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I misjudged this woman, and I’m so glad that Hayes has better judgment than I do because she is exactly what he and this family needs. And she loves him something fierce.
I smile gratefully at her and sit back down.
“The Riv
erses founded this city. With our carpetbagging money we came and bought land, financed cotton gins, and gave the Allens money to buy the land that this city is sitting on. And then, we settled here. And in this city we are titans. Power covets power. Above all. Money and fame were never the goal. Power was how you survived. Power was what gave you the ability to execute your vision. And with it came the money, the fame, the access to anything you could ever want.
“Once you’ve tasted it, you never want anything else. That’s how we were raised. When I was eighteen, I had my coming out. It was a silly thing, but a tradition that the ruling families of Houston had started to make sure that the next generation was shaped by the best and brightest.”
“According to whom?” Confidence asks.
“According to the men who saw themselves as masters of the universe. The rules of entry were steep and enforced to the letter. Number one was no new money, which—to the founding families of Houston—was a dirty word. Either way, that was how they kept people from buying their way into the elite club they’d made. This group of people produced governors, presidents, titans. They didn’t want to share that.
“And girls like me? We went to college not to get an education but to find a husband. My parents sent me East to Wellesley College.”
“Isn’t that all girls?” Confidence cuts in again. I smile at her and think that for all her hard-earned street smarts, this girl has a lot to learn about the family she’s joining.
No matter how much she’s grounded Hayes, he’s still got the blood of ambitious, ruthless titans in his veins. He’s not chasing a win in the moment. He will always think about his place in history. Like all of the men who came before him that have dreamt about the eternal sunlight of their glorious time as rulers among men.
“Yes, it is. And all of the men at Harvard, MIT, BU, Brandies, and Tufts knew it. So on the weekends, our parties were packed with men. And that’s when I met and fell in love with your father.” I look at Hayes “At a party where neither of us were having a particularly good time. I tripped, he caught me, we sat down to talk, found out we were both from Houston and spent the rest of the night falling in love. When we went home that summer, we found out that my family was opposed to the match,” I said.
“Is that really a thing?” she asks.
“Oh, yes. In fact, the boys in my vintage would say—”
“Vintage?” Confidence says with a scowl of confusion.
“That’s stuck-up speak for ‘in the same year at school,’” Hayes tells her quickly. I frown at him before I continue.
“Yes, in my year at school, they would say ‘heiress or above only,’ and it wasn’t something they said behind closed doors. It was a rule. And for heiresses like me, the same applied. My love—he had money, but not the kind that they liked. And there was someone else they wanted for me.
“His family was offended. They decided I wasn’t what they wanted for their son. And family, to both of us, was everything. We went our separate ways.
“He married someone else. I moved back East. But then, after my father got sick, I came home. We ran into each other at a fundraiser.” I can’t help my smile as I remember that night. Seeing him again.
“We made a choice. When we got married, your grandfather disinherited me. Made your fath—" I stop when Hayes blanches. “I’m sorry, Jason, his heir. He was a newlywed, home from Cornell with his pretty, Beacon Hill heiress on his arm. He married the right girl, from the right family, and she had good childbearing hips—as my father called them,” I recall.
“You moved to Italy?”
“Not then. Your father and I bought a farm out in Brenham. We were raising steer, and I was three months pregnant when he just … disappeared.”
“What does that mean?” Hayes asks in a sharp voice.
“He left early one morning to go into town and just never came back home. It took me a week to call the police because I was sure he’d come back with a story about how his car ran off a cliff and he’d had to camp in the woods and wait for rescue. But after a week, I realized I couldn’t hide anymore. I went to his family. They had no idea where he was and accused me of having something to do with it. They had money of their own; they were smart and they wanted revenge. So, I hid you. Right under their noses. James’s wife’s hips weren’t so childbearing and she was ill. My father had disinherited me, and Thomas was on the verge of being expelled from West Point. We were all such a disappointment to him. The only thing he saw value in was you.
“He refused to reinstate my inheritance. But he would give it to you. If I let James and his wife raise you as theirs. At the time, I thought it was a good idea. I was beside myself with grief and without two coins to rub together. And despite everything, I still believed in the Rivers name and I wanted my son—the true oldest child—to take his rightful place. And Thomas didn’t know. By the time he came home at the end of that term, I was in Italy. James and Ann had their brand-new baby boy in their arms and he was none the wiser. I don’t know how Thomas found out.” I shake my head dismally.
“Well, Amelia has a clue. They obtained a copy of Anne’s autopsy. It says that she’d never given birth. And so, their hope is to prove that I’m illegitimate. They have no idea of the truth,” Hayes says in a low, dark voice that gives me the chills. I want to rewind, and I want to kill my little brother. He’s always been such a selfish pain in the ass.
“I don’t know what is wrong with Thomas. He is so resentful of everything and I don’t understand it. He says he loves his family, but he’s forgotten just like our father did that family is the people who make it up. And the name is only as good as the people who bear it. I’m worried about him. That he would do this. But power is all he’s ever wanted. But he’s going to be sorry. This is going to open up another can of worms that none of us wants to revisit,” I say.
“What? What could be worse than playing musical parents with me?” Hayes asks.
“Nothing could be worse than that,” I say quietly. My heart is breaking that this is how he has to find out. But, it’s time.
“So ...”
“Your father. His name was Lucas Wilde,” I say and wait for the light to go on. His head draws back and his eyebrows shoot into his brow line. He shoots out of his seat and stalks over to the huge mantle over the fireplace in his living room.
