Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  Heir to an oil empire, he was sexy and seductive, controlling and scorching hot. I craved every touch, every filthy promise that fell from his beautiful mouth, knowing he could break me. My past had left me battered and bruised, with scars he was determined to heal.

  Loving him was like drowning—he consumed me, body and soul.

  But Hayes has secrets of his own. And nothing could prepare me for the shocking pieces of our pasts that threaten to rip us apart.

  When the truth is revealed will our love be enough to shelter the storm?

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2018 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.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  V62020.lm

  Dedication

  FOR MY DAY DREAMERS.

  YOU MAKE ME BELIEVE.

  YOU ARE MY PEOPLE.

  I LOVE YOU.

  Prologue

  THE LEGACY

  HAYES

  I hear the crunch of footsteps behind me, but I don’t turn around. I know I’m not supposed to be here. It should worry me that I’ve been discovered. I’ve been warned repeatedly that this part of our property is off limits.

  But I’m not worried.

  Not today.

  Maybe not ever again.

  What could possibly happen to me that’s worse than my father dying? The worst day of my life has already come and gone. The boulder of pain that has lodged itself into my chest is heavy and no other emotion has been able to find a foothold in it for weeks. With each day that’s passed since my father died, I’ve become more convinced that what I’m feeling is something bigger, less definable than simple pain.

  Pain is a basic, localized thing.

  What I feel is sophisticated, all-encompassing.

  Pain has a remedy.

  There’s no cure for what has taken root inside of me.

  “Yo! What are you doing here?” a man’s voice calls out from the clearing behind me. I’d been expecting Swish to come looking for me. I did bail on my father’s funeral, after all. But that deep, loose, and jaunty voice is definitely not Swish.

  When I turn around, a tall, young, dark-haired man I’ve never seen before is watching me with a wary look on his face. Like I’m the intruder. Yes, I’m breaking a rule by being here, but this is still my family’s property.

  I stand up slowly and face him. “Who the fuck are you?” I ask with as much aggression as I can manage.

  “Remington Wilde.” He says his name like it’s a title. Like he expects it to mean something to me. And, it does. Even though I’ve never laid eyes on him before. His last name was among some of the very first words I ever learned.

  Remington Wilde is the oldest son of my family’s biggest rival.

  His family’s heir in training.

  Just like me.

  I’ve been raised to think of him as my nemesis.

  I don’t know what I expected him to look like. Certainly not so… normal. He could be any other teenager at my high school. Like me, he’s taller and broader than average. He’s got a basketball tucked under one of his arms and is dressed like he’s been playing.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he says just as combatively.

  “Hayes Rivers,” I answer and straighten my spine. The same surprise I felt flickers in his eyes for just a fraction of a second before he schools his expression—but I don’t miss it.

  Then, he starts dribbling the ball. His hand meets it every time it springs off the ground, but his eyes never stray from me. I’d heard he was a major basketball talent. But he attended the public high school, Lamar, and I go to the private Strake Jesuit. Our teams have never played each other. But if his playing is anything like his skillful but absentminded dribble, he was clearly born to hold a basketball.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” he says and draws my eyes back to his.

  “Neither are you,” I shoot back.

  We stare each other down. The longer I look at him, the more I’m sure I’ve seen him before.

  He narrows his eyes at me, crosses his arms over his chest and curls his lip. “I came to get a ball that came over the wall. But you look like you’ve been making yourself comfortable back here.” He nods at the sleeping bag that’s stretched across the huge boulder in the center of the clearing. I’ve been coming here since the day my father died. It’s been my escape from an endless stream of people who have been at our house to pay their respects.

  “So?” I respond with a defensive shrug. I nod at his arm. “Looks like you got your ball. Why are you still here?” I ask.

  His eyes narrow briefly, but his expression stays neutral.

  “I thought your old man’s funeral was today,” he says casually, quietly. And yet, the reproach in his tone hits me like he yelled them inches away from my face. A flush of shame washes over me.

  Of course, he knows. Everyone does. His mother, the widely-respected Tina Wilde, sent flowers. Eliza hurled the vase against the wall when she read the card, and they were not invited to the funeral. But I know their family must be watching ours closely to see how things change now that my father is gone. I wonder, too. He looks nothing like the mythical foe I’d imagined he would. But, our families have shared nothing more than the wall that divides our properties for the last—nearly—fifteen years.

  He glances at his watch, frowns at it and then looks back at me. “It can’t be over already? At nine o’clock in the morning?”

  I imagine St. John’s United Methodist Church packed to the rafters with people, pretending to care that my father is dead, mingling with the handful that really do. I’ve been handed so many business cards this week by people hoping that the Riverses will continue to be customers.

  I’ve thrown them all away.

  “Nah, it’s probably just starting.” I kick at the leaf-covered ground and avoid his disapproving gaze.

  “So … why are you here and not there?” he asks.

  “I already said goodbye,” I say with a shrug of my heavy shoulders.

  “What about your mom? Your brothers? Don’t they need you there?” he asks. Kindness softens the disapproval in his tone.

  I don’t like it.

  I don’t want it.

  But, I do feel a flush of shame that I’m not there for my brothers. I push that down and say words that are much closer to the surface and less problematic for me.

  “She’s not my mom,” I say.

  “Oh, she’s not?” He looks genuinely surprised.

  “Nope. She married my dad when I was seven,” I say.

  “So, they’re your step brothers?”

  “They’re my brothers,” I clarify. I hate that word. We haven’t made that distinction since the first year our parents got married. Their mother was an equal opportunity terrorist. She made them as miserable as she made me and we’d formed a real brotherhood in the trenches of Eliza’s crazy. As far as I can tell, the only reason my father married her is because she was a wealthy widow with the right last name with potential spares for his heir. He adopted them, so we’re not just brothers in spirit—the law says we are, too.

  “She’s never been my mother,” I say, and my voice sounds hollow in my own ears. I’ve never said that to anyone about Eliza. I’ve hidden my resentment. Mainly for my father’s sake. But now that he’s gone, so is my restraint.

  “Where’s your real mom?” he asks.

  “She died.” I shrug because I can’t do anything else. “I’m an orphan.” I say that word out loud for the first time and it tastes as bitter as I knew it w
ould.

  “Go be with your family, kid,” he says.

  “I’m not a kid, and you’re not old enough to be calling me one,” I say.

  “I’m eighteen. In college. My dad’s been dead since I was two, and my mama hates the sight of me. So, I’ve been old enough for a lot of things for a long time,” he says. There’s nothing in his tone that implies that he’s sad about his father, but now that I know what it feels like to have to say ‘my dad’s been dead …’ Or maybe he just has a well-honed poker face. I need to work on mine.

  “Listen, your brothers are going to need you to act like you have your shit together. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for them.” He puts a hand on my shoulder, and it’s oddly comforting—not at all awkward. Still, I don’t want kindness or comfort. So, I shake it off.

  “I’m surprised you even care. Don’t the Wildes hate the Riverses? Isn’t that why we’ve never even seen each other before?” I ask.

  “First of all, it’s the Riverses who hate the Wildes.” He bounces his ball once. “And I’ve seen you before. Didn’t know who you were. You and that little cheerleader girlfriend of yours come into Eat! over on Wesleyan. I work behind the deli counter. You probably didn’t notice since you didn’t take your sunglasses off the whole time you were in the store,” he says and dribbles his ball a few more times.

  “You work there?” I ask.

  “Yeah, who else is going to?” he says.

  “Doesn’t your family own it?” I ask.

  “Yes, and we all work in the businesses until we’re old enough and smart enough to run them. We ain’t like the Riverses,” he says, his dark eyes cocky and daring me to challenge him. I can’t. It’s true. My family members don’t work in any of their businesses. They don’t work at all. But damn if I’m going to let him know it bothers me. So, I smirk.

  “I’ll say hi next time I come in. Maybe you can make me a sandwich,” I say.

  “Today, I’ll cut you some slack and let you get away with that. But don’t try that on a day that’s not your father’s funeral,” he says and bounces the ball one last time before he tucks it back under his arm.

  “Or what? You’ll leave the mayo off my sandwich?” I scoff.

  He snorts out a laugh and throws the ball so hard and fast that I barely catch it before it hits me squarely in the chest. “Nah. I’ll use my hands to show you why I can call you kid any time I want.”

  I throw the ball back with as much force as I can. He catches it without even looking. Then he turns and starts to walk back through the little clearing in the woods that leads to the door I’ve never dared to open. It’s the emergency access to Rivers Wilde, the neighborhood the Wilde family established when they bought this land from my father, right around the time I was born.

  He’s almost disappeared into the brush when he stops and looks back at me.

  “Go to your dad’s funeral. Trust me, you’ll never finish saying goodbye, and you’ll be glad you saw him this one last time.”

  He leaves, and after a few minutes, so do I.

  * * *

  “You wanted to see me?” I duck my head through the heavy oak door of Swish’s office. He’s had this office in Rivers House for as long as I’ve been alive.

  The smell of old books, aged leather, and coffee is comforting. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see that he’s alone. Everyone else has met with me in pairs—mostly with their lawyer present. I haven’t had a truly personal conversation in a whole week.

  “Hello, son.” Swish greets me in his swashbuckling East Texas twang that sixty years of living in Houston hasn’t ridden him of. Despite the red-rimmed eyes and the disheveled, finger-mussed state of his normally perfectly styled, legendary silver hair, he’s smiling at me. It’s a beleaguered lift of the left corner of his mouth, but it’s more of a smile than I’ve seen on his face in a month. It’s sincere and warm, and when he says, “I’m glad to see you,” I believe him.

  He tugs his glasses off his nose, dangles, then drops them wearily onto one of the haphazard, stacks of paper littering his desk.

  “Come in, close the door.” He gestures to it and then hefts his bulky frame out of his chair and strides over to sit in one of the tufted dark red leather seats in front of his desk.

  “Sit down, please.” He nods at the identical chair across from him. The warm smile is gone and what’s replaced it is so grave, so grim, that my stomach clenches. I wipe my suddenly sweaty palms down the front of my jeans-covered leg and do as he asks.

  He groans through a yawn, presses the heel of his hand to his bleary eyes and rubs them slowly.

  He’s oozing fatigue, and it’s catching because I’m starting to feel weighed down by my own as I watch him. He looks old. And I’m very aware of the fact that time is not on his side … or any of ours, really. But, he folds his gnarled, spotted hands over the middle of his infamously large beer belly and leans back in his chair.

  “The last two weeks have been … difficult.” His voice is weighed down by all the things we’ve faced this week.

  Difficult.

  Memorizing the first nineteen lines of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in Olde English for class last month was difficult.

  Having to live without someone you love and knowing you’ll never hear their voice again isn’t difficult. It’s impossibly hard.

  I wish he would get to the point so I can go back to my room and put on some music and try to sleep. My father loved Elvis. I used to think it was such an odd thing for a boy from East Texas—who grew up sucking at the teat of Wednesday night Bible study, Friday night football, and Sunday morning service—to love music that my grandmother used to call the Devil’s seduction. The night he died, I played one of his albums on repeat and fell asleep to “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Now I can’t sleep without listening to it.

  “Your father was like a son to me. That I have outlived him and his father …” He shakes his head. “I don’t know how to feel about it, Hayes. But the one thing I know is that I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’ve had a real difficult time finding reasons to be grateful for my advanced age, son. But today, I’m glad I’m here—because you need someone,” he says solemnly.

  This time, his lips only quirk when he attempts to soften the graveness of everything.

  “You don’t have to smile. I don’t even try,” I say. We’re familiar bedfellows when it comes to sitting across from each other with grim sadness between us.

  When my father’s brain tumor returned so aggressively—and within weeks of his surgery—it was Swish who told me it was time to get ready to say goodbye. He was dead two weeks later. In so many ways, my life feels like it’s come to a screeching halt.

  I haven’t been to school. My stepmother has taken my brothers and gone to her parents’ in College Station. And my uncle Thomas and his newest future ex-wife have moved into the wing that belonged to my father. I don’t know how he can stand to be in there. The last time I walked into that part of the house, it smelled like my dad, and I couldn’t stomach being there. I can’t imagine sleeping in his old bed, breathing air that smells like him. I miss him so much.

  “I was raised in a different time. And your father, God rest his soul, reminded me so much of his father,” he adds,

  “They weren’t anything alike,” I interject and lean forward because I want to see his agreement with my own eyes.

  Instead, all I see is pity.

  “They weren’t,” I insist.

  He sighs. “I know your grandfather was ruthless at times.”

  “All the time,” I mumble.

  “People tell all sorts of stories about him. Your father didn’t speak highly of him. Thomas only speaks of him in hushed tones of reverence. The truth of the treatment his legacy deserves is somewhere between those two. But, he did what he had to, to preserve the family’s traditions of service. As did your father. And you will, too. Remember that you’ve been raised to honor and preserve your family’s money and their name. Your grandfathe
r was the first Rivers to serve the family’s business in a purely figurehead capacity. Your father expanded some of the roles, but they both saw to it that the family’s businesses were run by people who’d done more to prove themselves worthy than just inheriting it. So, as chairman of the board, the title your father held—and that you will hold—is still an important one because you’re in charge of the family’s personal fortune. You’ve seen the reports in Forbes?” he asks.

  “Yes, I have no idea if they’re true. I mean, do we really have twenty billion dollars?” I ask.

  “There is no ‘we.’ It’s just you. And it’s much more than that,” he says, and my jaw drops.

  “Me?” I ask.

  “Yes, you,” he says mirthlessly.

  “Holy shit.” I sigh and lean back.

  “A lot of that comes from your ownership in Kingdom stock. But Hayes, the trust doesn’t give you access to any of it until you’re twenty-five. Until then, your guardian has control over it, and the trustee has control over him.

  “The will says that in a case where the heir is too young to assume, a regent or guardian is appointed. It would have been your mother. But …” He purses his lips.

  So, I finish his sentence for him. “But, she’s dead, too.”

  “Yes, she is,” he says with a new heaviness in his voice. “Your great-great-grandfather Rivers was obsessed with the idea of establishing his own dynasty. Unfortunately for Thomas, it means his inheritance and importance to the family is much smaller. But now, as your guardian, he’ll also be the acting chairman,” he says grimly.

  “So, it’s only until I’m thirty?”

  “Yes, but I know he wants that chairmanship permanently. And he wants it to pass to his heirs. That useless cousin of yours would then inherit after him,” Swish warns me, and my worry spikes when I think about my cousin Jesse, who lives with his mother in Miami. We’ve never gotten along. I can’t imagine him leading our family.