Page 32 of The Thing About My Rival

“Youshould take the table, Chase,” I tell him in one last effort to wriggle out of this. “It shouldn’t go to waste after you pulled strings to get it.”

“I can’t use it. Got some production meetings with people back in LA. And the time difference means they’re happening this evening.”

Miller pushes off the wall and straightens his jacket. “It’ll be good for you both, and the team, for you to get to know each other better anyway.”

“Yup.” Leo nudges the mug of hot chocolate to oneside. “Go to dinner. Besides who in their right mind would turn down a free meal at Pulacini’s?”

Probably someone forced to eat opposite a world-renowned womanizer with whom they’d had a drunken encounter in a French janitor’s closet. That same womanizer they now have to work with every day while competing against them for their job. That’s who.

Prince Oliver gets to his feet and gathers up everyone’s unfinished drinks. How ironic that the one person in the room raised with actual servants is the one tidying up.

“Then we will graciously accept. Dinner it is,” Hugo says with a broad smile.

Turning to me, eyebrows raised, he adds, “You’d better be good company, Wilcox.”

Damn him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DREW

How long is he going to make me wait?

I check my phone. Ten after eight.

I swipe to the list of staff numbers I’d saved.

I could text him to see where he is. But why give him the satisfaction? And if I sent a message and he didn’t reply, it’d be me who looked foolish. Anyway, he’s the one who’s late, so it should be him who texts me.

Five more minutes, then I’ll leave. Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to wait for someone if you haven’t heard from them.

Actually, it’ll be more like twenty-five, since I was ten minutes early.

I pick up my water glass. The rim is covered with most of my lipstick. I’ve been taking sips the whole time to give myself something to do. And made those sips really tiny so I don’t empty the glass too quickly—I do not want to be the pathetic person the server has to keep topping up because they’ve been stood up.

Not that I’d have been stood up—you’re only technically stood up if it’s a date. And this is most definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent not that.

Not that Garrett believed me when I came downstairs wearing my only black dress and with my hair and makeup done.

“Lucky guy,” he’d said, pointing at the deep V-neck.

The girls are a little more out there than I would have liked for a dinner I don’t want to have, with a man I don’t like. But it’s the one thing I have with me that’s even remotely suitable for Pulacini’s. The next most dressy thing in my closet, or rather my suitcase since I’m still only half unpacked, is a pair of jeans and the one T-shirt that’s still white.

I’d tossed this dress in so I had something to wear to the end-of-season gala dinner in case I didn’t have time to go home before then. Home being Washington, DC, since I worked for the national team.

But that’s not really home. Home will always be Boston. Where I feel like I belong. And there’s nowhere in this city I feel more at home than at Spirit Field. Certainly not my dad’s apartment. I haven’t even made it over to visit him since I got here.

My stepmom, Suzanna, texted a few days ago, inviting me for dinner once I’d settled in. But everything’s been so hectic that I haven’t had time to get around to arranging it. I shake my head at myself, realizing that “too busy” was always my dad’s excuse for everything—for missing school plays, for sending a cab to pick me up from music lessons, and for not making it to my soccer games, even the big college ones.

It’s not fair to leave her hanging. She’s perfectly lovelyand has always been kind and welcoming to me. And I seem to have some unexpected time on my hands right now.

ME

Hi Suzanna, sorry it’s taken me forever to reply. Would a Monday work? Early in the week is always less stressful at the club. Let me know if there’s one that works best for you!

Another place I definitely don’t feel at home is this restaurant. It’s all a bit too fancy-schmantzy for me. Not to mention romantic.

The lighting is low and discreet. Each table is bathed in the gentle glow of an orb-like candle holder. And almost every table is a table for two, with couples gazing adoringly at each other, uplit by the flickering light. There’s just one group of three, and they look pretty intimately connected too.

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