“Hey, husband,” I mimic him. I sit up on my knees so I can slip my arms around his neck. His warm hands slide along the swell of my abdomen before the slip behind my waist. He pulls me into his chest and presses his forehead to mine. He closes his eyes and hums low in his throat.
“That was so beautiful,” I whisper against his lips and his eyes open and his gaze tangles with mine.
“You like it?” he asks with a satisfied smile.
I nod my answer when I find that my throat won’t release my answer.
“Good,” he says gruffly and squeezes me close. He buries his face in my neck and nuzzles it with his lips. I tighten my hold on his neck and think I might die from the intensity of the love that I feel for him. And what a way to go. I kiss the side of his face.
“I’ll watch it again. Forever. And not just when you’ve managed to piss me off.” I peck his mouth with a quick kiss to stop him from interrupting me. “I love it. And I love you. I’m the lucky one. I’m the one whose future has been rewritten. I hope you never regret letting me stand next to you. I hope you’re always proud of me.”
“Until my last breath,” he whispers before he kisses me.
Finally.
And what a kiss it is.
His lips are impatient, his tongue insistent, and I open for him. Warmth rushes through me when his tongue sweeps my mouth and I press into him as tightly as my protruding belly will let me.
Getting married at seven months pregnant wasn’t ideal. But, between Gigi’s physical recovery, the fallout from Remi realizing who she was, and the time it took for Hayes to be able to forgive her fully, this was the soonest we could have done it. Remi wasn’t at our wedding. Hayes hadn’t been able to hide his disappointment at the empty spot beside him at the altar.
His other brothers had been there, and we’d celebrated despite Remi’s absence. Hayes didn’t want to take a chance that the baby would be born before we could be married, and I wanted to have a wedding. With the church and the dress and the party afterward. So, I’d walked down the aisle of St. John’s United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas with my protruding belly proudly declaring that I had no business in my white dress.
Hayes’s mouth ravishes mine, our lips dance and part. Cling and nibble. We get lost in the current of love, triumph and togetherness that has become the river of our life.
* * *
I hope you loved that. I have written a bonus scene, set a few years in the future. If you’d like to read it, click here. If you are reading the print version, email me at [email protected] to receive it.
Also by Dylan Allen
The Forever Trilogy
Between Now and Forever
Between Now and Heartbreak
Between Now and Always
Rivers Wilde Series of Standalones:
The Legacy
The Legend
Complete Standalones:
The Sun and Her Star
Thicker Than Water
Symbols of Love Series of Standalones:
Rise
Remember
Release
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The Legend
Prologue
Present day
* * *
Rivers Wilde
Chapter 1
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
REMI
* * *
“Please don’t leave angry. Please.” Gigi’s frail voice floats behind me, chasing me like a sinister specter. I’m nearly running by the time I reach the door of her hospital room. I pull it open and look back at her. She looks harmless lying there like that, cocooned in a hospital bed, anchored in place by the network of lines that run from a bandaged spot on her arm. But harmless is the very last thing she’s proven to be.
“I don’t know what kind of game this is. But I don’t want any part of it.”
Her eyes are glassy with tears and her face is as pale as the white sheets she’s lying against. “It’s not a game. Ask your mother. Read that letter.”
“Oh, I’ll be asking her. You stay the fuck away from me.” I point at her with the same hand I’m clutching the envelope she gave me. The slip of paper wrapped around a set of keys weighs nothing, yet my hand aches from holding it. I don’t want to read it.
I step out of the room and stare unseeingly down the corridor. The nurse’s station is a hub of activity—doctors, patients, family members dart past me. I just… stand still and try to process what Gigi Rivers has just told me.
For the first time in a long time, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next.
When my friend Hayes called and asked me to come to the hospital, I didn’t ask why. I got in my car and drove as fast I could.
Our families have been on opposite sides of the most mysterious cold war for almost thirty years now. When we both became the heads of our families around the same time last year, we decided enough was enough.
Since then, he’s become one of my best friends.
I spent the drive, my throat tight with anxiety, my heart hammering, preparing myself to console a him.
Instead, I walked into an ambush.
“Remi. You okay?” Suddenly, Hayes is standing beside me, his hand gripping my shoulder and his face drawn and etched with worry. I shake his hand off and turn so we’re face-to-face. He’s waiting for me to answer and looks as tense as a runner waiting for the crack of the referee’s gun to start his race.
I stare at him; my face feels like granite and the pressure in my jaw from my clenched teeth is giving me a headache. His discomfort grows with each second that passes. I watch him squirm and then ask the question his body language has already answered.
“Did you know what she was going to say to me?”
He closes his eyes for a beat and nods. “Yeah, man. I did. I’m sorry.”
“And how long have you known?” I ask him.
He grimaces in remorse. “Two weeks ago.”
“You’ve known this shit for two weeks and you didn’t think to fucking tell me, Hayes?” Surprise and a sense of being betrayed make me take a step back. I peer at him, trying to see how I missed that he’d been keeping something like this from me for so long.
His face twists up, too and he glances around. “Let’s go talk somewhere else.” He turns without waiting for me to respond and opens a door a few feet away. I follow him inside the room.
“She wasn’t sure you didn’t already know. I wasn’t sure either. And the last couple of weeks have been a total nightmare.”
“None of that shit can be true. How the fuck can it be true. Things like that don’t happen. That would mean we are brothers, Hayes.” I look at him like he’s lost his mind.
He looks back at me with patient sympathy.
I shake my head in denial. “My father died. I have pictures from his funeral. How could they have held a funeral if he wasn’t dead, man?”
Hayes doesn’t respond. He just watches me, like he’s waiting for me to answer my own question.
“What?” I snap.
“Have you seen his death certificate?”
“Why the hell would I have seen his death certificate. Have you seen your father’s?” I challenge him.
He only shrugs.
“I was in the room with my father when he died. You weren’t even old enough to remember what yours looked like, much less exactly when he died,” he says, that patient sympathy still in place.
The knot forming in my gut intensifies, and I lean back against the door and stare at the ceiling as I think about the pictures from my father’s funeral.
I was only two. I don’t remember anything. But how could my mother and grandfather have told such a lie? My grandfather, before he died, had been my mentor and my best friend. We talked about my father all the time. He co
uldn’t have looked me in the face and lied the way he did. I clutch the doorknob and my sweaty palms slip off it. My heart is racing faster than I thought possible.
What else have they lied about?
“Remi.”
I open my eyes and find Hayes watching me, his lips pursed, his eyes full of sympathy. “I know. It’s a total head job. I’ve only had a couple of weeks to process it. If this hadn’t happened, I still wouldn’t be speaking to Gigi. It’s fucked me up. I’ve spent my whole life thinking my father was someone else, too. On top of that, the woman who I’ve thought of as my aunt is really my mother. The man who I’ve come to think of as one of my best friends is actually my half-brother.”
Each of his statements hit me hard. I can’t wrap my head around any of that. “Why should we believe them now? What if this is a lie?” I say and even to my own ears, it sounds like a wish, rather than an accusation.
“We both know it’s not,” he says, his voice grave and hushed.
I stare at him for a beat letting myself imagine that everything they’re saying is true. I drop a wall in front of the wave of panic that is starting to build in my gut.
Not now.
“There’s something wrong here.” I push back.
He nods, but he doesn’t back down. “There’s plenty wrong. Especially on your side of things. But, it’s not a lie. Go ask your mother. When you’re ready to talk, I’ll be here.” Then, he steps around me, opens the room door and walks out.
I pull out my phone and call my assistant. “Rachel, I’m on my way to Wilde House, meet me there.”
“Yes, sir. I’m on my way,” she says without missing a beat.
“Before you leave, visit legal and ask them to print you a copy of my father’s death certificate.”
I’m met with silence.
“I know it’s an odd request. But I need you to get it. Right now. Do you understand?”
“Ye-Yes, sir. I do.” She sounds uncertain, but I know she’ll get it the minute we hang up.
“I’ll see you at the house.”
“Should I let your mother know to expect us?”
“No.”
“Mother!” My shout ricochets off the ceiling of Wilde House’s vaulted ceiling foyer. I fling the door closed behind me and it slams so hard that one of the geometric shaped plates of glass cracks.
“Remi, wait.” Rachel comes rushing out of the sitting room on the right. She is panting, her eyes wide with panic, and her arms stretched out ahead of her reaching for me.
“Wait for what?”
I walk right past her on my way to the stairs. All I can think about is getting up to my mother’s office and making her tell me the truth.
She grabs my arm to still me as I start to stride past her. “Before I tell you where she is, I need to tell you something.”
I pull my arm out of her grasp and narrow my eyes at her. “What do you mean, tell me where she is? Where would she be but in her office?”
“I’ve worked for you since you a were boy. But—your mother has always been my employer. I did the job she paid me to do. But I want you to know that as much as I could, I have given you my loyalty.”
My blood runs cold. “What do you mean, as much as you could? What did she pay you to do?”
She squeezes her eyes shut and pulls in a deep breath but doesn’t say anything.
“Never mind. I’ll make her tell me herself.” I step around her and start toward the door.
“I assume, that somehow, you’ve learned the truth about your father.” The frayed edge of panic that accompanies her explosive statement stops me dead in my tracks. I turn around slowly and look at her as if I’m seeing her for the first time. Her dark, unruly hair is caught in its normal haphazard bun. Her face is lightly made up, per usual. She’s wearing one of her trademark muted gray skirt suits. Everything looks the same, but it’s not. Not even a little…
“So, it’s true?”
Her expression is stoic, and she squares her shoulders. “It is true.”
My knees threaten to buckle. “And you’ve known?”
“I have helped your family keep the secret. It’s what I was paid to do. That, among other things.”
“Where is she?” I ask her. She squeezes her eyes shut like a child who’s trying to avoid looking at something scary. Her fists are clenched at her sides and her body is rigid with tension.
“I will be tendering my resignation. I believe it’s best that all of this has come to light. I know you’ll never trust me again, and I don’t blame you. I did as your mother asked because I needed my job. But, I do deeply regret that fact. I’ve known you since you were a little boy and I’ve loved you like—”
“Rachel, I’m not in the mood for a sentimental moment right now. Right now? I need to talk to my mother. Where the fuck is she?” I grit out my demand.
She gulps and steps back. “She is currently in her office attempting to shred documents.”
“You told her I was coming?” I ask, unable to believe the level of betrayal. I’ve trusted this woman with everything.
“No. But when I requested these from Legal, they did. But, I have this.” She holds up a black electrical cord in the air like she’s holding a trophy.
“She can’t shred anything. I just wanted the chance to tell you the truth before I left. I’ll go now. I am so sorry.”
Her eyes are sorrowful as she turns to walk away.
I let her go. And even though her betrayal hurts, there’s nothing I can do about it right now. My only priority is finding my mother and getting answers.
I walk upstairs, slowly. With each step, I prepare for what lies ahead.
My entire life upended in just one hour. And now, I’m walking toward a room where my mother is attempting to destroy evidence of what I’ve just learned.
Our relationship is already nonexistent. I keep her far away from anything that’s important to me.
She’s a liar.
She has stolen so much from me.
I want to tear her limb from limb. But that would mean touching her and I’m not sure I ever want to do that again.
I push the door open and find her on her knees in front of the shredder, her hands moving frantically even as she turns to face me.
“Remi,” she gasps, her face ashen. She jumps up and puts her hands out in front of her as if she’s afraid. It incenses me even further.
I narrow my eyes at her, rage straining the muscles in my face as I try to keep it in check. “You act as if I am the violent one. As if I’m dangerous. Have you lied so much that you’ve forgotten what it is to tell the fucking truth?”
I can’t begin to fathom the lengths they went to in order to keep their secrets. In all of the years that I’ve mourned my grandfather, I never imagined that I’d ever be glad he was gone.
I can’t imagine how I would feel having this conversation with him. The thought alone is more painful than I can bear.
She shrinks, her chest caving in before she recovers, squares her jaw and holds my angry gaze with her defiant one. I see so much of myself in her right now, it frightens me. Would I have been capable of it?
“Remi, we wanted to protect you.” She says with no remorse.
“You are a liar,” I roar in her face and she leans back as if my words were hands that were shoving her away from me. We’ve butted heads my whole life. But she has never seen me lose my cool.
Her eyes widen, but then relax again and she swallows and composes herself. Like she’s an actor who has rehearsed a scene and is now preparing to perform it for an audience. Her chin tilts up, her expression is stoic, nearly regal. “I am what life has made me. Your grandfather and I thought it best you didn’t know the truth.”
“People get divorced all the time. Men leave their wives all of the time. Why did you have to pretend he died? You held a fucking funeral.” I shake my head in disbelief when she merely nods. The last vestiges of my restraint force my hands into fists at my side. I throw my head back, feel
the strain of the tendons in my neck as I hold back the howl of pain clawing at the back of my throat. “Why?” I shout.
“Because everyone was told that he died. It wasn’t just you—”
“Do you hear yourself? He was my father.” I bellow at her, just completely beside myself at this point.
In the blink of an eyes, nothing is the same.
Including me. I’ve lived my entire adult life in service of living up to the legend they built in my father’s name. It’s all a fucking lie. And now, I’m done with it. I knew she was manipulative. But this…I’ll never be able to understand.
“How could you do it?” Wonder seeps through the brittle cracks in my anger as I take her in. “I’ve spent my entire life wondering why he died so young. The night before my thirty-second birthday I was crippled with fear because I was sure it would be the year I died, too. Regan and Tyson have so many of the same fears. How could you do that to your children?” I ask, knowing that there’s no answer that would suffice.
“Remi, your father wasn’t just anybody. He was the heir to this empire we were building. His name wasn’t his own. It belongs to all of us. We weren’t going to let his selfishness ruin everything we’d built.” She spits out.
“He left you. Not his family.” I remind her.
Her face contorts with anger
“He didn’t just leave me.” She slaps her chest with her open palm. “He left you and Regan and Tyson. And his father. His entire family.”
I can see that, even now, she feels no remorse. In the instant it takes to snuff out a candle, any lingering affection I had for her disappears.
“He betrayed us. Spectacularly, callously. He left you.” She insists. A day ago, those words would have hurt, but I know they’re not true.
I read his letter. I put my hand in my pocket and stroke the outline of the key inside the envelope.
The Rivals Page 33