by Vi Keeland
Chapter 23
* * *
Sophia
Weston looked as stressed as I’d felt the last few days.
Our bids were due in less than two weeks, and we both still had so much to do. Though, if I was being honest with myself, it wasn’t just the looming deadline that had me on edge. Weston and I hadn’t spoken about the logistics of what would happen after the bids were opened, and that had begun weighing on my mind.
Once one family owned the majority of The Countess, the other family would inevitably be pushed out. Weston and I had talked about going to a charity event together Labor Day weekend, but that was two months from now, which seemed like a lifetime. The more immediate question was, what would happen when this contest was over?
One of us wouldn’t be involved in the day-to-day operations of the hotel anymore. Did that mean Weston wouldn’t be slipping into my room at night? If I won, would he be holed up at one of his own family’s properties across town like he’d been in the months before Grace Copeland died? Or would he be sent back to Vegas where he still owned a house? There was so much up in the air, and the unknown was like a giant shadow following me around.
It didn’t help that Weston had seemed to distance himself a little the last few days. Ever since the day my father and I had our blowup, it felt like something had shifted—a crack had formed in the ground of our relationship, and each day it seemed to widen. After the bidding ended, would we need to yell in order to hear each other from the two sides we stood on?
To outsiders, though, we probably looked business-as-usual as we left the construction of the new ballroom.
“It’s really coming along great,” I said.
Weston nodded. “The mayor and his niece want to come see the room. Louis had been holding them off, but it should be in a presentable state by late next week.”
I glanced over at him. “I guess that means one of us will get to meet the mayor.”
Weston held my gaze. He frowned, but said nothing as he nodded.
Clearly, he had no plan to initiate the discussion we needed to have, and that frustrated the hell out of me. In fact, with each step I took, I felt my anxiety grow. By the time we got into the elevator, I’d started to feel like there wasn’t enough air, particularly in the confined car. My choices were to lean over and hyperventilate, or lift the boulder off my chest so I could breathe again. Halfway between the sixth and seventh floor, I decided I couldn’t take it. Jamming my finger into the red emergency stop button, I brought the elevator to an abrupt halt.
“What’s going to happen next week?” I asked.
At first, Weston looked genuinely confused, but it didn’t take him more than a few seconds to catch up. He shook his head and shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “I don’t know, Soph.”
“Well… What do you want to happen?”
“You mean between us?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes. What else would I be talking about? It’s pretty clear from a business standpoint. The lawyer for Easy Feet is going to open two envelopes, and one of us is going to become the majority shareholder. We both know neither of our families will want to manage the property jointly, so the winner will take over running The Countess, and the loser will get some hefty profit checks a few times a year. But where does that leave us?”
Weston nodded and pointed to the camera in the corner of the elevator. “Unless you want security to know I’m not ready to stop fucking you, maybe we should have this conversation somewhere else. I have a call in a few minutes. Does six o’clock work?”
“My meeting with legal is at six. Seven?”
He nodded. “I’ll order us some dinner and meet you in your suite.”
“Okay.”
***
We made small talk through dinner. I was anxious to have a discussion, but figured maybe Weston preferred to wait until we were done so it seemed less like a business meeting and more like a regular couple’s date. After we finished, he rolled the room service table out into the hall and walked over to the bar.
“Do you want a glass of wine?”
“Ummm…”
His brows dipped together. “Do you have to go back downstairs?”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing that can’t wait until morning.”
“Are you too full for wine?”
“I’m never too full for wine.”
He frowned. “I thought we were past you refraining because I don’t drink.”
I smiled. “Oh, that’s not it. I’m over that. I was just thinking maybe I should keep a clear head for our discussion.”
Weston turned back to the bar, took out a bottle of wine, and poured me a glass full to the brim. Passing it to me, he said, “Here. My head is far from clear. This will put us on even ground.”
I sipped my wine as we looked at each other. I sat at the end of the couch, and he sat across from me in the chair.
“This is new to me, Soph. You may need to show me how it’s done.”
“What? Talking about a relationship?”
He shook his head. “Talking about feelings in general. It’s been a long time since I even had any, much less discussed them. The ones I did have weren’t exactly good, and I did my best to drown them with alcohol.”
I set my wine on the table and took one of his hands into mine. “Well, how about this… Let’s pretend for a minute that you’re not a Lockwood, and I’m not a Sterling. We’re just two people who work together, and one of us is going to be laid off in a few days. What do you want from me after that happens?”
Weston stared off for a few minutes. Toward the end, a smile crept onto his face. “I just realized one of us is going to be pissed. Really pissed.”
“And the idea of one of us being let down and disappointed made you smile? I think you really are rusty on how these emotional things are supposed to work.”
He shrugged. “True. But I smiled because I realized it’s been a while since we had a good, angry fuck.”
I chuckled. “And what about beyond that? What do you want?”
Weston looked down for a long time. Eventually, he shook his head. “I want it all.”
My pulse sped up, but I was afraid to get ahead of myself. “Elaborate,” I said. “What does ‘I want it all’ mean?”
He took my hand and raised it to his mouth, kissing the top of my knuckles. Looking into my eyes, he took a deep breath. “It means I want to start my day the same way I end it every day—in your bed. Or my bed. Whatever. As long as I’m inside of you. You’ll tell me all the boring shit you plan to do to fill the hours between me kissing you goodbye and kissing you hello, and I’ll listen enough to know when to nod. I want to disagree with you, argue loudly, and then fuck the pissed-off right out of both of us. I want you to go be the badass businesswoman you are during the day, where you’re in charge, and then let me be in charge in the bedroom after. I want to watch you from a distance when you buy your morning coffee and daydream about leaving marks all over your beautiful skin. And I want to read boring Shakespeare so I can poke fun at it, just to hear you laugh.”
I hadn’t blinked the entire time he spoke.
Weston searched my eyes. “How’s that? Did I elaborate enough to make my feelings clear?”
“Wow…yeah…clear.” I shook my head. “I thought you said you weren’t good at this?”
Weston’s lips twitched. “I’m not. This is all new to me. But then again, I’m good at everything.”
I rolled my eyes. “So full of yourself.”
Weston pulled me into his lap. He put one hand on my shoulder and used his thumb to caress my collarbone as he spoke. “Tell me what you want.”
I had so many questions. Where would I live? Where would he live? How would we separate business and our personal life when we were essentially competitors? What would our families say? Was it too soon for me to jump into something new? But the one question I knew the answer to was the one he’d just asked.
“You,” I said. “
I want you.”
Weston smiled. “Well, that’s easy. You had me from the very start.”
***
The next morning, we both slept in. Well, if you can call sleeping past six o’clock sleeping in. The sound of a cell phone ringing woke us.
I turned and reached over to my nightstand, only to realize it wasn’t my phone buzzing. It was Weston’s. I gave him a soft nudge. “Hey. That’s yours. It’s pretty early, so it might be important.”
He grumbled something unintelligible and patted over the nightstand without looking. As he found his cell, I could see Missed Call on the screen. He peeked one eye open to type in his password.
“Seriously?” I chuckled. “Your code is 6969? How old are you?”
“What’s yours? Uptight spelled out in numbers?”
I smacked him in the face with my pillow as he hit Call Back. But this was what I loved about us. Last night, he’d been sweet and caring. He’d made love to me in a way that made my eyes prickle with tears, and now this morning he was back to his normal, grumpy self. Weston Lockwood was a walking dichotomy, and I enjoyed the friction just as much as I enjoyed the smooth.
“This better be important,” he barked into the phone.
He listened for a moment and then sat up in bed. “Fuck. I’m on my way.”
The phone was barely swiped off, and he was climbing out of bed.
“What happened?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a flood.” He grabbed his pants from the floor and yanked them on. “In the damn construction area—on the one night we didn’t have a crew working around the clock because the wood floors were being finished.”
“Oh, shit.” I climbed out of bed and scrambled for my clothes. Weston was already tugging on his shirt by the time I located anything of mine.
He walked over and kissed the top of my head. “Take your time. I’ll run up and start damage control.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Fifteen minutes later, I joined Weston in the ballroom. Sam Bolton was already there, and it looked like he’d come straight from bed, too. All of the overhead lights were off, and both men were using their phone flashlights. I could see their faces but not really the extent of the damage—though the sloshing sound the water made as I walked gave me a hint that things weren’t good.
“Hey,” I said. “What happened?”
Sam shook his head and pointed to the ceiling. “Water main busted. It must’ve happened right after we left based on the amount of water all over the place. Floor refinishers put the topcoat of sealant on last night, which needed to dry for at least twelve hours, so the place had been empty since five o’clock. Can’t step on the floors while they’re wet. So we locked the door and told security to skip checking in on their normal rounds.”
“I thought we replaced the rusty pipes.”
“We did. Not sure what happened, but you can be damn sure I’ll be getting to the bottom of it. Had to be a poorly done soldering job or something. Bob Maxwell, the owner of the plumbing company, is already on his way over.”
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“Besides the plumbing work, a lot of the electric got wet, so that’s going to need to be changed out. The floors hadn’t been sealed yet, so most likely all that wood is going to warp and will need to come up. Not to mention, new sheetrock and insulation.”
I blew out a loud breath. “Damn… We were barely going to make it for the first event scheduled as it was. And the mayor and his niece are coming to see her venue next Monday. ”
Sam Bolton rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m so sorry. I’ve worked with this plumbing contractor for more than twenty years and never had a problem. Obviously I have insurance to cover everything, and we’ll do our best to get things back on track. But I’m afraid Sophia’s right. This is going to throw us off our completion date. I don’t know by how much yet, but we’ll do our very best.”
Weston had been pretty quiet until now. He put his hands on his hips and spoke to Sam. “I’m going to call Ken Sullivan and ask him to come over and take a look at things.”
Sam opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it. “Ken Sullivan from Tri-State Contracting? Why?”
“Because I want to know what happened here, and I need some assurance that someone around here knows what they’re doing.”
“Weston…” Sam said. “I realize you’re upset, but I can assure you I know what I’m doing. I’ve been at this for forty years, and I’ve worked with the Sterling family for almost as long.”
“Exactly my point. You haven’t worked with the Lockwood family. I don’t know how things usually run for you firsthand, so I’m going to bring in my own team to make sure whatever is going on here won’t happen again.”
Sam puffed his cheeks and blew out an audible breath. “Fine.”
Rather than argue with Weston in front of Sam, I waited until we were out in the hall alone.
“I think you’re overreacting,” I said as the door closed behind us.
“A pipe should not burst like that unless it freezes. If it was my contractor who caused this mess, you’d be the first one questioning whether he was incompetent.”
I put my hands on my hips. “By questioning my contractor’s competency, you’re also questioning my competency in hiring people.”
“Don’t get bent out of shape over this, Sophia. It’s business.”
“Whatever…” I waved a dismissive hand at him.
Weston tilted his head toward the elevator bank down the hall. “I’m going to get coffee and then run to my room for a quick shower. Do you want me to pick you up something?”
I shook my head. “I’ll get my own.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
***
The day only got worse after that.
As expected, my father didn’t take the news about the flood very well. He basically called me incompetent, as if I’d installed the pipe incorrectly and not a contractor that he, himself, had been using for decades. Then while I was upstairs with Sam and the plumber, I tripped over a tool on the floor and my iPhone went flying from my hands. It slammed into a pile of debris that had fallen from the ceiling and now no longer turned on. After that, the legal team learned of a new lawsuit just filed against the hotel, which we needed to somehow value in the next day or two in order to factor that into our bid price. And to top it all off, Liam had left two messages on my office phone. So when Weston let himself into my office at four o’clock, I was in no mood.
“If you’re coming to tell me how incompetent I am again, just turn around and let yourself back out.”
Weston walked to my desk and extended an envelope. “Actually, I was coming to give you this.”
Inside were two tickets. “Drunk Shakespeare? What is this?”
“It’s a show here in the City. A bunch of actors get together. One of them downs at least five shots of whiskey, and then they attempt to act out Shakespeare.”
I laughed. “Are you serious?”
“Yep. Figured it might be the only play the two of us would both enjoy.”
I caught the date on the tickets. The play was almost a month and a half from now. My anger was quickly replaced with that warm feeling once again. I looked up at him. “When did you buy these?”
“A few days ago. They were just delivered by messenger, so I figured I’d use them as a white flag.”
“You bought us tickets to an event a few months away before we’d even had a discussion about our future?”
“You’re the only one who needed that discussion to make things formal, Soph.”
I stood, walked around my desk, and wrapped my hands around his neck. “Why don’t you go lock the door…”
Weston flashed a cocky smile. “Already did on my way in, sweetheart.”
***
I tucked my blouse into my skirt and turned my back to Weston. “That works better than Xanax,” I said over my shoulder. “Zip me, please.”
H
e zipped my skirt and pushed my hair to the side to kiss my neck. “Happy to be of service. What’s on your agenda for the rest of the afternoon?”
I turned and smoothed down my clothes. “We have that conference call with Elizabeth, the hotel’s attorney, in a little while about the new lawsuit. I’d planned on running to the store to get a new cell. I dropped it earlier, and now it won’t turn on.” I looked at my watch. “But I don’t think I’m going to have time. I don’t want to miss the start of the call, and there’s usually a line at Verizon ”
“You want to take mine? I’m just going back to my office to go through reports. That way if you’re still at the store, you can dial in for the call.”
“You sure you don’t mind?”
Weston held out his phone to me. “No problem. You already know my top-secret code.”
The gesture felt monumental. It was something a couple did for one another. Things we keep in our phones can be very personal—not that I was planning on scrolling through his and searching for anything. But it meant Weston had nothing to hide. Even more than that, it meant he trusted me. And that spoke volumes.
I took the phone and kissed him. “Thank you. I’ll tell you what, as a token of my appreciation, tonight we can do a live reenactment of your code.”
Chapter 24
* * *
Sophia
It was a good thing I borrowed Weston’s phone.
I’d been standing around the Verizon store, playing with a bunch of phones I had no interest in buying for the last forty minutes, waiting for my name to be called. I had to dial in for the conference call with the hotel’s attorney in five minutes. So I rummaged through my purse to find the paper with the telephone number. As luck would have it, one minute before the call was to begin, my name was called.
I held out my broken iPhone to the sales clerk. “Hi. My phone isn’t working. I dropped it, and it won’t turn back on. I have AppleCare on it, so if I could either get this one fixed right away or get a new one, that would be great.”