“So, let me get this straight. I am a Wilde and a Rivers. You are my mother. I am the true heir because I am the true oldest of the oldest child. You are my mother,” he repeats.
I nod.
“I want you to call Amelia and make an official statement. Sign it, notarize it, and we’ll deliver it to Thomas’s attorneys. And then, I want you to leave and never come back,” he says quietly. Then he stands and walks out of the room. His back is ramrod straight just like his father’s had been. I watch helplessly as he walks up the stairs, his back straight, without a glance back in my direction.
I look at Confidence, unsure what to say. “He doesn’t mean it,” she says softly. Her eyes are full of pity. I didn’t expect that, not after how I had treated her and what I’ve done to Hayes.
“He does,” I say tearfully.
“You don’t know him well at all,” she says sadly and shakes her head. I’m offended and want I to be mad. But, I know she’s right. I just nod. This lie has precluded a real intimacy with my child because I was always afraid of slipping up. I love him. I have been a shoulder to lean on and supportive of all his endeavors. But I also pushed him into marriage with a woman who proved to be treacherous, and I tried to run a good one away.
“Give him some time and some space, but don’t you dare walk out and never come back,” she says.
I give her a watery smile.
“And that statement, please. Send it to Amelia today. The hearing is tomorrow. We’ll want to kill this question now. And deal with the question of fitness alone ...”
She stands there, uncertain a little, and I ask, “Did you have something to say?”
“Does Remington know?” she asks.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think so. No one knew. They were just told to stay away from each other. You know? The dispute over the land was real, but what really put the wedge between us was Lucas leaving his family.”
“Was it worth it?” she asks without elaborating.
“Yes.” I answer without asking for clarification because it was all worth it.
“For the year I had with the love of my life. For the son we made together. For the life our son got to lead. I would do it all again. Hindsight is easy, but it’s what I did, and it was hard. And it took me a long time to recover. When you’re a mother, you’ll know. Doing what your child needs instead of what you or they want is hard.”
“I can only imagine,” she says, and I can’t read whatever’s really in her eyes. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
And only because I know he’s in good hands do I let myself out of their house.
HAYES
* * *
Confidence slides into bed with me and she doesn’t say a word. She lays down so we’re face to face.
“Hey,” she says and takes my hands in hers. She lays them on the soft swell of her lower stomach and whispers, “Here we are. We’re safe in here.”
I close my eyes and make promises to that little life growing inside of my life. My love. My everything.
That as long as I draw breath, he will know only love—the tough but yielding kind—from me. That no one would be able to convince me to walk away from him.
That I’m ready to be his father.
That I’m the man his mother needs.
That I know that his inheritance is more than just money and name. It’s our values; it the synchronicity between who we are in private and who we are when the world is watching.
“Do you think less of me?” I ask.
“No. Never,” she says. Of course.
“Still want to marry me?” I ask.
“Yes, and before I start to show, please,” she says.
“Your wish is my command,” I say. They’re the last words we speak before we fall asleep.
JUDGEMENT
HAYES
TWO WEEKS LATER.
* * *
“Thank God, that’s over,” Confidence says. She steps into my side and slips her arms around my waist. We step out of Kingdom’s office building and out into the bright afternoon sun. The building is casting a shadow onto the big granite courtyard where overworked employees come to escape the air conditioning and their computers for a few minutes.
“Yes, it was ugly for a second at the end, but it’s done,” I agree.
“Will your uncle be okay?” she asks. Bleeding heart.
“He’s going to be just fine. I think retirement in exile on his ranch in the beautiful Texas hardly amounts to hard time for all of the shit he’s pulled over the last year,” I say.
We settled the case today. Kingdom paid damages that were negotiated by Amelia and Wilde Law. The Foundation established a Project School Bell that will deploy mobile classrooms to neighborhoods that are recovering from the flood so their children can continue to go to school close to home while their schools are being renovated. It’s the first in a string of programs that the foundation will fund over the next few months as part of its commitment to the city of Houston. Some of them are being done in conjunction with Wilde Law. When I think about Wilde—and Remi—my stomach contracts painfully. I still don’t know how to tell him that his father is my father. And that his father may not be dead after all.
“Hayes?” Confidence calls my name and bumps me with her hip. I look down at her, and she’s got a concerned look on her face.
“Yes, my love?”
“You okay? You blanked out for a minute,” she says.
“Yeah.” I shake my head to clear it. “Just thinking that we’ve got a lot of work to do. But at least now, I can do it without Thomas around.”
“Looking for ways to undermine you,” she adds. We start toward my car that’s idling on the curb. “The car will take you back to work, if you want,” I tell her.
“Yeah, that would be great.” She rocks up on her heels and presses a kiss to my mouth.
“Thanks for being here today. For being here every day.” I circle my arm around her waist and kiss her back.
“Hayes,” Gigi says from in front of us. She stands up from the bench she’s been sitting on. My heart hurts to see her. I haven’t let myself think too much about her. Last night when Confidence asked me to talk to her, I’d said no. I had nothing to say. She gave birth to me, but that didn’t make her my mother.
I’d said it so flippantly last night, but when I see her standing in front of me, I know it’s not that simple. Like a reel of film on a screen, flashes of our life together in Positano run through my mind. Our fights. The first time we picked figs from the tree we planted together. How she slept in my bed with me the night before I left for college and talked to me all night about growing up in Rivers House.
My stomach churns, and I slide my eyes to Confidence who has gone very still beside me.
“Gigi, why are you here?” I ask her. I don’t want to do this in public.
“Because you are,” she says simply. She looks tired. And for the first time, I can see age creeping along her pale, drawn face. Her hands are clutched in front of her and she looks so frail.
“Listen, can we talk—”
“You’re dead, Rivers.” A loud voice booms over the courtyard, and we all turn back to Smith Street to see Barry Jimenez walking toward me, a pistol in his trembling hand pointed in my general direction.
“Oh my God, it’s Barry,” Confidence calls just as the first shot rings out. I grab both women to put them behind me and hustle them into the building. The armed security man is already rushing out, and after a second shot, Barry is tackled to the ground.
But something happens, and Gigi doesn’t end up behind me. Instead, she slumps against me and cries out in pain.
“Gigi,” I call out and let go of Confidence to lay Gigi on the ground. Her light blue dress is soaked with blood that’s gushing out of a small wound in her shoulder. I pull my tie off and knot it around her arm and press my hand to the wound. She winces.
“We need an ambulance!” I hear Confidence screaming in the background, but it’s mu
ted by the sound of the blood that’s rushing through my ears.
Gigi grabs my hand and pulls me down to her. “Hayes,” she groans, and her eyelids flutter.
“Oh no you fucking don’t.” I shake her and her eyes open.
“Don’t use that kind of language, Hayes, especially not in public,” she says weakly.
“Well don’t you fucking close your eyes after you’ve been shot!” I shout at her.
She laughs weakly. Now I can see how much I look like her.
“God, Gigi.” I shake my head in denial that this is happening.
“Listen to me, Hayes. I know I wasn’t your mother in your heart, but in mine, it’s all I’ve ever been. You have been my every prayer, every dream, every hope. All of my love has always been yours. All I want is for you to be the man you were born to be,” she says.
“Don’t talk like you’re going to die. I’m still pissed at you,” I say.
She reaches up to pat my cheek. Her bloody hand is sticky against my face. “Of course you are. You’re a Rivers.” And then her eyes close.
EPILOGUE 1
GIGI
“Just rest, Gigi,” Hayes whispers down at me. His big hand smooths the hair off my face and I have to stop myself from nestling into his touch. I haven’t earned that. It’s too soon. I know that what happened outside his office is why he’s here. I hope it means that I’ll be able to persuade him to stay. To give me a chance to earn it.
“I—” My throat is parched. I had a tube inserted while I was in surgery and the words I want to say are caught there.
“Save your voice, we’ll have time to talk when you’re better,” he says in a voice that’s more soothing than I can stand.
His eyes, so like mine, search my face, and I know he’s looking for clues that he missed. That downward tilt on my right eye that mirrors his. The way my ears curve close and then pull away from my head. Maybe he’s even imagining how he’ll age. Will his jawline hold as firmly as mine? I lift my free hand and circle his wrist. I want to tell him that he gets this loving tenderness from his father. I want to tell him that he’s the greatest love of my life. That I only let them have him because I wanted more for him than I thought myself capable of giving. Instead, I just hold onto my son’s arm and let him look into his mother’s face properly, for the first time.
The creak of the door opening behind us startles both of us. He turns and from the way his posture changes, I know it’s Confidence. He deflates a little because he knows that he can lean on her. I love that he’s found someone strong enough to help him carry the burden of holding our family together. I think that together, they’ll do a better job than my generation did.
She comes to stand beside Hayes and wraps an arm around his waist. She squeezes him and he wraps an arm around her and holds her close. If I died, this would go down as one of the happiest moments of my life. My son is grown up, and even though I didn’t do everything right, I’ve helped him grow into a man who is capable of love and who’s not afraid to stake a claim on something he wants and then do the hard work it takes to make it his.
“Gigi, how are you feeling?” she asks.
I nod.
“Remi’s here,” she says. My heart plunges to my toes and my lungs constrict. But I nod.
“Are you sure you want to give it to him?” she asks. I let go of Hayes and pick up the letter I have tucked into my side on the bed. I rub the worn paper in between my fingers and nod again.
She smiles, a pained but encouraging smile. “I’ll send him in. We’ll be outside.”
She takes Hayes’s hand and they turn to leave. Just before they step through the door, Hayes looks back over his shoulder and says, “I love you, Gigi.” Then he’s gone.
I watch the door. My heart threatens to burst out of my chest so that everyone can see what a cowardly muscle it is. I clutch the letter that Lucas wrote Remi a few days before he disappeared. I know that this will change everything. That peace will probably never be my companion, but it’s time.
EPILOGUE 2
CONFIDENCE
My phone buzzes from its perch on my bedside table. I fling an arm out in the dark and fumble for it. A text message from Hayes flashes and I open it.
“Press Play” And then the next message is a video.
“Where are you?” I type back.
“Press Play” is his response.
“Not exactly how I imagined our wedding night,” I grumble and sit up. I’ve been waiting in our room for an hour.
By myself.
Hayes left to get something he forgot downstairs. I spent the first half an hour getting myself ready. When I draped myself across the bed, I looked like everything I knew Hayes loved. My lingerie is a confection of ice blue lace and satin. My hair smelled like roses and my lips were smeared with cherry flavored lip balm. Now, my hair is a tangled mess, I have sleep in my eyes and I’ll probably want to brush my teeth again before I kiss Hayes.
If I ever kiss Hayes again
“You haven’t pressed play, have you? Stop being mad and watch.” His text says and so I push aside my annoyance and comply.
The video starts and my heart lodges in my throat. I clutch my chest and every drop of irritation I felt seconds of ago disappears.
On my screen, my mother and I are dancing at the wedding. We’re wrapped in each other’s arms. Our heads resting on each other’s shoulders. The look on my mother’s face steals my breath. She’s smiling. Her eyes are closed and she looks like she’s having the very best dream. We’ve been fine since Daddy and Fortune left. But she hasn’t smiled like this since long before that horrific night. We’d held each other then, too. But we’d been fused together by terror. Tonight, it had been nothing but pure love.
The song, “The Rose” by Bette Midler was her choice. And the slow, repetitive melody on piano and the gently joyous strains of the violins wrap me in the same tender embrace my mother’s arms gave me while we danced. The camera zooms onto our faces for the last ninety-seconds of the song and I watch as the tears run down her face and drop onto my shoulder. I hadn’t felt her tears then and I watch as she composes her face and a bright smile spreads just as the song ends. The scene cuts to a white wall and I blink to clear my vision at the abrupt change in background.
Then Hayes sits down in front of the camera. “So, this is where I’ve been,” he says into the camera. He sweeps his hand over the parts of himself that are visible in the camera. His hair is tamed into waves of chocolate silk again. The broad, bold angles of his cheekbones are more prominent than normal because he’s completely freshly shaven. His tuxedo looks crisp and stiff again. When we’d stumbled up to our room after the reception, we’d been sweaty from dancing, and his collar had several smudges of my lipstick on it.
“I was watching that video while you were in the bathroom and it finally hit me what I should give you for a wedding gift. I wanted it to be something that money couldn’t buy.” He gives me one of his closed mouth, sexy as fuck smiles. His intelligent, oh so beautiful hazel eyes search my face as if he knew exactly where it would be when he was making the video.
“The two of you are what every mother and child should be.” He runs a hand through his hair and exhales a breath. “The gesture of you dancing with your mother on what would normally be the father daughter dance is everything I love about you. Your loyalty, your pride, you love, the respect you have for where you come from and your refusal to let anyone dictate what’s possible. I can’t believe that you’re my fucking wife. And I wanted to make you something that you could want to watch over and over again, too. Especially in the moments when I’ve pissed you off and you’re wondering how I talked you into spending the rest of your life with me. I’m not the best with words.
Especially not soft ones.
But for today, I want to record some. Especially since I’m about to fuck you until you can’t walk for a week.” He grins mischievously.
“You are more than my little treasure, Tesoro, you are my big
magic. My forever wonder. The Russian doll that never stops surprising me with the depth of your brilliance. And you’re the reason I’ll never doubt that love is power.” His eyes pierce through the screen and wrap themselves around me.
I clutch my chest as my heart riots against it and my throat constricts against the tears that are blooming.
“Your love has changed me. You’ve rewritten my future. Because of you, I know that my legacy will be whatever I chose. If people look at me and see a king, it’s because I’m standing next to a queen.” His firm, full lips purse around the last word.
“You are my reason,” he says with a fierce conviction that feels like wind beneath my wings. His eyes soften and his shoulders relax. “The baby that’s growing inside of you is just the first of many masterpieces we’ll make together. You are my river. You’ve been the making of me. And I hope that one day I’ll feel like I’ve earned the gift of your love. It’s my privilege and honor to be your husband. I love you so much. More than I’ll ever be capable of expressing. Now, lay back and get ready for me. I’m walking in now.”
The door opens and the screen goes blank at the same time. Hayes walks into the room. His bow tie is gone, his shirt unbuttoned completely, and his lightly-haired chest and smooth tanned skin of his muscle carved torso peek out between the gap in the stark white fabric.
“Hey, wife.” His eyes are alight with a heat that singe every part of me it lands on. His eyes drag up my body and he pulls his shirt off completely. The flex of the muscles in his powerful shoulders and arms distracted me. When I look back at his face, he’s standing right in front of me
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