The Rivals - Dylan Allen Page 0,57

a beat behind the crack of Eliza’s palm against her cheek. The room’s incredible acoustics meld the two sounds together in sickening rhythm.

I skid to a stop right at the foot of the stairs.

What the actual hell is going on here? Did she just slap another grown woman?

“We’re leaving,” Mr. Gold says and I finally turn around to look at the poor people who have escaped one nightmare only to find themselves in the middle of another. And I’m sure they’re thinking they’d rather take their chances with mother nature than deal with this insane woman.

He’s standing guard in front of everyone else. I catch a glimpse of Cass’s face and she looks green. I can’t believe this is happening. “I’m sorry. Your rooms are ready. Please, let’s just get you dry—”

“We’ll get a room at the Ivy for the night. Confidence, you’re welcome to come with us,” he says gravely, his dark gray eyebrows drawn in extreme concern as he surveys the scene unfolding in from of him. “In fact, I would like to insist that you do,” he says. I’ve only met him once before at our law school graduation, and I was struck by how gentle and quiet he had been. He’s a small man—so much like my father, I’d thought. But without the sadistic spirit that inhabited him. What must he think of me right now? And of Hayes?

Hayes. I’d forgotten all about him.

“Where in the world is Hayes?” I ask when all other words fail me. I pat my pocket and curse my decision to leave my phone upstairs when I rushed downstairs.

“Confidence, we’re leaving. I just ordered an Uber and he’s only two minutes away,” Mr. Gold says again, and this time, his voice is firm and commanding. “Tell Mr. Rivers thank you for rescuing us. We owe him a huge debt, but we don’t want to impose, and clearly, it’s not a good time.” He nods pointedly at the insane woman standing on the stairs watching the chaos she just created with a pleased, smug smile on her face. Poppy has disappeared in the five seconds since I looked away.

“An Uber?” I exclaim. “Bu-But, I have your rooms ready. I didn’t even give you the towels,” I say, completely dejected and helpless to stop the situation from spiraling. I point to a stack of towels and a thermos of coffee that Hayes’s housekeeper, Matilda, gave me to bring down with me.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Hayes asks, and I look over to see him standing in a doorway that I hadn’t noticed beneath the stairs. The rain has had its way with him. But unlike the rest of the soaking wet people in the room, he looks more like a sea god than he does a drowned rat. His hair clings to his forehead in dark wet waves and water runs down from one of them, through his dark gray T-shirt, and it’s plastered to his body like a second skin. His jeans, the same. His eyes sweep the room, moving from each one of us to the next when he doesn’t see whatever he’s looking for on our faces.

“Mr. Rivers, I was just saying that we’re so grateful for your kindness. You were heroic today. But we’ve decided to head into Rivers Wilde for the night,” Mr. Gold, clearly the group’s designated speaker, says. “We have Carly’s insulin, and little Micah has his inhaler. So all we need is a dry, warm place to lay our heads,” he says.

“And I told you, you could do that here,” Hayes says quietly and walks over to me. “What happened?” he asks.

No one says a word.

“Eliza, what happened?” He squares his gaze on her, and even though I’m not looking at her, I see the moment he gets to the gun. His face turns white and then blood suffuses his cheeks and looks like the top of his head might pop off.

“Did you point your fucking gun at my woman?” he asks, and his voice ricochets off the walls of the house’s cavernous space in a terrifying echo. The little girls starts to cry again, and my stomach cramps into a knot. This is beyond disastrous. I can’t imagine how Hayes lives with people like this.

Eliza’s face never loses its smugness, but she starts backing up the stairs.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Hayes Rivers. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot her,” she says, and then like the rat she is, she turns and runs