Page 91 of Ruled By Rivalry

“Seriously.” I had to stop at a red light, and when he did the same, I finally whirled around. It must’ve looked funny, the way I threateningly held up a finger toward a man at least two heads taller than me. About the same height as Elliot, but much broader.

Another reminder of him. It made me snap. “You can tell your boss he can stop pretending to give a shit.”

The light had barely turned green, and I was halfway across the street. Of course, he kept up. “With all due respect,” he said. I almost laughed again, even when nothing about this situation was funny. “Even if he’d be fine with me leaving you, which he wouldn’t be, I can’t possibly in good conscience do that. What kind of person would I be, letting a vulnerable woman, in clear emotional distress, walk the streets of New York City by herself in the middle of the night?”

“I’m not in emotional distress!” The way I yelled the words might’ve suggested otherwise.

“Okay. Sure.” Beside me, he nodded grandly.

“This is stalking. You know that, right?” I’d told Elliot the same thing, then let myself be soothed and coddled into forgetting it. Fuck. “If I don’t want you here and you refuse to stop following me. I could go to the police.”

Now he snorted, the sound dismissive. “You could.”

Before I managed to say anything else, he’d slipped out of my field of vision again. Honestly, knowing he was there and not being able to see him was almost worse. But I made it home without further incident.

I climbed the stairs slowly to make sure they wouldn’t creak. Then I unlocked the door with a finesse I’d never managed before. Completely silent, I closed it behind me, slipped out of my shoes, and turned around to tiptoe toward my room.

Useless.

As if he had nothing better to do, Elliot stood in the doorway to his room, directly opposite the entrance. He leaned against the frame, head tilted, shirtless. His sweatpants hung low on his waist, and I cursed him for it.

If only because it took me a second longer to drag my eyes up to his.

His brows lifted. “Heard you threatened my bodyguard.”

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

“Thought they don’t report back to you.”

“They do when you accuse them of stalking.” He added, “What’s wrong?”

Instinctively, I took a step back when he took one toward me. It left me a little bit closer to my room. Even though I couldn’t lock it, at least it meant there was a door between us. Between me and those blue eyes, trying to figure me out. Between me and the way the light reflected off his chest and abs just right, every crevice begging to be explored by my tongue.

Another step back. He followed.

“What’s wrong?” he repeated, when I’d been too busy admiring his fucking abs to come up with a reply.

Stole my job, my future, Mom’s dream. I chanted the words in my head as a reminder, and it worked.

“Don’t,” I hissed, and he stopped his approach. His brows drew together like he couldn’t even take a wild guess. “Do you think I’m dumb?”

“Not for even a second.” The apparent sincerity in his words made me furious, because I’d come to a decision. He must’ve known about his grandfather. He must’ve known and said nothing.

“You’re such a liar.” At this point, I was seething. My voice broke, and I hated that most of all. More than him. More than myself. “How long have you known? About them choosing you? And kicking me out?”

“What are you talking about, Maeve?”

“Your grandfather. How long have you known that he’s going to give the full-time position to you? Did you ever not know?”

Recognition flashed across his gaze. Pity and understanding too. “Why—” He cut himself off. “What?”

Just this morning, he’d had his fingers between my thighs and his lips puckered around my nipples, and I wished we could go back to that. But twelve hours later, he’d betrayed whatever fundament of trust we’d just begun to build. “I didn’t know. How do you?”

Liar. Liar, liar, liar.

I slammed my door before he could take another step. And he had enough decency not to knock. The very first and only respectable thing Elliot Ashwood did was not cross my boundaries. The bare minimum.

I cursed myself for appreciating it anyway. Then for thinking he might be different from every other man I’d been forced to hear about from my friends.