The Rivals - Dylan Allen Page 0,294

the hurricanes and tropical storms that are ubiquitous with life on the Gulf of Mexico. “Don’t worry about the thunder, baby. It’s just noise. It’s the lightning that’ll kill you.”

All of the questions I’ve had during the week of silence between us are answered by that look.

There will be no forgiveness.

“Pops, I am so sorry.”

“I don’t want you to say another word, just sit down.” I do as he says but can’t meet his gaze.

“Your friends won’t be getting the courtesy of a meeting. The least you can do is look at me.”

His voice is a machete that slices through the last strands of my control and a tear rolls down my cheek. I wipe it away hastily and lift my head. I flinch at the complete lack of emotion in his eyes. He’s never looked at me with anything but tenderness, even when he was angry with me. I can’t bear to see the warmth extinguished in those wild blue eyes that used to be my refuge.

“I tried to help you all out of the mess you found yourselves in all of those years ago. I gave you jobs, I protected you from scrutiny and I helped you all move on. This betrayal cuts too deep. The consequences will, too.”

My stomach lurches and I have to swallow the dread clogging my throat before I can speak. “What—what’s going to happen?”

“As we speak, your office is being emptied. Your keycards have been deactivated and if I have any say over it, you will never work for Wilde World again.”

My eyes bulge at his words. “Pops, you can’t mean that.”

“I do. You chose your side, and now you will stay there.”

Panic assails me and I stand, my hands pressed together, I bow my head in supplication. “I had to help them. They’re my friends.”

“And we’re your family. First it was that Rivers boy. Now, this. It’s too much,” he responds.

I gape at him “You know about Stone? How?” I’m reeling and the dread that was in the pit of my stomach flows, concentrated and unchecked until my entire body is weighed down by it.

“I know everything Regan. Those people are our enemies. And you welcomed him into our place of business for months.”

“He’s only a boy,” I exclaim, that crazy instinct to protect Stone flares before my sense of self-preservation can stop me.

He snorts in disgust. “A boy who’s smarter than most men twice his age and a Rivers. That negates anything else he might be.” he grates, his cheeks flush with anger.

Tears stream down my cheeks. I brush them away furiously. If there is one thing he hates more than disloyalty, it’s crying.

My entire body is quaking with fear and my legs are unsteady as I walk over to his side of the bed.

I drop onto my knees, barely noticing the bite of the hardwood against them, and grasp his hand and press it to my face. It’s soft, covered in a sea of age spots, and gnarled. But it’s still strong and big as it had been when I was a little girl. This is the hands that checked my brow for fevers, held handlebars, bandaged my knees, and wiped away my tears. Now, it sits limply in my grasp and the man it’s attached to is looking at me with a dispassion that reaches the center of my greatest fear - losing his love.

“Pops, please. I’m sorry. I love you. Forgive me.” I beg numb with shock. He can’t mean it.

Who am I, if not his? Who will love me, if he doesn’t? Despair, the likes of which I’ve never known casts a shadow over my heart. I tighten my grip on his hand. “I’ll do anything.”

There’s no affection, or indulgence in his pale blue eyes when he looks pointedly at my left hand. “Marcel Landel is coming to dinner on Saturday. Look pretty.”

Two Years Later

Two Year Later

Chapter 9

An Echo In Time

Regan

When I met him, Marcel was a larger than life public persona. From his wife’s sudden death, to his brother’s arrest for solicitation to his ascendancy to head of his family’s business empire - his name was constantly in the news. And he was ready to get married again.

He’s brilliant, rich, successful and was considered a most eligible bachelor - by women closer to my mother’s age than mine. But I was who he wanted.

The night we met, he made his intentions clear. “When I look across the table and see an old face, it reminds me