The Rivals - Dylan Allen Page 0,436

walking away and when her eyes find mine, I set the record straight. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. You were the only person who loved me enough to stay and fight. I wouldn’t be here or have this life without you. And I will always need you.”

She pats my cheek, her eyes soft and warm as she beams at me. “Oh, my girl. And as long as I can breathe, I’ll always be here.”

I press a grateful kiss to her weathered cheek. “Thank you.”

She grins and bumps my hip with hers. “You can thank me by adding mac and cheese to this fancy menu of yours.”

I groan. “Only way that’s happening is if you make it.”

“It’s a deal.” She claps her hands together and saunters off to get started. “You should have let me do all the cooking. You hired all these people to do work I could do for free.” She grumbles as she starts pulling sticks of butter out of the freezer.

“It’s a lot of work, and I didn’t want you to come down here and work yourself to the bone,” I explain.

But I understand exactly how she feels. I balked at hiring a planner for my baby shower. Hayes had to sit me down and explain how my ecosystem worked. “I’m a Rivers. That is our first child and my heir. So every good event planner in Houston started preparing proposals for this event the day we announced we were getting married. Yes, it’s a lot of money, but I’m very rich. Partly because these same people are our customers. In this house, your only job is to force me to put my pride aside and tell me when I’m wrong. All the other work is done by people we pay.” It was a shock to my tightfisted system at first. But I’ve gotten used to it. And I couldn’t have pulled off anything close to what the decorators, caterers and other vendors we hired have done. My house is going to look and smell like a winter wonderland and I can’t wait for him to see it all.

This is our second Christmas in this house. But it’s the first one we’re celebrating with our entire family. My mother is here for the first time since our wedding. Gigi and Lucas – Hayes biological parents will be here, too. We also have his half siblings- Remi, Regan, and Tyson – and their families joining us. Including their mother, Tina. I only invited her out of courtesy.

Stone and Regan tying the knot less than a year ago brought an official end to the two family’s decades long rivalry. But the last time Tina Wilde and Gigi were in the same room, they’d nearly come to blows. When Tina RSVP’d yes to my invitation, I called her to make sure she hadn’t checked the wrong box.

She told me called them months ago to bury the hatchet. She qualified her benevolence and informed me that she still thought her ex-husband a ‘feckless moral lightweight’. But her children had accepted him, and she didn’t want them to miss holidays with their father and she didn’t want to miss holidays with them. So, she’d be here, holding her nose, but here.

Despite her snarky comments, I found her sportsmanship inspiring. So, I extended an olive branch to Hayes’ cousin, Jesse. His father, Thomas, behaved deplorably and deserves the banishment Hayes imposed on him. But Jesse, who’s a senior in college, is estranged from his parents and alone for the holidays.

And Hayes better not flip when I tell him. After all, it was in the same spirit of grace that he asked me to include Eliza, his stepmother, in my planning for tomorrow. When his father had been alive, she played hostess to their Christmas Eve gathering.

I put my reservations aside for his sake and called her. She came over one afternoon, armed with pictures of the previous Christmas Eves that completely upended the kind of day I’d had in mind.

Far from the aluminum foil serving dishes and dollar store tablecloths I associated with holiday meals, these were full on events. Complete with formal table settings, professional décor, and a catered meal that looked more like a royal feast. At first glance it all felt contrived and staged. But his excitement as we looked over the pictures quelled any remaining reservations I had about it.

If it made him happy, that was the only reason I needed. He’d made one request – every