The Rivals - Vi Keeland Page 0,81

curve of my waist to my thigh and back up again. “Sorry about that. I do my best, but it’s impossible not to look at you and think about you naked.”

I smiled. “That’s oddly sweet.”

He shrugged, and his eyes stayed glued to my hip as he continued to rub up and down. “It’s the truth.”

“Well, that’s not the worst of it. After he said he’d seen you ogle me, he suggested I use it to my advantage to pump information out of you about your family’s bid.”

Weston’s hand froze, and his eyes jumped to meet mine. “What?”

“You heard me right. My father pretty much told me to seduce you to get information.”

Weston got quiet, though the stunned look on his face spoke for him. “What did you say?”

“Honestly, not enough. I think I was just so disappointed, I couldn’t come up with an appropriate answer. After he left, I thought of a million things I should’ve said. Like, I would’ve loved to see his face after I told him you were probably already waiting for me up in my room since I’d given you a key before I slipped out of bed with you this morning.”

I laughed and pointed my thumb at the stack of papers on the desk. “I’m pretty sure I would’ve had to call 911 if I’d told him you had access to all the work papers I keep in here, not to mention my body. The papers would’ve probably been a bigger deal, though.”

Weston shook his head. “I’m sorry. You deserve better than that.”

“Yeah, well, Scarlett has a saying, ‘Any time you spend wondering if you deserve better is time wasted. Because if you’re wondering, you do.’ I’ve spent too many years questioning whether I deserved the way my father treated my mother and me, so I’m not going to waste anymore time dwelling over it. I always knew the answer.”

Weston looked down. “You deserve a lot better from the men in your life—a fuck of a lot better.”

Chapter 23

* * *

Sophia

Weston looked as stressed as I’d felt the last few days.

Our bids were due in less than two weeks, and we both still had so much to do. Though, if I was being honest with myself, it wasn’t just the looming deadline that had me on edge. Weston and I hadn’t spoken about the logistics of what would happen after the bids were opened, and that had begun weighing on my mind.

Once one family owned the majority of The Countess, the other family would inevitably be pushed out. Weston and I had talked about going to a charity event together Labor Day weekend, but that was two months from now, which seemed like a lifetime. The more immediate question was, what would happen when this contest was over?

One of us wouldn’t be involved in the day-to-day operations of the hotel anymore. Did that mean Weston wouldn’t be slipping into my room at night? If I won, would he be holed up at one of his own family’s properties across town like he’d been in the months before Grace Copeland died? Or would he be sent back to Vegas where he still owned a house? There was so much up in the air, and the unknown was like a giant shadow following me around.

It didn’t help that Weston had seemed to distance himself a little the last few days. Ever since the day my father and I had our blowup, it felt like something had shifted—a crack had formed in the ground of our relationship, and each day it seemed to widen. After the bidding ended, would we need to yell in order to hear each other from the two sides we stood on?

To outsiders, though, we probably looked business-as-usual as we left the construction of the new ballroom.

“It’s really coming along great,” I said.

Weston nodded. “The mayor and his niece want to come see the room. Louis had been holding them off, but it should be in a presentable state by late next week.”

I glanced over at him. “I guess that means one of us will get to meet the mayor.”

Weston held my gaze. He frowned, but said nothing as he nodded.

Clearly, he had no plan to initiate the discussion we needed to have, and that frustrated the hell out of me. In fact, with each step I took, I felt my anxiety grow. By the time we got into the elevator, I’d started to feel like there wasn’t enough air, particularly in the confined