The Rival's Rival
A One-Night Stand, Hidden Heir Mafia RomanceBy Nadia Vance
Length8h 29m
About this audiobook
*Holding still,* Julian says, more to himself than the street, and presses the shutter release. He counts to twelve in his head, the way he always does when the light is this thin. It is *still March, still stingy with its warmth.*
The commission is from the merchants' association: twelve plates of twelve storefronts on Meeting Street, to hang in the new municipal building. *Fifty dollars and a mention in the News and Courier if they liked the work.*
Kincaid's Dry Goods is number four. A pickle barrel sits exactly where Julian needs the sidewalk to be empty, roped to the corner of an old canvas awning, and the man who comes out of the shop with a crate of oranges and flour dusted to his elbows will not move it. *It's holding the awning.* *It's holding my shot.*
Julian cannot afford to lose this job. His sister Rosalind is at the Pinckney Sanatorium, her bill is due in two weeks, and the portrait work he does there is paid in trade, meals and a private room, not cash.
Hollis Kincaid cannot afford much either. He works his father's counter, and he paints watercolours nobody is supposed to know about, one of which has been hanging in the shop's display window for three weeks because he could not quite make himself keep hiding it.
What begins over a barrel becomes low tide at the marsh, a thunderstorm at Shem Creek, a commission for the Saint Cecilia Ball, and a photograph pressed into Hollis's hands with the words *this is what I see when I look at you.*
It also draws Aldous Kincaid, who sits on the association board, who has already put a newer photographer in front of Julian for the society work, and who says it to his face: *I've known since you set foot in my store and couldn't stop staring at my son.*
Julian has been in Charleston six months. He has been working with a camera for twelve years. And the city has a precedent for men like him, which everyone knows by name: Tom served six months in the county jail, and when he got out he left Charleston on the first train north.
A historical romance between two men, about glass plates and watercolours, a sick sister, a rival with ambition and a father with a private detective, ending a long way north of where it started. The romance is closed-door.
Audiobook details
GenreRomance, Biography and Memoir
Length8 hrs 29 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 15, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1 - The Photograph That Wouldn’t Stay Still
2Chapter 2 - Barrels and Benne Wafers
3Chapter 3 - The Marsh at Low Tide
4Chapter 4 - The Constable’s Shadow
5Chapter 5 - The Storm That Changed the Schedule
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6Chapter 6 - The Secret Sale
7Chapter 7 - A Father’s Suspicions
8Chapter 8 - The Saint Cecilia Ball Commission
9Chapter 9 - The Letters in the Drawer
10Chapter 10 - The Confession That Almost Wasn’t
11Chapter 11 - The Sanatorium Visit
12Chapter 12 - The Ball Without Him
13Chapter 13 - The Aftermath and the Promise
14Chapter 14 - The Lawyer’s Office
15Chapter 15 - The Choice Denied
16Chapter 16 - The Garden and the Watcher
17Chapter 17 - The Rival’s Confession
18Chapter 18 - The Father’s Demand
19Chapter 19 - The Boarding House Door
20Chapter 20 - The Detective’s Visit
21Chapter 21 - The Price of Freedom
22Chapter 22 - The Recantation
23Chapter 23 - The Hospital Vigil
24Chapter 24 - The New Treatment
25Chapter 25 - The Train to Boston
26Chapter 26 - The Boston Sanatorium
27Chapter 27 - The Photograph on the Mantel
28The End
29About the Author
30Also by Nadia Vance
31Acknowledgements
32A Note from the Author
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