Page 85 of The Thing About My Rival

“That’s exactly what I mean. Especially with your dad owning a club.”

“Exactly.” Being within range of Hugo’s gravitational pull is dangerous, so I step back and try to drag myself out of it, but it’s as difficult as hauling a lead weight out of rapid-setting concrete. Doing it while looking at him makes it even harder, so I turn my back and move toward the sun streaking through the grimy window.

“If only people knew,” I say on a sigh.

My eyes land on my plant. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but it’s been moved from my side of the windowsill to the center, right on top of Hugo’s tape line. No cleaners havebeen in here since last week. So there’s only one person who could have done that.

If I thought it was a big deal that he brought tea for me, walking back the no-plant-on-my-side-of-the-line thing is monumental. My heart flutters as an image of him picking it up and moving it flashes across my mind.

“I’d like to know.” His voice is right behind me. “I’d like to know what the story with your dad is.”

He rests his hands—big, and strong, and warm—on my shoulders. Slowly, they slide down my back, a ripple of tingles following them, and come to rest on my hips.

This is inappropriate for the workplace. It’s inappropriate for anywhere since we’re not only colleagues but also archrivals. But his touch now feels familiar, reassuring, and as comforting as it is sensual.

One of the last people on the planet I thought I’d ever trust is now the person I might trust the most—now that I’ve seen beneath the surface. And I don’t mean just beneath his clothes. I mean below his protective, cocksure outer shell and into the tea-fetching, plant-moving heart that lies beneath it.

“Not much to tell.” My words come out in a low whisper. “He didn’t want me. That’s kind of the beginning and end of it.”

“What do you mean, didn’t want you?”

He coils his arms around my waist and moves tight against me. If anyone walked through the door right now I’d be mortified. But I’m powerless to stop him. All sense of right and reason has fled my brain and been replaced with an addictive floating sensation I can’t give up.

He presses his muscular chest against my back and rests his chin on the top of my head, holding me in a way that says affection more than sex, adding another layer toour onion-like relationship. Every time I see him, every time I speak with him, every time he touches me, it’s like we grow another, deeper, layer of understanding.

“I mean he didn’t want me.” On the other side of the window a crow pulls a chip bag out from behind the front wheel of a battered station wagon. “He wanted a boy. Well, they had a boy, but?—”

The jolt in my insides cuts off my speech. This isn’t something I usually talk about. Even with people I know really well. Yet here, with Hugo holding me against him, the words fall from my lips as if opening up to him is the most natural thing in the world.

“You have a brother?” His chin presses into my head as he talks.

I sigh. I might as well tell him. It’s not like it’s a secret. It’s come up in a bunch of profiles about my dad, so it’s easy information to find.

“No. Well, I did have. But I never knew him. He died before I was born.” Somehow this is easier to say with my back to him. Maybe if I was facing him I wouldn’t have the courage. Or maybe I wouldn’t have the willpower to use my mouth for talking rather than kissing.

He lets out a gentle breath of surprise and slides his cheek down the side of my head until his lips rest against my ear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” A tingle ripples down my side from his breath against my skin. “Guess I never thought to wiki your dad. What happened?”

The crow tries to stick its beak inside the chip bag opening, but only succeeds in pushing it farther away.

“He was born with a heart defect. They actually thought he wouldn’t make it past a year. But he lived till he was five.”

“He must have had the old Wilcox grit and determinationI’ve grown so fond of.” Hugo strokes one hand over my hip.

“So my parents tried for another kid. And got me. Clearly my father had wanted a replacement son. They’d already picked out the name Andrew. So when the crashing disappointment that is me was born, they couldn’t even be bothered to come up with a new name and just called me Drew.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t like that,” Hugo says. “No parents would be like that.”

“You’d be surprised.” I rest my hands on his arms where they wrap around my belly. “My brother inherited his health issues from my dad. That’s why Dad had to step away from the club—as he gets older his heart becomes less stable. His doctor told him he had to give up the stress of business and competition. I’d always hoped that he might pass the club on to me one day. But turns out he’s not as well off as I’d thought, and he needed to sell it to fund his retirement.”

The crow tries standing on the bag and pecking at the opening to make it bigger.

Hugo shakes his head against mine and holds me even tighter against himself. “Where’s your mom?”

“New Mexico. At least, last I heard. She took off when I was two. Just as my dad was starting the club. To be fair to her, she shouldn’t have had another kid while she was still in the depths of grief from losing the first one. I imagine grief and postpartum depression are not a great combo. At least that’s how I explain it to myself—that she didn’t have full mental health when she made the decision to leave me.”

I drop my head back against Hugo’s shoulder, sinking as far into him as it’s possible to sink into a wall of solidmuscle. “And I found out later my dad had had a string of affairs. So she would have been dealing with that on top of all the other awful things too.”

“Christ, he’s such a shit.” Hugo plants a gentle kiss on the top of my head. “Have you seen your mum since?”

---