Page 85 of Love and Other Champagne Problems

“What the hell is your problem?” Sumner demanded, the exasperation in his voice snapping in the bar. If there’d been any other patrons, they would’ve grumbled in complaint. But it was only me, and I stared on in shocked silence. “How could you say any of that to someone you care about?”

“Because he doesn’t care about me,” I murmured, twisting my straw between my fingers. “He cares about the company I’ll inherit.”

It seemed to take a moment for it to sink into Sumner, what my words meant. The hard anger that’d been in his gaze before seemed to melt into magma, blazing hot. “You… you were going to marry her just fortheir business?” I’d never heard him sound more incredulous. “You never liked her? You were going tomarry her, and you didn’tlike her?”

Aaron cast his gaze around the lounge, unwilling to look at Sumner. “She was about to do the same thing, wasn’t she?”

It was so clear that Sumner didn’t belong in this world, given the look of absolute horror on his face. I wondered what, specifically, about this situation left him so upset. He’d been the one to tell me to marry Aaron despite knowing how I felt—why did it matter if Aaron felt the same as me? Not invested romantically, but monetarily. Perhaps Sumner thought we were all insane, and only just then realized the true depths of our madness.

“That’s how you’re playing it, then?” Sumner demanded, fingers tightening in the fabric. “Manipulate her to think she doesn’t deserve love, so she’ll settle for you?”

“Is it manipulation when I’m just stating facts?” Aaron gestured aimlessly with his hand, though I could see his arm shake when he did so. “Margot’s like a pet that’s been ignored too long. She just likes the attention. If I’d met her first?—”

“You didn’t want to.” Sumner’s voice was ice. “Don’t forget that.”

While it was mostly the women at the country club who were catty, I was no stranger to male egos butting heads. Even the most civilized could lose their mind in the right circumstance, and with alcohol involved. My father was one example. Dr. Conan getting into a pissing match with Mr. Holland over investment strategies was another. If it was in a safe environment, it was always amusing to me to see a man who prided himself inmaintaining an air of importance fall prey to childish temper tantrums.

But seeing Sumner, calm and patient Sumner whose eyes rarely lost their puppy dog shine, with his fingers twisted around Aaron’s collar and the muscles in his forearm flexing, I didn’t think it was amusing.

I thought it was hot.

Perhaps Iwastwisted.

“It’s funny,” Aaron murmured, only focusing on Sumner. “How this situation unfolded. Truly. Not quite how I’d been expecting.”

It was then that the delayed realization of this being a precarious situation hit me—Sumner gripping a multi-millionaire’s collar in a hotel bar. It didn’t fully shock me from my thoughts, but it pulled me to the present enough that I slid off the barstool. “Okay, caveman,” I said loftily, laying my hand on Sumner’s back. “Walk me back to my room?”

It was clear Sumner didn’t want to let go, that relaxing his grip took all his effort, but he did it. He dropped Aaron’s collar and took a step back, ready to follow me wherever I went, just like always.

“Tomorrow,” Aaron called after us. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

I regarded him for a moment, because there wasn’t really a way I could say no. Aaron had made it clear that if he couldn’t coax me from my room, he’d get my parents’ help. I’d been backed into a corner with him without realizing it.

Ultimately, without a word, I walked out of the lounge.

Thehallway was so bright compared to the lounge that it almost was shocking stepping out into it, as if it’d been night but suddenly turned into day. I looked down at where Sumner’s hand balled into a fist at his side, wondering what it’d be like if I tried to pry his fingers apart.Comfort. He preoccupied with striding down the corridor, his focus internal. The elevator already rested on the ground level when he pressed the button, and we both stepped on.

There were so many things I could’ve asked him; how he knew to come down to the lounge, being one. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, though she looked different going back up to the eighth floor than she had coming down. She looked like a shell. In the reflection beside me, Sumner was the opposite—filled, but with clear agitation. I wanted to bask in Sumner’s anger, as it was my first time seeing the fuming side of him truly come out.

Except I couldn’t look at the frown on his face without thinking about what Aaron said—what happens when your disdain and unhappiness ebbs away at his charm?Sumner was already changing, right before my eyes.

In that moment, Sumner’s eyes met mine in the reflection, and he pivoted immediately. In a flash, he laid his palms on either side of my face and forced me to look at him. The blue eyes were filled with intensity, and the only place I could look. “Don’t.”

My heart stuttered in my chest at the sudden closeness, at the heat radiating from his palms. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t let a single word of what he said into your head.” While frustration radiated from him from everypore, his touch was gentle on me, the stark contrast making this moment stranger. “Don’t even think about it.”

The air stalled in my lungs. “Why… why did what he said make you so upset?”

“You’renota human vacuum that sucks the happiness out of people. Youdodeserve love, and to be loved. This entire time, I’ve been trying to get that garbage out of your head, and thatidiot?—”

The elevator chimed as it stopped at our floor, and the sound broke Sumner from his train of thought, at least for a moment. His hands fell from my face, and he pressed his fingers into his eyes. I hesitated for only a moment watching him, but stepped off the elevator before the doors could close.

“Did you know?” Sumner demanded, coming up from behind me. “When you met him the other day, did he tell you he wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship?”

I fished my room key from my pocket. “Yes, I knew.”

“You didn’t tell me,” he murmured, half to himself. “God, Margot, why do you never tell meanythingimportant?”

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