The Rivals

by Allen , Dylan

  “Regan, what the fuck is this?”

  “I fucked up, Remi. Really bad. Please come home. I need you.”

  * * *

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  Also by Dylan Allen

  Rivers Wilde Series of stand alone stories -

  Listed in suggested reading order

  The Legacy

  Book one of the Rivers Wilde Series. An opposites attract, enemies to lovers standalone that kicks off this brand new series.

  The Legend

  This is a second chance at love story. Remington Wilde has loved one woman in his life and even though timing, and family manipulations keep pulling them apart, it’s a love worth fighting for.

  The Jezebel

  Regan Wilde and Stone Rivers were born enemies. But love has other ideas.

  * * *

  The Daredevil: A Rivers Wilde/ 1001 Nights Novella (Preorder for July 2021)

  Tyson Wilde’s story!

  * * *

  Symbols of Love Series

  Rise

  Remember

  Release

  Standalone Novels

  The Sun and Her Star

  Thicker Than Water

  I love to hear from readers! email me at Dylan@dylanallenbooks.com

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  The Jezebel

  A Rivers Wilde Stand Alone

  Copyright © 2020 by Dylan Allen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  v.72620-DA

  Present Day

  HOUSTON, TX

  The Jezebel’s Undoing

  Regan

  “I need to speak with you.”

  The unexpected sound of my husband’s voice nearly stops my heart. My reflexive gasp draws soap and water into my nose and throat, and I cough violently to clear it. I turn the water off and meet his unreadable gaze in the mirror.

  The burn of mint scented face wash invading my nostrils and stinging my eyes barely registers against the shock of seeing him standing in my bathroom when he should be on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

  I grab a towel from the small pile on my counter and wipe the soap off haphazardly and turn to face him. “Why are you here?” I demand.

  He raises one gray flecked eyebrow as if surprised by my question. “This is my house. You are still my wife.” He curls his lip and drags a possessive gaze over my towel clad, shower damp body.

  I resist the urge to cross my arms over my chest and glower at him. “Please leave, now.”

  He shakes his head slowly; one side of his thin mouth curls upward in a sneer. “I’ll wait for you in the bedroom.” He informs me, and then he turns and walks out of the bathroom.

  I release the breath I was holding, and rush into my closet, slide the door closed behind me and start to pace. Mounting dread compounds my shock, but I can’t afford to indulge either.

  Since our confrontation after he received the divorce petition, he’s been radio silent. I’ve been praying, unceasingly, he’d stay that way. Marcel being here today is a very, very bad sign and even worse timing.

  The State of Texas gives a respondent twenty days to respond before granting a divorce by default. This morning, I woke up and drew the nineteenth red “X” on the small calendar I keep on my bedside table. It was like hearing a key slide into the lock of a door that had been sealed shut for years.

  Just one day left. I could taste my freedom. And, for the first time ever, I dared to imagine welcoming Stone to Houston as a single woman.

  It was stupid to think Marcel would make this easy.

  I glower at my reflection, this time, the sting in my eyes from tears I won’t allow to fall. There’s no reason to cry. Marcel will drag it out and make it as painful as possible, but he can’t do anything to stop the divorce. This is just one battle in a war that, ultimately, I know I’ll win.

  I take my time getting dressed, pulling on my softest pair of leggings and a t-shirt Stone bought me in Todos Santos. I stride into my bedroom, walking past him toward my bed without stopping or looking at him, my voice projecting irritation and impatience. “Whatever this about, I wish you’d called first. I have a very busy-”

  “Who is he?” Marcel speaks in a quiet, insouciant voice, but his question lands with the potential lethality of a grenade before it detonates. I have no idea if it’s a dud or if my whole life is about to go up in flames.

  I quell that flare of panic. There’s only one he that matters, and Marcel can’t know about him. No one does. Stone is my heart’s most closely guarded secret. With that certainty as my shield, I ignore the explosive question, turn my back to him, and start making my bed.

  “Regan, I am speaking to you.” The easy confidence in his voice is splintered by indignation that provides another balm to my rattled nerves. He’s much easier to manage when he’s angry.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I drawl and glance over my shoulder in his general direction, one eyebrow raised in apathetic curiosity. “I didn’t hear you.” I resume my task without meeting his eye or waiting for an answer.

  A second later, a black smartphone lands face down on the bed. “My mother was right about you. You are the devil in disguise.” he snarls behind me.

  I sigh loudly at his dramatics before I pick up the phone and turn to face him. “What is this about?” I snap.

  He nods at the phone in my hand. “See for yourself, Jezebel.”

  Those tendrils of trepidation hiss like agitated snakes in my gut and drawn my grudging gaze to the phone and the shield I’d been so sure of crumbles as the grenade I’d dismissed for a dud, detonates.

  The headline written in bold red all caps reads, “La femme de Landel montre au monde qui elle est: La Jézabel” The wife of Landel shows the world who she is: Jezebel.

  It’s splashed over a picture I looked at just this morning with sweet longing and tentative hope. Me and Stone kissing, his hand grasping my bikini clad bottom, my tattoo glaring the small of my bare back. My arms are twined around his neck, obscuring the sliver of his profile that the brim of his hat didn’t hide. I scan the article and see the words “unknown companion”. At least they don’t know it’s him.

  Amidst the discordant bells of devastation, disbelief, horror, and humiliation tolling inside my head, is a note of relief. But my knees still buckle under the weight of this disaster and I sit on the bed, dazed.

  “I want you out of my house, faithless woman.” Marcel issues his order like a tyrant who expects complete obedience and my head snaps up. His eyes glitter with the anticipatory menace of a spider preparing to devour the unfortunate prey trapped in its web and I’ve never been so afraid in my life.

  But, after years of living with his flagrant infidelity, Marcel’s righteousness spawns rage so ardent, it momentarily overwhelms my fear.

  I raise my head and meet his raptor like glare with one of my own. “This is my home. The kids and I aren’t going anywhere.”

  His thin-lipped sneer spreads into a malevolent smile that chills me to the bone. “The children aren’t going anywhere. But you most certainly are.”

  Heart-stopping fear steals my breath. “No, they wouldn’t...you couldn’t. They need me…” My throat throbs with unshed tears of helplessness and fury. The phone slips from my hand and lands at my feet with a clatter that’s muted by the panic thundering through my veins like a band of unbroken stallions.

  The polished tips of his bespoke Aubercy lo
afers come into view. And he presses a finger to the underside of my chin and lifts my face to his. I’m too shell shocked to resist.

  Disdain draws furrows between his brows, scorn etches grooves around the edges of his lips and he leans forward until I can smell the cognac on his breath. “After you have so thoroughly disgraced yourself, me and them, do you think they will want to be with you?”

  Oh God. My children. The thought of them seeing that picture fills my gut with an unbearable ache.

  At my silence, his sneering lips curl into a satisfied smile. He drops his hand from my chin and takes a step back. “You will leave. They will stay here. And if you tell me who the man is, I will call this newspaper and have them take this article out of circulation. This was published at midnight in France.” He checks the time on his wristwatch and purses his lips, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “It’s only 2am there, now. One phone call, and I can make it go away. I will spare you the humiliation of your children knowing what kind of woman you are. Just tell me who he is. Then, it will only be his life I burn to the ground.”

  Disgust cuts through my apprehension and I find my voice. “You would use our children as pawns?”

  His eyes narrow in condescending pity, “But, that is exactly what they are, Regan. The prenuptial agreement we signed saw to that.”

  “I will fight you, Marcel” I vow. That document is more than ten years old and if I’ve learned anything from my brother, is that there is no such thing as an unbreakable contact.

  He shrugs. “And I’ll win. That picture, whether the publication removes it or not, means I hold all the cards. Tell me his name and all you will lose is what you have already forfeited – custody of the children.”

  “My face isn’t showing, you can’t prove it’s me.” I grasp at straws.

  “Will your brother perjure himself and risk his law license to help you prove that in court? Because that’s where this is headed if you fight me.”

  I can see the picture in my mind as clearly as if I was still looking at it. Our faces aren’t showing. Yet, the glint of my gold body chain, the riot of dark curly hair that cascades down my back are distinctive but combined with the tattoo that adorns my lower back, it might as well be DNA evidence.

  But, there’s no way to prove that's Stone’s hand cupping my bottom. My chest aches at the thought of him. And what being embroiled in this could mean for the career he’s worked so hard for. I won’t let that happen.

  I just don’t understand how this picture that was on my personal cell phone got into the hands of a newspaper in France. One Marcel claims he has the power to command.

  I grasp at that thread of suspicion like it’s a lifeline and use it to pull my head above the surface of guilt and terror I’m drowning in. “How did they get that picture? I don’t understand,” I make my voice sorrowful, keep my head bowed, but keep a surreptitious eye on him through the veil of my lashes.

  His smug smile falters, and his eyes dart over my shoulder. But he regains his composure so quickly I’m not sure it wasn't just wishful thinking.” Maybe your lover handed it over to make a pretty penny,” he sneers.

  My head snaps up, and I scoff loudly; dismissing his statement for the conjecture it is. “He doesn’t—”

  “He what?” Marcel’s keen eyes narrow and I curse my near slip up.

  “Nothing. He is no one,” I lie.

  “And that’s exactly what I will tell your children. That you threw their family away for no one.”

  I blanche at the malicious glee in his voice. That he would relish hurting our children fills me with a crushing despair, so heavy that I can’t bear it and my own weight. I sit on the small dark leather trunk at the foot of my bed, drop my face into my hands and I search my disordered mind for a way to stop this. To keep them safe, with me and ignorant of their parents’ failings.

  “Time is ticking, Regan,” Marcel taunts.

  I lift my head to glare at him. “We haven’t lived together for five years. A quiet, straight forward divorce would have barely made a ripple. Their lives wouldn’t have changed at all. But this…you are taking them to Paris in the middle of the school year?”

  He snorts a derisive laugh. “They’re lives will not be disrupted. I will continue residing in Paris and will make more frequent trips to see them. And when school is over, they will come to me.”

  Incredulity slackens my jaw and widens my eyes. I gaze over at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. the children can’t stay here alone.”

  “Hanna is moving in.”

  I shoot to my feet, my fear and despair burned away by a surge of primordial rage.

  “You wouldn’t.” I growl.

  He swallows thickly, his eyes dart away from my brimstone gaze. He tugs the cuffs of his shirt, collects himself and looks back at me, the challenge back in his beady eyes. “The children know her and like her. You are the only one who had a problem with her.”

  “Because she was our nanny and you got her pregnant.” I scream, incandescent anger propelling me toward him.

  He takes a step away from me. “Lower your voice,” he hisses.

  “I will not. I’ve never cared where you have dallied. I still don’t. But if you do this--I will see you in hell.” His eyes dart past my shoulder again, this time, his tongue darts nervously over his thin lips.

  I swivel in the direction of his gaze. There’s nothing there but the huge gold leaf framed mirror that hangs over my fireplace.

  “What the hell are you looking at?” I demand, searching the wall for whatever keeps drawing his attention.

  “Anything but you.” He means the words to sting, but his cadence is stilted. His unease, in a moment where he holds all the cards, plucks at my suspicion.

  I erase any trace of it from my voice and my expression and turn back to him with a narrow-eyed glare and scornful scowl on my face. “Why? Because I’m not eighteen and under your employ?”

  His haughty, self-righteous stance is back. But I don’t miss the flash of worry in his eyes. Or the way his throat bobs behind his starched collar.

  “You must stop this delusion about Hanna.”

  “Is the baby she popped out with your fucking eyes a delusion?” I ask incredulous that he’s still denying it.

  “You have no proof. Whereas, I have this picture.” He waves his phone in my face, and his sneer turns taunting. “You’re nothing but a common slut and soon, the whole world will know.”

  I bristle. “Well, they already know that you are the king of sluts, so they’ll just think you finally rubbed off on me.”

  He flinches as if I slapped him and then his face flushes scarlet and he bares his teeth in a feral snarl before he rushes toward me. With more speed and strength than I thought him capable of, he shoves me. I land flat on my back. The rug cushions the impact of my fall, but I lay there, dazed and disoriented. He drops to his knees beside me and grips my cheeks, squeezing so tightly that I can’t move my lips.

  “Is he the reason you asked me for a divorce?” Spittle sprays my face and shock at the violence of his touch stuns me silent and still.

  “Fucking answer me.” He tightens his hold on me and my teeth cut into the inside of my cheek. The salty metallic taste of my own blood is an elixir – neutralizing my fear and feeding my fury.

  I gaze into the wrathful face of the man I wasted too much of my life on. The last ember of goodwill I feel for him, dies. Whatever he sees in my expression startles him – his eyes widen and his grip on my face slackens. I yank his hand away, press my palms to his chest and shove him off me. He lands in a sprawl beside me.

  I pull myself up with as much dignity as I can muster and wait for him to do the same. And then I step to him and stand close enough that I can see sweat beading on his cowardly upper lip.

  My hands curl into tight fists at my side, the bite of my fingernails in my palm keep me grounded and in control of the tempest that wants to fly free and beat his ass the way my brothers taught me to. But I am not going to jail for
this asshole. “You will never, ever touch me again, Marcel. Not ever.”

  His jaw trembles, but his voice is as sharp and smooth as the edge of an assassin's blade. “I don’t have to lay a hand on you to hurt you, Regan. You smug, faithless woman. I am going to ruin you. And when I find out who dared to cuckold me, I’ll do the same to him.”

  “Mom?” At the sound of my daughter’s trembling, tear clogged voice, we both freeze. I brush my cheeks, clear my expression, and with my heart in my throat, turn to face her.

  “You should be sleeping, Angel, are you okay?” It’s an asinine question. It’s clear from the way her stricken gaze darts frantically between her father and me that “okay” is the last thing she is. My gut clenches at the sight of tears trailing down on cheeks and the trembling hand pressed to her mouth.

  She rushes to me, her arms circle my waist, and she presses her wet cheek to my chest. My heart burns with something that scares me. I hug her tight, press kisses to the top of her head, and will my voice to steady. “It’s okay, baby. I promise. Let me take you back to bed. Daddy and I will finish talking and then, I’ll come see you.” I try to pry her loose. I am desperate to get her away from us and our disaster.

  She shakes her head violently and tightens her hold on me. “The man downstairs said you’re leaving. I want to come with you. Please, Mommy.”

  My eyes boomerang back to Marcel, and a shiver of dread runs down my spine at the triumph in his eyes. “What man?” I demand.

  “The one who is going to throw you out if you refuse to leave on your own,” he informs me in an even casual tone.