The Rivals - Vi Keeland Page 0,82
car. My choices were to lean over and hyperventilate, or lift the boulder off my chest so I could breathe again. Halfway between the sixth and seventh floor, I decided I couldn’t take it. Jamming my finger into the red emergency stop button, I brought the elevator to an abrupt halt.
“What’s going to happen next week?” I asked.
At first, Weston looked genuinely confused, but it didn’t take him more than a few seconds to catch up. He shook his head and shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “I don’t know, Soph.”
“Well… What do you want to happen?”
“You mean between us?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes. What else would I be talking about? It’s pretty clear from a business standpoint. The lawyer for Easy Feet is going to open two envelopes, and one of us is going to become the majority shareholder. We both know neither of our families will want to manage the property jointly, so the winner will take over running The Countess, and the loser will get some hefty profit checks a few times a year. But where does that leave us?”
Weston nodded and pointed to the camera in the corner of the elevator. “Unless you want security to know I’m not ready to stop fucking you, maybe we should have this conversation somewhere else. I have a call in a few minutes. Does six o’clock work?”
“My meeting with legal is at six. Seven?”
He nodded. “I’ll order us some dinner and meet you in your suite.”
“Okay.”
***
We made small talk through dinner. I was anxious to have a discussion, but figured maybe Weston preferred to wait until we were done so it seemed less like a business meeting and more like a regular couple’s date. After we finished, he rolled the room service table out into the hall and walked over to the bar.
“Do you want a glass of wine?”
“Ummm…”
His brows dipped together. “Do you have to go back downstairs?”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing that can’t wait until morning.”
“Are you too full for wine?”
“I’m never too full for wine.”
He frowned. “I thought we were past you refraining because I don’t drink.”
I smiled. “Oh, that’s not it. I’m over that. I was just thinking maybe I should keep a clear head for our discussion.”
Weston turned back to the bar, took out a bottle of wine, and poured me a glass full to the brim. Passing it to me, he said, “Here. My head is far from clear. This will put us on even ground.”
I sipped my wine as we looked at each other. I sat at the end of the couch, and he sat across from me in the chair.
“This is new to me, Soph. You may need to show me how it’s done.”
“What? Talking about a relationship?”
He shook his head. “Talking about feelings in general. It’s been a long time since I even had any, much less discussed them. The ones I did have weren’t exactly good, and I did my best to drown them with alcohol.”
I set my wine on the table and took one of his hands into mine. “Well, how about this… Let’s pretend for a minute that you’re not a Lockwood, and I’m not a Sterling. We’re just two people who work together, and one of us is going to be laid off in a few days. What do you want from me after that happens?”
Weston stared off for a few minutes. Toward the end, a smile crept onto his face. “I just realized one of us is going to be pissed. Really pissed.”
“And the idea of one of us being let down and disappointed made you smile? I think you really are rusty on how these emotional things are supposed to work.”
He shrugged. “True. But I smiled because I realized it’s been a while since we had a good, angry fuck.”
I chuckled. “And what about beyond that? What do you want?”
Weston looked down for a long time. Eventually, he shook his head. “I want it all.”
My pulse sped up, but I was afraid to get ahead of myself. “Elaborate,” I said. “What does ‘I want it all’ mean?”
He took my hand and raised it to his mouth, kissing the top of my knuckles. Looking into my eyes, he took a deep breath. “It means I want to start my day the same way I end it every day—in your bed. Or my bed. Whatever. As long as I’m inside of you. You’ll tell me all the boring shit you plan to do to