Page 16 of Rivals to Lovers
Perhaps she should have told her family about Aaron, or even about the book. There were so many uncertainties in publishing, so manymaybesorsomedaysthat it was hard to talk about with people not in the business. Relationships were the same way, honestly. She had spent years of her life writing a book that might never see a bookshelf. She’d spent a year dating a man who hadn’t, essentially, understood her at all. In life, so much effort went into something that might really end up being nothing. If Mo thought too long about it, it made her want to lie on the floor and not get up for the rest of the day.
But she had to get up. She brushed her teeth, then hopped into the shower and soaped down. There was dirt under her fingernails. Her hands remembered what last night had brought, but she didn’t. She did remember Wes’s presence and the way his face loomed in front of her. She remembered the smell of him, like cedar and pine. She remembered his lips looking very close and very good and—
Mo shut off the shower and stood there, dripping onto the white tiles. Had they kissed? They wouldn’t have done that. He was a narcissistic, nepotistic jerk who thought he’d already won before they began. The fact that she was attracted to him was unrelated. Or, if they had kissed, she would have remembered. Shewouldhave remembered, right? It wasn’t like there was some sort of tangible evidence of a kiss that could be put on or washed off, but she put a finger to her lips as if to feel if they were different. No, they were just wet from the shower. Mo wouldn’t have done that, though, even if she did think hewas frustratingly handsome. When Wes held her, because she remembered that, his arms hadn’t been ropy. She remembered the cabled muscles under his coat, their firmness. It was … a lot to think about.
And she needed to stop thinking about it, especially dripping wet and naked on the rug in a guest bathroom of a mansion that served as the backdrop for the biggest day of her life.
Whatever had happened had happened. They were adults, and she could pretend like everything was normal.
Mo toweled off and dressed in black fitted slacks—they were from catering—and a thin pink sweater that matched her naturally rosy complexion. Her bangs hung slack in her face, and she brushed them with a rounded brush, scolding herself for forgetting a hair dryer. She looked okay. She also looked a little nervous, but picking up the manuscript from the desk, she noticed that she’d accidentally coordinated with the rose-colored front and end paper that they had bound it with at the print shop. Even the binding looked like bangs curled over on themselves. She took a breath and left the room.
The agenda said breakfast would begin at 8:00AMexactly, and at 7:55, Mo was still the last person to arrive in the formal dining room. Unlike the night before, sunshine streamed through the windows facing the front of the estate, illuminating intricate floral wallpaper. She imagined this room on a tour route now that she saw it in the daylight. As if to set that thought even more firmly, she noticed velvet stanchions and poles near the wall. After saying good morning, she helped herself to the spread of breakfast treats on a wine-red table runner in the middle of the long, reclaimed-wood table. “Arethere any tour groups coming through today?” Mo asked as she seated herself.
Estelle shook her head. “Oh no. I try to limit those to weekdays and one Saturday a month. The things people do on tours sometimes. They seem surprised that someone lives here! Can you imagine someone tromping in and out of your house, poking around?”
Mo laughed. “I think there’s barely room in my apartment to tromp, let alone poke.” Then, without meaning to, she caught Wes’s glance. Why. Why did he have to be here? “Anyway, yes, I bet that’s annoying.”
Estelle’s plate featured a delicate grapefruit half and piece of buttered toast, and Gary had a large sunny pile of scrambled eggs with mixed fruit. The group ate in companionable silence, except that Wes kept looking at Mo.
Mo focused on anything except Wes, including the fact that this breakfast dish was nicer than any place setting in her parents’ house. She wanted to ask suddenly if it had been used by E. J. Morgan herself but was cowed by the idea of being compared to a tromping tourist. She used tiny silver tongs to put a pain au chocolat on her plate alongside a grapefruit half.
Mo picked up her spoon and managed only to squirt herself in the eye on the first attempt. Wes handed her a serrated spoon from his setting. “Try this.” When she gave him a look, he said, “I haven’t used it.”
Mo cut into the grapefruit with this perfectly made tool and scooped a triangle into her mouth. The bright sourness was mixed with something lovely—the top had been broiled with brown sugar and had a crunch to it like the crème brûlée last night. “Forgive me for not knowing the spoon etiquette.”
“There’s a whole semester in utensils if you attend boarding school,” Wes said with a straight face. He stood and retrieved another grapefruit spoon from the end of the table. “Butter knives have their own week.”
“Well, at my public, non-boarding school, butter had its own week, so I guess we’re even.” Mo took a bite of the pain au chocolat and a sip of dark coffee. The mixture was heaven, and she let it soothe the snark from her. She would not snipe at Wesley Spencer, at least not in mixed company. She turned back to Estelle. “Have you ever seen a butter sculpture?”
“No,” Estelle said, seeming to rouse herself. Mo had noticed this trick about Estelle last night—her delight in what Maureen took for granted back home. “Have you carved butter?”
“Oh, no,” Mo said. “But the Iowa State Fair has had a butter cow since the early 1900s, and we went to see it every year I was growing up. And I love that they have different butter sculptures every fair to go with it—famous characters fromPeanutsorStar TrekorSesame Street. I remember one of Da Vinci’sLast Supper.”
“And they say Iowa doesn’t have culture,” Wes said.
“It’s butter, not yogurt,” Mo said, before she could stop herself. A pun was better than slamming him for his coastal elitism.
Estelle chuckled, like they’d planned an Abbott and Costello routine for her.
Wes narrowed his eyes. “Butter sculptures. That’s—interesting.” His tone madeinterestingsound like he meant disgusting. “And do you … eat the butter after? I mean, what happens to all that butter?”
“Yes, Wes. I personally eat an entire cow of butter. They bring a semi to my house and drop it on the lawn.”
Estelle chuckled harder and looked at Gary, who laughed too. “Oh my,” he said.
Wes made a sour expression, which annoyingly didn’t make him less handsome. “What dotheydo with it.”
“Theyreuse most of it,” Mo said. “It goes into cold storage and gets recarved. For years and years, I’m pretty sure.”
Wes took a sip of coffee. If sips of coffee could be judgmental, his was. Had she kissed this asshole? Who was he to judge someone else’s art? Just seeing Wes in Mo’s peripheral was making her uneasy, and that uneasiness doubled when Gary broke the momentary silence. “Are you feeling better this morning, Maureen?”
She swallowed a mouthful of burning-hot coffee, trying not to choke. She didn’t remember seeing anyone except Wes last night, and she had the embarrassing sense of wishing she had seen more of Wes. She had even dreamt of him—wearing his soft gray coat but nothing underneath. She was sure that was her subconscious trying to sabotage her. “I’m fine, thank you.”
That set off another round of stares around the table. After a second, Wes picked up his manuscript from beside him. “So, opening pages?”
Angie cleared Estelle’s plate, and Gary produced a tiny notepad and gold pen. Estelle took them and smiled. “I’m ready,” she said.
Wes offered to read first. Mo didn’t realize how much she had been looking forward to hearing his adaptation until he flipped open the front cover. She wanted to know, without a doubt, that hers was better. She couldn’t wait to discount his place here this weekend as preferential treatment, pure andsimple. The way he’d saidboarding schoollike it was nothing. The way he had worked within the system, literally with Estelle, for years. She was ready to reply to him with cool confidence that his adaptation wasinteresting. Despite her readiness to hate his book, her body reacted, tightening, as she saw his face change in preparation to read, his brown eyes scanning the words in front of him. He was nervous. He took a sip of water and began.
