The Rivals - Dylan Allen Page 0,130

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