Page 35 of Ruled By Rivalry

In answer, Elliot rolled his eyes, as if he was in on the joke, then leaned forward excitedly. “But I get to work with incredibly talented people, so being told what to do is a small price to pay for that. We’re focusing on the Ashwood Annual looks at the moment.”

With incredibly talented people, he must’ve meant Oliver and Camila. And when he said we, he must’ve meant the company. There was no way Elliot Ashwood was complimenting me live on national television.

Chapter 14

There was a stark difference between on-camera Elliot and off-camera Elliot. Last night, every word he’d said on Steven Stewart had been carefully calculated to sway public opinion on him and Adeline Ashwood. After, his publicist nodded proudly, congratulated him with a pat on the back, and said, “Really nicely done. I almost forgot you could do that.”

I had to assume she meant manipulate the masses.

It almost worked on me, and I wasn’t even the target audience.

The whole thing was a friendly reminder that I was still keeping secrets for a guy I clearly couldn’t trust. Something I decided to change as soon as possible.

I ambushed Camila the second she stepped into her studio, back from a fashion week prep meeting I’d found in her calendar.

“He told them about the sustainability idea,” I said, very fast.

The door slowly fell shut behind her. Its thud was the only sound in the room besides our breathing.

“What?!”

“He told—”

“I heard you the first time.” She waved me off, finally moved again to set down the laptop she’d held against her chest. “Elliot told who? The board?”

I almost felt bad for letting her know how much worse it was. If her first guess had been the board, and she’d already deemed that scandalous enough to raise her voice . . . I cringed before I confessed, “Daphne and Ryan.”

“What?!” As expected, she shouted the words and didn’t even apologize for it. I flinched. “When?”

Now onto the unpleasant part of snitching on Elliot Ashwood. Because I’d been complicit. Somewhat, at least. If possible, I shrank farther into my chair. “Last week.”

“Last week?!” she repeated, a little dumbfounded. “Why am I only hearing about this now?”

“You were so busy!” I cried. “With fashion week and final approvals and helping us—” But her features didn’t soften, and to be fair, I was keeping my biggest reason from her. The only thing that could make this situation worse was confessing that I’d started to believe that maybe Elliot and I could handle it. Together. As a team.

“Maeve.” Camila shook her head, and the clear disappointment on her face was a punch to the gut. “This is a head-designer-level crisis. Not an intern-level crisis. What exactly did he say to them?”

My head fell back with a loud exhale, if only to avoid her harsh stare. I don’t think she’d ever looked at me that way, and I never wanted her to again. “There might not be a way to fix—”

“Let your boss worry about that, why don’t you?” She cut me off, then added, “Quote him, if you can.”

Fuck.

Unfortunately, my memory was good enough to remember exactly what he’d said. “‘We were thinking a touch of sustainability, maybe?’ Ryan hesitated, but Daphne was so on board that I think it would be hard to backtrack.”

Camila paced up and down the length of her studio, continuously mumbling some variation of “That little shit.” At least she wasn’t shooting the messenger. “This is exactly what I meant. He doesn’t have rules to play by. He’ll do whatever, whenever, to beat you. He’ll use you, and you won’t even notice.”

I guess he’d already managed to draw me in enough that I hadn’t thought to tell Camila earlier.

“The question is if you’re doing the same thing?” she doubled down.

I did call the paparazzi on him, and that did get him in trouble . . . at least until he’d turned that mess around for himself. “I think so.”

“Good.” But it wasn’t enough to get back into her good graces right away. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. We’ll start thinking about ways to implement his stupid sustainability goal tomorrow. You should head home now. It’s late.”

It was nice to know she still hated Elliot more than she hated me, but a boulder of dread lodged itself into my stomach regardless. I didn’t want to go home. I should be trying to make up for this major fuckup, somehow. Staying late—all night, if I had to. Fuck whatever plans Elliot had for us.

“But—”