the reason you walk away,” he says.
“It’s not the only reason. Everything that’s happened this weekend. I don’t want to fight in the place where I’m supposed to be safe. I want a calm, quiet home. Those are my reasons.” I want to cry because all I want is for him to hold me.
“There’s a much better reason for you to stay,” he insists.
“Like what?” I ask impatiently.
“You love me. I belong to you,” he whispers, and I close my eyes on a pathetic whimper. He strokes his nose alongside mine. A tear rolls down my cheek.
“You belong to me,” he says before he crashes his lips on top of mine. He snags my lower lip between his teeth and sucks it, bites it. My fingers slide into his hair, and his tongue slips into my mouth. I let him taste me while I drink as much as I can handle before my body throbs for more. And then I gather tufts of his hair into my hands and yank—hard.
“Fuuuuck!” he roars and breaks our kiss.
I scramble around the bed.
“I belong to myself,” I snarl. “And yes, I kneeled in front of you and took what you gave me. But, I will never kneel for you again.”
He looks angry, but I still see that fear and I hate it. “You better not walk out of that door,” he says.
“Or what?” I hiss.
We face each other. His bed is like a battlefield between us. I press my knuckles into the mattress and lean toward him so I can look him in the eye one more time. There’s real distress in his that shakes my resolve. Damn him for making me love him so much.
“I am not afraid of you. How could I be? When you were so afraid of me that you needed a background check—" I say.
His face is pained. “I’m sorry—”
“You should be,” I snap. “But not for me. I’ve survived worse than a man who’s too blind to see that I’m the best thing that will ever happen to him.”
My heart tugs at the nearly gray pallor on his face when I turn to pick up my things. With each piece of clothing I throw into my bag, my resolve grows. I face him again. He’s watching me, his face thunderous and his body perfectly still.
“I’m leaving,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “You’ll be back. And I’ll be waiting.”
“Right,” I scoff dismissively and zip up my suitcase.
“You’re mine. My queen. What do you have without your king?” he asks coldly.
“All the power,” I say with an equally icy tone and then I smile and walk away from him.
Part II
RIVERS WILDE
* * *
HOUSTON, TX
THE RETURN
HAYES
I careen through the winding and nonsensically narrow street of the Rivers Estate. The rows of manicured shrubs are nothing more than blurs of dark green as I run yet another stop sign.
On a street without a single intersection.
In a subdivision with only one house.
It’s just one example of the lack of planning and the sense of entitlement that’s created the mess I’ve been cleaning up since I took control from Uncle Thomas.
It’s been eighty-seven days of inconsistencies, complaints, and so much fucking disappointment, that I’m starting to forget what it feels like to be satisfied.
A flock of baby geese step into the road just two hundred and fifty feet ahead of my speeding car. I slam hard on my breaks to stop in time. My high- performance Maserati protests with groans, shrieks, and sputters. I struggle to hold my steering wheel straight to stop the threatening spin out that’s pulling my tires to the right. The acrid stench of burned rubber and the uncertainty of whether I had ten geese crushed beneath my car congeal like cooled grease in my stomach.
I peer out of my window and breathe a sigh of relief when the gaggle waddles past, completely oblivious to the havoc they nearly wreaked and how close their lives came to ending.
“Where’s your sense of survival, you idiotic animals?” I chide them as I pull past them and hook a right up the dark, concrete tiled driveway. The rows of pink flowering bushes on either side were planted by my mother the year before she died.
I’m surprised Eliza didn’t pull them up. She tore out the rose garden my mother planted within months of marrying my father. I pull up the drive and park under the huge carport that should have been knocked down years ago. I throw my car into park and give myself a minute to collect my thoughts before I walk into the house.
Built at the turn of the twentieth century by my great-great-grandfather, Jeb Rivers, it’s one of Houston’s oldest homes. As my uncle likes to remind anyone who will listen, at nearly twenty thousand square feet that sits on two and half acres of land, it’s also one of the biggest and most expensive homes in the city.
Houston’s nearly one-hundred-mile sprawl means that even as we get close to edging Chicago out of the number three spot on the list of America’s largest cities, there’s a seemingly endless supply of land that keeps home prices down. That forty-million-dollar price tag would buy a six thousand square foot penthouse apartment in New York City, max.
It’s why Houston’s wealthy can indulge in more cars, food, theatre and retail therapy than their wealthy counterparts in other cities. And indulge, we do. I stare out at the expanse of lawn that’s bisected by a ground level fountain with a pool full of koi fish. The estate boasts a citrus grove, rose gardens, a tennis court, Olympic-sized infinity pool, and is surrounded by hundred-year-old trees. But after Confidence’s visit, when I look at it, all I see is a tomb where our family’s skeletons live. If I had my way, I would tear it all down.
A sharp rap on the passenger’s side window of my car startles me out of my daydream. My uncle, the Crypt Keeper himself, is peering in at me. His thick silver eyebrows are drawn down over his thunderous dark eyes.
He doesn’t look like an old man. He looks like an old villain. One that threatens to eat children when they make too much noise. His wide, thin-lipped mouth is moving, but my blissfully soundproof car keeps the assault from reaching my ears. I savor the quiet in my car long enough to take three deep breaths before I step out of the car into a jarringly different atmosphere.
“You’re late. The team has been gathered for more than twenty minutes,” he says. He’s got the kind of voice that’s powerful without being loud. But, the power of that is lost on me. I know that he’s nothing more than an empty vessel for delusion and resentment.
“Well, since the meeting couldn’t start without me, I’d say that I’m right on time,”
I tell him. “And if you had held this meeting in the office instead of here, it would have started twenty minutes ago,” I tell him. We step in the gargantuan foyer and start up the stairs to the room that’s always used for Kingdom business. Swish’s old office.
“You forget that you’re talking to your uncle, Hayes. I will have your respect,” he says from behind me.
I stop and turn to find him standing on the bottom step, hands folded behind his back, an expectant look on his face.
I walk back down so I’m one step above him.
“You forget that you’re talking to the head of your family,” I remind him. “If you want my respect, you better set about trying to earn it.” I turn and start back up the stairs. “The mess you’ve made of things has left us vulnerable on too many fronts and has lost you any built in credibility I gave you because you’re my uncle. You’ve done a piss poor job,” I say over my shoulder.
A lawsuit filed by a group of tenants whose homes were damaged in the flood last month is just the latest in a pile of shit that’s been landing on my desk for the last three months. I’ve spent nearly all of my time as chairman of the board putting out fires. It’s meant to be a figurehead position, but with an incompetent and corrupt executive team, I’ve been forced to take a more hands on approach. None of them like it, but I don’t care.
“The lawsuit is what we called you here to discuss,” he says, still behind me as I push open the doors to the room that’s decorated like a nineteenth century country club. Whatever traces of Swish there were in here are gone. I want to hurry and get out of here.
“Gentlemen, please have a seat,” I say to the three men who stand when I walk in.
I sit down at the head of the table. “Tell me what’s going on with this.” I look at Rich Jones, the current head of operations.
He slides a folder over to me and opens the one in front of him.
“There are twenty-five thousand units that are included in the class; they represent an annual revenue of about three hundred million dollars to the Real Estate Investment Trust. Our investors expect those dividends and profit shares.”
“What’s this got to do with the flooded-out apartments?”
“Well …” he tugs at his collar and looks around the table at the other two 80-year-old incompetents who had helped him and my uncle destroy Kingdom one bit at a time.
They all stare down at their laps.
Cowards.
“There are two main issues in their complaint. The first is that some of them were evicted without notice. The units took on water, but we disagreed with their complaints that there would be any significant problems with people living there once they dried out,” he says.
“What was your disagreement based on?” I ask.
“Huh?” His eyes dart to his left again.
“You’re on your own here, Rich. They’re not going to jump in and save you.” I hook my thumb at the two other men. “Tell me.”
“It was just what we thought,” he says in a high nasally whine that makes me wish hitting people wasn’t illegal.
“But some of ‘em left without notice, and we didn’t know if they would be back. There were plenty of people looking for places to rent so we filled the vacated units right away.” He shrugs his shoulders, eyes wide with complete bafflement at how what he’s saying could be construed as fraud and theft.
“It says here you emptied occupied apartments and threw away personal belongings after residents were gone for less than seventy-two hours? Is that allegation true?”
“Yes, but we thought they were moved, and we needed to turn those units over to people who wanted to pay,” he snaps defensively and wipes a drop of sweat from his forehead. I shake my head in disgust.
I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone and text my PA Muriel that I want her to find an executive search firm. It’s time for me to build my own team. I’ve had enough indulging my uncle’s ego and treading lightly.
“Well, we’re going to settle this case. And we’re going to make these people whole again. I want a report on the actual damage costs. They’re suing us, seeking general and pecuniary damages. Our exposure at trial is unlimited. This isn’t hard. Let’s give them a little money for their troubles and send them on their way.” I stand up to leave.
“On Monday, I want a list—a comprehensive one—of all other potential liabilities you’re aware of. Even if it’s just a repeated customer complaint. And I don’t mean just in real estate, I mean throughout Kingdom. I also want a report of our philanthropic spending in the last ten years. I’ve received disturbing reports about our failure to support efforts that were pioneered by the Rivers family,” I chastise them.
“The zoo doesn’t need our help any longer. Why should we continue making such huge bequests?” Eugene Kinder, the CFO, chimes in from his chair.
I’ve never liked him.
“That’s not for you to decide. I want those reports by the end of the week.” I stand. The four men all stand and offer their disingenuous farewells.
“Uncle Thomas, will you walk me out?”
I wait for him outside the door. I scan the vaulted tray ceiling. The ivory-colored, intricately-carved crown molding runs along the perimeter of the room.
A huge crown sits in the middle of the letters R and K. Rivers Kingdom. That’s what this used to be. That’s how people have referred to us. But we have never called ourselves kings. Not until my uncle’s reign.
He joins me in the corridor. “Yes, what would you like to discuss?” His tone is formal, his eyes wary as he waits for me to speak.
“Poppy refuses to remain on staff as long as you or Eliza reside in Rivers house,” I inform him.
“Well, we’ll be sad to see her go,” he says and adjusts the cuffs on his shirtsleeves.
“She’s not going anywhere. I’ve told her that you will be moving out,” I inform him.
His eyes nearly bug out of his head. His lips pucker like he’s sucked a lemon and he seems incapable of speech. So, I continue. “In two months, members of Denmark’s royal family will begin an extended occupancy at Rivers House. Poppy has arranged to have the house cleaned and the rooms prepared, so you and Aunt Mai will need to make other arrangements for accommodation. Eliza has already been informed that she will need to vacate the house,” I say.
He blinks at me, his face flushed red with embarrassment. But he manages to unstick his lips, and he fixes me with a judgmental stare.
“Aren’t these sort of details and message deliveries below your station, nephew? Or are you finding these more mundane and administrative tasks better suited to your capabilities?” he asks, smugness at his dig spreading across his withered face.
I shake my head in disappointment. “I’m not such a slave to my pride, Uncle, that I couldn’t deliver a message that might have felt callous coming from someone who doesn’t know your personal situation,” I tell him.
He has the decency to look ashamed.
“Thomas, I’m not here to rub my leadership in your face,” I say to the top of his bowed head.
“Why are you here? If not for the glory of it?” he snaps. His resentment is unmasked and fully evident in his eyes. I feel a pang of pity for him. He’s never been happy with his position in the family.
“I’m here because it’s my responsibility to make sure that the next heir receives a legacy that’s worth preserving.”
“As if it isn’t now? I have been a wonderful steward of this family’s interests,” he protests.
“Ah, yes, the ever-growing pile of lawsuits from clients, customers, and partners alike say that,” I retort.
“Of course they’re unhappy. They want us to live like we’re commoners. They want to pretend they’re our equals. I stopped that. You want to settle with these people? Why don’t they go find better jobs, so they can afford better than some flooded out apartment? We are not a charity. We are a business. If they think it’s not fit for human occupation, fine. They should go find somewhere
else to live.”
“Those apartments are not fit for any human occupation. The reports are damning. Would you to want to live there?”
“I would never be forced to make that kind of choice,” he sniffs.
“How do you know? Don’t you have the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and imagine what it would be like if you were in them?” I ask in muted outrage. I just don’t understand where this man’s heart is. How he and my father were both raised by my grandparents is a mystery.
“Why would I want to imagine being them? How vulgar,” he says with a sniff of disgust.
He’s a lost cause. I just need to completely declaw him and then I’ll strip him of all his power and mandate his retirement from the board.
“You had fifteen years to do what you would. You sent me away. You made sure I stayed away. Perhaps you hoped I’d never come back. But here I am.”
“Yes, here you are,” he says with barely disguised malice.
“And here, I’ll stay.” I reinforce it with my own undisguised dislike. “You need to get used to it. Stop trying to undermine me; stop trying to make me feel like I have less right to be here than you do. I’m sorry you weren’t born first. But you need to start thinking about what your life could be,” I say with a heavy sigh.
He doesn’t respond. He just stares straight ahead in stony silence, his face completely mottled with his pent-up anger.
“I’ve rented you a unit in the Ivy,” I tell him weakly as I stand.
“No, we will not stay there. It would be an insult to the family’s honor,” he blurts through woodenly clenched teeth.
The Rivals Page 17