Page 50 of Rivals to Lovers
He stopped too, unable to meet her eyes. He stared directly into a streetlamp and let the light burst behind his eyelids when he closed them. “Yeah, I did. I knew better. It was stupid, but I couldn’t control my reaction and I snapped. I boxed all the way through college, though you couldn’t tell to look at me now.” He knew he was softer than he used to be, but his broadness had always helped in the ring.
“Did you seriously hurt him?”
It was his turn to snort, and he started walking again. She kept pace beside him, not trying to overtake him for once. “No, no. One good thing about boxing is that it teaches you how topunch purposefully. I didn’t cause internal bleeding or anything, just a broken nose.” He considered, then added, “I mean, notjust—he filed a report against me, deservedly. I shouldn’t have done it. And of course the agency had to let me go after that. Loris heard that someone was sniffing around the story and let us know. My mother’s clout was enough to hush-hush the whole thing by buying off the story from the tabloids and paying for the ‘emotional distress’ and medical bills of the guy. Not that he needed my money. Well, Ulla’s money.”
“You realize how weird that is, right? To have the ability to pay someone to rewind a bad decision?” They had reached the park and changed their course as other couples meandered on the paths ahead of them.
Her question, which wasn’t really a question, needled him. “I was lucky to have access to Ulla’s money,” he said.
“No, you were privileged to have access to Ulla’s money.” Her voice didn’t sound angry so much as tired. Green trees waved slightly in the darkness, their branches made into waving arms off the shadowy boulevard. “You know I’m dying to know who it is. Would I recognize the name?”
Oh, she would. “Yes. I don’t think he’s Yuri’s client anymore, and I know that agencies aren’t the moral gatekeepers of the opinions of the clients.”
“Still.”
“Yeah, I don’t regret punching him. And when I moved on to my current agency, I fessed up, even with the NDA. They thought it was a good story and said I wasn’t a danger, since I was in the New York area and the main office is in LA. It’s unlikely I’ll be breaking bones long-distance.”
He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. In the dark, it was hard to read her expression.
“But the other thing, the thing I didn’t know if Yuri mentioned …” He paused to see if she would give any indication that she knew. He didn’t know if he preferred her to already know or not. When she looked blankly at him, he realized that yes, he would have preferred if Yuri had said something, because now he would be forced to see the full weirdness of it all settle onto her for the first time. “Can we sit?”
They sat on a bench, Maureen a hand’s width away from him. “The period when I worked with Yuri, well, it was while you were queryingAt the Counter.” He knew mentioning the name of her old book would signal that this wasn’t a coincidental topic switch. Her spine stiffened. “And I actually was the one reading her slush pile—her queries and submissions—when it came through.”
“And you hated it.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Oh, absolutely not. Uh, in fact, I fought for it. It was the first project I advocated hard for to Yuri. It stuck with me, the messiness of the relationship of the servers. The ambivalence to buying in to what society was trying to sell to the main character, to—” Here he scrambled for the name.
“June,” she supplied, sounding tentative.
“Right, June. So, yes. I was there for Yuri signing you as a client, but I left shortly after that. Because of the punching thing.”
“You readAt the Counter. You—you helped me get to Yuri.” She truly seemed to not know how to digest this information. “I mean, do you expect me to thank you, or …”
Everything was going wrong. “Maureen, no. Not at all. I believe you would have landed with Yuri, with or without me.Or an agent of similar caliber. If anyone didn’t see the potential in that project, then that’s their fault.”
“Obviously, a lot of people didn’t see potential in that project, because it didn’t sell.”
“Yet. It didn’t sellyet,” he said, then cringed. It was hard to sell a project that had already made the rounds to editors, but who knew? Maybe if she had a book out already—but if that happened, he knew what that would mean for his book.
“I don’t really know how to feel about all of this,” she said. “This is—a lot. This is a lot to take in.” Her voice had the same carefulness as walking on a frozen-over lake, afraid that one wrong step will crack everything.
But it was Wes who felt like he was cracking apart. Too many tangled threads. Too much honesty. He should have guessed. He could have shared that he knew her work earlier. He could have tried to disclose the Yuri connection somehow. The fact that she was sitting with him at all after round after round of complicating revelations was a miracle. She was here. Even after Loris unloaded what seemed like a dumpster full of his faults in front of her, she was here. She was here, sitting and talking through stuff that would have had any person he had dated in the past four years scrambling for an exit and realizingwhatever connections this guy has, he’s not worth the baggage. Yes, all his baggage might be Gucci, but it was still battered as hell.
And maybe that was what was going on in her head, but if he didn’t say something now, he would regret it forever. “Those things happened before I met you,” he said carefully. “I didn’t know how to tell you about them, especially about knowing your first book. How could I have told you I was a fan of your work when …”
“I barely have work to be a fan of,” she finished. The corner of her mouth tipped up. “I haven’t read your book yet.”
“I didn’t want to ask.”
She rubbed her hands on her legs and stared at the starless sky above them. “I think I should head home.”
He nodded. “Right. Okay. One more thing, all right? I know that was a lot, but I was serious when I said that I want even footing with what we have. Fair.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t bitter. “Wes, there is no such thing as even footing, but okay. I believe you. I just need a little time, okay?”
“Want me to walk you back to the subway?” he asked, after the silence had stretched on between them. He wasn’t going to ask her back to his place. Not after this. He’d fucked it up from the very beginning. From before he let her open the car door and take the long drive to Greenwich, he’d ruined it.
“Sure,” she said. “Early flight tomorrow.” They walked in silence back up the hill to the subway entrance. They didn’t hug as they went their separate ways, but Mo turned as she went down the stairs. She moved to the side to allow a woman to pass her. He called out to her before she could get too far down.
