Page 45 of Ruled By Rivalry

As if there was a private investigator following us, specifically hired to catch the tension between us, I made sure to suppress it. Elliot complied, at least until we were climbing the stairs to our apartment.

“You were pretty out of it all day,” he noted on the first floor. Only three more to go before I could hide behind my door.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You were working a lot,” he amended, but I still wasn’t sure where he was going with it.

“I always work a lot,” I reminded him, watching every stair I climbed.

“You were talking to yourself. Aimlessly scurrying through the hallways, peeking around corners. Falling asleep.” I could feel his eyes on me. I watched my feet harder. A futile attempt to brush off the fact he’d actively seen me trying to avoid him. Apparently, I’d failed miserably at that.

Color shot into my cheeks. “Just tired. Long night.”

Two more flights of stairs and I could scream into my pillow.

Elliot hummed beside me, amusement in the sound. “Really?” he asked. “We were home before midnight. What kept you up?”

I froze, and I didn’t even mean to. He couldn’t know. About what I’d been thinking and doing in the privacy of my own sheets last night. That I’d tried my very hardest not to think of him, but the second my hand had slipped between my thighs, it had become inevitable to think of his hands between them, and him, a few walls over, maybe thinking about the same thing.

He couldn’t know about any of it, and yet his tone suggested he did. At least, when my head finally snapped in his direction, he looked pleased to have rattled me. The corner of his mouth curled, and his tongue flicked across his pink lips. One hand ran through his blond hair, as if he’d been waiting for my attention but wasn’t quite sure what to do with it now that he had it.

The bottom of my stomach hollowed out. In dread and embarrassment, not at the fact that he looked too good in our stairwell.

I don’t want him, I reminded myself. Not only was he the reason Camila was mad at me; he was why I’d fallen asleep on top of my design. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d told Camila where to find me.

Elliot Ashwood was behind every single one of my problems, and yet I couldn’t help my body’s reaction to him. A reaction my body had never had before.

He doubled down. “Six hours of sleep can’t seriously be the reason you were napping on the clock, Maeve. I know you better than that by now.”

“You don’t know me at all.”

But why, then, did it seem like he interpreted the step I took back perfectly? I was flush with the railing now, and it still wasn’t enough space. Something below my skin was chanting his name, and maybe he heard it. Maybe that’s why he followed.

“You say that . . .” His head tilted in an unspoken challenge, voice barely above a whisper. “But I know you got up earlier this morning so you didn’t have to walk with me. I know you checked around those corners to avoid me. And I know it’s because you’re still thinking about last night.”

My head shook. “Nothing happened last night.”

Not entirely a lie. We didn’t kiss. We didn’t hook up—physically, we were still coworkers, rivals, archnemeses who’d learned to live with each other. But my perception of him had changed, which meant something did happen last night.

He’d turned from the big red no way into a what if too intriguing for my own good. And Elliot was looking at me like he knew it too.

“Oh, come on,” he muttered under his breath, reaching out to tuck a loose strand behind my ear. My stomach fizzled in anticipation, just as it had last night, and I pointedly ignored the alarm bells in my head, blaring. Stupid, they sang. So, so stupid. “Nothing had to happen. All it took was both of us wanting it to—”

“Elli?”

Our heads shot up, following the high-pitched sound all the way to our floor. He lowered his hand at the sight. Of Allegra, leaning over the railing, mascara-streaked face popping into our field of vision.

Chapter 19

Allegra was halfway down the stairs to us before I could fully comprehend.

Her blotched cheeks, messy bun, leggings, and oversized Adeline Ashwood hoodie. She flew straight into his arms. Before I could catch another glimpse of her teary eyes, she’d already buried them in his chest. Which was okay. Normal. No need to overreact.

“Allegra?” Elliot asked into her hair, confusion and worry in his tone. Embrace tight around her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh God,” she sobbed. “This is so stupid. I’m sorry for just showing up like this. I asked Rowen for your address. I’m sorry.” Another sniffle, and her head buried deeper into his shirt. “He broke up with me! Just like that.”

“Nick?”