The Rivals

by Vi Keeland

  Around seven o’clock, I went downstairs to the front desk to check in with the reception manager since Louis was off today. While I was there, a messenger delivered a package, and I overheard the bellman say to one of the employees, “I’m going to run this up to Mr. Lockwood. I’ll be back in five minutes, in case anyone’s looking for me.”

  The clerk nodded. “No problem. I’ll keep an eye on your station.”

  I walked over and interjected, “Mr. Lockwood is out of town. But he has a mail bin in the manager’s office in the back.”

  The clerk looked confused. “Did he leave again? I saw him a few hours ago.”

  “You saw Weston today?”

  She nodded. “He came in about eleven this morning with his luggage.”

  What the hell? He’s back? Where the heck had he been all day, and why hadn’t he called me like he was supposed to?

  I forced a smile and extended my hand to the bellman. “I’ll take it up to him. I didn’t realize he was back, and I have some reports to drop off also.”

  I stewed the entire ride up to the eighth floor. What the hell was his problem? If he wanted to back away from whatever was going on between us personally, that was one thing. But I’d told him I had business to discuss, and he hadn’t even had the courtesy to let me know he was back in town?

  At his door, I took a deep breath and knocked. The entire floor was quiet, including his room. After a minute or two and no sign of Weston, I wondered if maybe the clerk had made a mistake. Sighing, I headed back to the elevator with his package. But when the silver doors slid open, guess who was inside?

  “You’re back?” I said.

  Weston stepped off the elevator. “Do you need something?”

  “Did you get in this morning?”

  “Closer to lunchtime. Maybe a little before noon.”

  “Where were you?”

  “In Florida. I told you that the other day.”

  “No, I mean all afternoon. I came by your office earlier, and the door was shut.”

  He looked away. “I had a lot of work to do, so I kept it closed.”

  I squinted at him. “I thought you were going to call me when you got in.”

  He continued to avoid my eyes. “I was?”

  “Yes, remember? I texted you the other day and said I wanted to discuss a delivery issue.”

  The adjacent second elevator doors dinged and slid open. A woman from housekeeping wheeled a cart out, and we all exchanged pleasantries. She parked her cart outside a guest room two doors down from the elevator and propped the door open.

  I looked at Weston, waiting for his answer.

  He shrugged. “It must’ve slipped my mind. What’s up?”

  The maid went in and out of the nearby room, bringing in sheets and taking out garbage, and I didn’t want to have this conversation in the hall.

  “Do you think we can have this discussion in your room?”

  Weston seemed to hesitate a moment, but he nodded. We walked to his room together in awkward silence. I wasn’t sure what was up, but I was now certain something was.

  Inside his room, the first thing I noticed was the enormous flower arrangement sitting on the desk. It was still wrapped in paper, but it had the logo of Park Florist stamped all over it.

  “Flowers?” I said, arching an eyebrow. “Do you have a secret admirer?”

  He walked over to the minibar and grabbed a water. “I…uh…tried to deliver them to a guest for the bellman the other day right before I left for my trip. But the guest had checked out early. I was running late, so I just left them in here. I need to toss them.”

  “Oh really? That would be such a shame. What kind of flowers are they?”

  Well, I’d learned one thing about Weston today. He was a really shitty liar. He couldn’t seem to meet my eyes every time he spewed another one.

  He shrugged. “Not sure. I didn’t look.”

  I stared at him until he returned my gaze.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Just seems like a shame to throw out perfectly good flowers. Maybe I’ll take them. I love flowers.” I was really enjoying screwing with him, so I added, “Unless they’re dahlias. I’m not a fan, and they make me sneeze.”

  Weston had looked away again, but now his eyes came back to mine. I watched as the wheels in his head turned, trying to decide how to proceed.

  In the end, he went with cautiously. “Dahlias only?”

  I flashed a smile somewhere between smug and friendly, which only added to his confusion. “Yup. Just dahlias. In fact, the blackberry ripple variety are the absolute worst. I just sneeze and sneeze and sneeze…”

  His already-squinting eyes narrowed even more. So I widened my smile and upped the ante.

  Walking over to the flowers on the other side of the room, I fingered the card still stapled to the paper wrapping. “You weren’t even curious what the card said?”

  Weston stayed rooted to his spot. He looked about seventy-five percent sure I was fucking with him, yet the remaining twenty-five percent wanted to hold out before folding.

  He shook his head slowly. This time when he spoke, his eyes remained locked with mine. “Nope. No interest whatsoever.”

  I fiddled with the card but left it attached to the paper. “Hmmm... Well, I am. Hope you don’t mind if I read it.”

  Weston’s jaw ticked as I called his bluff.

  “It’s an invasion of the sender’s privacy,” he grumbled. “Don’t you think?”

  I plucked the card from the paper wrapping and smiled. “Then you don’t have to read it.” Taking my sweet-ass time, I ran my nail across the back of the envelope and sliced it open. For full dramatic effect, I flashed my pearly whites at Weston as I slowly pulled the card out.

  Before I could scan the first word, Weston was in my personal space. He snatched the card from my hand and gripped both sides of the desk around me, boxing me in.

  His eyes gleamed. “Don’t screw with me.”

  I lifted my hand to my chest and feigned innocence. “Why, whatever do you mean?”

  “Ask what you want to ask, Sophia.”

  I tapped my fingernail to my lips, looking up at the ceiling. “Hmm… I have so many questions. I’m not sure where to start.”

  “Start wherever you want. Because you playing games just pisses me off. And you know what happens when we get pissed at each other.” He leaned in closer. Our noses were only two inches apart. “Don’t you, Soph?”

  My mind immediately conjured images of me pressed against the wall with my skirt around my waist, and Weston with a fistful of my hair standing behind me.

  When I didn’t answer right away, he smirked. “Yes, that. Exactly what you’re thinking.”

  I squinted. “Oh, you know what I’m thinking now, do you?”

  “You were thinking of the first time we were together.” He nodded toward the door. “I fucked you right up against that wall.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  Weston ran his thumb along my bottom lip. “Well, we were both thinking the same thing a minute ago. But now with this beautiful mouth looking so inviting, I’m remembering a different evening.”

  Luckily, at that moment the smell of the flowers behind me permeated my nose, reminding me of the purpose of my visit. I cleared my throat. “Why did you buy me flowers and then not give them to me?”

  Weston’s jaw flexed. “It seemed you had another delivery, and I didn’t think you needed two arrangements.”

  I tilted my head. “Why not let me decide which arrangement I wanted to keep?”

  Weston relinquished his position and stood with his arms folded across his chest. “It pissed me off that another man felt he had reason to send you flowers.”

  “How do you know another man sent them? Maybe they were from a woman friend?”

  “Because I read the damn card, Sophia.”

  I folded my arms across my chest, matching his stance. “Really? Didn’t you just tell me that would be an invasi
on of the sender’s privacy?”

  “And if the roles were reversed? Can you honestly tell me if flowers came for me, you wouldn’t sneak a look at the card?”

  I thought about it and shook my head. “I’m not sure.”

  Weston gave me a curt nod. “You’re a better person than I am. It happened. Can we move on, please?”

  I shook my head. “From the flowers, yes…after you apologize for invading my privacy and intercepting my delivery.”

  He held my eyes for a few seconds before nodding. “Fine. I apologize for reading the card. The delivery I intercepted was the one I sent, so I had every right to do that.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine. I accept your half-ass apology. But I have other questions, aside from the flowers.”

  Weston mumbled under his breath, “Of course you do.”

  “Why did you leave the other morning so abruptly?”

  Weston shook his head and blew out a deep breath. “Our situation is complicated, Sophia. You know that.”

  “Yes, I do. But we’d just had a really nice evening together. I thought we’d grown closer.”

  “Bingo. That, in itself, is the complication.”

  Everything about the two of us was complicated. Our relationship had been destined to be difficult before we were even born. But something inside told me that wasn’t what had spooked Weston the other morning.

  “So…it bothered you that our families have been feuding fifty years, and we’re basically competitors?”

  Weston looked away. “Yes, that’s part of it.”

  I chuckled. “Just like you seem to be able to tell what I’m thinking, I can tell when you’re full of shit.”

  Weston’s eyes slid back to meet mine.

  “What was the other part of it?” I asked.

  He dragged a hand through his hair and exhaled harshly. “What do you want me to say? That I’m an alcoholic who’s fucked up pretty much everything important in his life and you’re too good for me?”

  “If that’s how you feel, yes.”

  He shook his head. “Of course it is. I’m not an idiot.”

  “Okay, well, at least if I know how you’re feeling, I won’t feel used.”

  Weston’s face softened. “You felt used?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.”

  “It’s fine. Obviously, we both have a tendency to jump to conclusions.”

  Weston nodded, looking down.

  “Was your trip to Florida planned? Did you know about it when you left my room the other day?”

  He shook his head. “I needed to speak to my grandfather about a few things. My grandmother isn’t well, so he doesn’t travel unless it’s necessary.”

  “I didn’t know. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Thank you.”

  We were quiet a long moment. We’d cleared the air, but some of what he’d said bothered me. I was probably just as hesitant as he was about getting involved. But none of the things that gave me pause had to do with him not being good enough, and I wanted him to know that.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Do you have one person you look up to more than anyone?”

  He nodded immediately. “Caroline. She never felt sorry for herself, complained, or stopped smiling.” He shook his head. “Hell, she spent more time listening to my problems and trying to cheer me up than bitching.”

  I smiled. “I wish I’d gotten to know her better. She sounds very special.”

  “She was.”

  “The person I look up to more than anything is my mom. She was an alcoholic.”

  “Really? I had no idea.”

  I shrugged. “Most people don’t. God forbid anything real get out about the Sterling family. My father walked out on us without looking back, but he always made sure to cover my mother’s tracks. After all, her last name stayed Sterling even after they divorced.”

  “Did she start drinking after they split up?”

  I shook my head. “I wish I could say she did. It would give me something else to despise my father for. I had no idea she was an alcoholic until I was a teenager. After she found out she had cancer, I went to a bunch of doctors with her. A few suggested she go to rehab before she had her first surgery. Believe it or not, that confused me, even though I saw her drink every single day. My mom drank martinis out of expensive crystal glasses, so somehow it never dawned on me that she had a problem. Alcoholics swigged from the bottle, wore dirty clothes, and got sloshed and fell down. They didn’t wear pearls and bake pies.”

  Weston nodded. “When I went to rehab, I was pretty surprised that half the people in there were over fifty and looked pretty damn normal.”

  “My mother did a different kind of scared-straight program. She kept getting headaches and blurry vision and probably attributed both to hangovers. It’s what delayed her diagnosis. She had a tumor the size of a golf ball in her brain by the time she told the doctor about her symptoms. She was just so used to hiding things related to her drinking.”

  Weston took my hand and squeezed.

  “Anyway, my point is, my mother was loyal, loving, kind, smart, and generous to a fault. She was the first person in her family to go to college, and even after she married my father, she continued to work part-time as an adjunct professor. Most people probably thought it was a fluff position, since she married into more money than she would ever need. But she took her entire paycheck and sent it to her parents every single week because they needed a little help. And when my father left us, she started teaching more classes and refused to take one dime from him, except for the cost of my education.”

  “Wow.”

  I smiled. “She was all those wonderful things. And she was also an alcoholic. I’m not gonna pretend there weren’t days that sucked. Because there were plenty of those. But alcoholism is a disease, not a character trait, and it doesn’t define who she was.”

  Weston stared at me. I could tell he was lost in thought, but I couldn’t tell if he understood why I’d shared this. The look on his face was intense, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

  “Did you approve a fifty-thousand-dollar increase to our budget for the Boltons’ construction?”

  My forehead wrinkled. I had no idea what I’d expected him to say in response to my heartfelt admission, but this was certainly not it. “Yes. They needed an answer to avoid a delay, and you weren’t around.”

  “Is your phone not working?”

  I got angry. “I had called you once. You were supposed to call me when you got in, which you never did. They needed to add steel headers to a weightbearing wall in order to accommodate the extra weight on the roof above. It’s not like I approved an invoice for decorating. If you want to be involved in every decision, I’d advise you to be here.”

  “Don’t do it again.”

  My hands flew to my hips. “Then make yourself more goddamn accessible.”

  Weston’s eyes darkened. “You’re not well-versed enough in construction to make large financial decisions, especially ones that involve Travis Bolton. He’s laying the charm on thick, and you fall for it.”

  Two minutes ago, I’d wanted to hug him, and now I was seriously considering punching him in the face. “Screw you.”

  He smirked. “Been there, done that.”

  My eyes widened. “Go to hell!”

  He glared at me. “Turn around.”

  “What?”

  “Turn around. Bend over the desk.”

  Had he been drinking? He had to have fallen off the wagon and hit his damn head if he thought I was about to have sex with him. “I have no idea what I was thinking being nice to you and opening up.” I brushed past him and marched toward the door.

  He called after me. “You’re forgetting your flowers.”

  I halted and decided to show him what he could do with his flowers. Walking back to the desk, I picked them up with the intention of tossin
g them in the garbage. But before I could turn around, Weston had pushed up against me.

  “I don’t know how to do nice, Soph,” he whispered in my ear. “This I know how to do.”

  My pulse raced. I’d been practically shaking with anger. “Are you joking? You baited me into a fight because you don’t know how to be nice to me?”

  He pushed his erection into my ass. “That depends on how you define nice. I would say giving you multiple orgasms is pretty nice.”

  I wanted to be mad, but I felt my resolve slipping. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

  There was a smile in his voice. “Yes, I do.” He paused. “Now bend over, sweetheart.”

  Sweetheart. One little word, and I turned to mush.

  I stood there debating, wanting in the worst way to walk out the door, but somehow I couldn’t get my feet to align with my head.

  Weston brushed the hair from my neck and kissed his way up to my ear. “I missed you, babe.” He snaked a hand around my waist and cupped between my legs, bunching the fabric of my skirt into his hand. “Tell me you’re wet for me.”

  I was getting there, but I wasn’t about to admit that. “You want me to do your job? Isn’t it enough that I’ve been covering for you for two days?”

  He chuckled. “I’m about to make it up to you.”

  Weston pushed my skirt and panties aside and stroked up and down once before pushing two fingers inside me. It took me less than three minutes to come on his hand, and ten seconds later I was bent over the desk as he pushed inside me. The second time I came, we shook the desk so hard the flowers tumbled to the floor. Weston said my name over and over again as he emptied himself inside of me. It was fast and furious, but just as physically satisfying as if it had been long and tender.

  He leaned over my back as he attempted to catch his breath. “Thank you,” he said.

  “I should be the one thanking you. You did most of the work.”

  Weston pulled out and turned me around to face him. He pushed the hair off my face. “I wasn’t talking about the orgasm. I was talking about what you said earlier.”