Page 44 of Ruled By Rivalry

With a groan, my head fell against the table. I’d been on autopilot the past ten hours, and I was a little surprised to feel the resemblance of a finished dress in my hands. The fabric wasn’t particularly comfortable, nor was the table below it, but I was sleep-deprived and had my last coffee too long ago.

I needed to check if Camila was even still there or if she’d already called it a day. But I couldn’t move. Promised myself five minutes of eye rest, got comfortable on my folded arms, and was out like a light ten seconds later.

Five minutes, my ass.

The atelier was dark when my eyes fluttered open again, someone’s knuckles gently rapping against the table. For a second, I thought I had hallucinated Elliot standing on the other side of the long table. Blond hair falling into his face, blue eyes watching me, apology and kindness in them. “Hey, sleepyhead. It’s ten. I thought I should save your neck from a night on the atelier table.”

I mumbled something I couldn’t identify either, sat up, but still hadn’t quite comprehended his words. Or the way he said them—like he was talking to a skittish animal.

It’s ten. A night on the atelier table.

Consider the animal officially scared. I shot out of my stool, eyes wide as they flickered through the atelier. The only light came from one of the small lamps on the table, partly illuminating what I’d been working on all day.

What I’d meant to show Camila before shamelessly falling asleep at work.

“Fuck.”

“It’s okay,” Elliot said. “Camila was impressed by your dedication.”

My head shot back in his direction. I stopped pacing. “She saw?!”

The small smile on his lips made it worse. “Well, not the dress. You were sleeping on it.”

Another groan echoed through the vast space.

“It looks good, though.” He nodded toward it, and I hated the small sense of pride fluttering through my chest. I didn’t care if Elliot Ashwood liked the dusty-rose color, the ruched design cinching the waist, or the gathered draping down the skirt that was supposed to reference the wind ruffling the ocean’s surface.

I shouldn’t care what Elliot thought, and I stirred away from that feeling. “And why are you still here?”

He shrugged. “Well, you decided to fall asleep.”

His fault, I reminded myself.

With his looks and flirting and wish to be honest with me in the middle of a poorly lit kitchen. If he hadn’t looked at me that way, if I hadn’t felt his breath on my lips and his touch on my cheek, I could’ve just gone to sleep like normal.

If he hadn’t invited me to spend a week in his shoes and made sure to show me sides of him I didn’t want to see—the ones that laughed properly, opened up, and bought me shoes worth more than I had ever owned—we wouldn’t have found ourselves in that compromising position in the kitchen at all.

I would’ve gotten my eight hours, and Camila would’ve never seen me drool all over a design I’d wanted to show her today.

“I didn’t decide anything,” I muttered. “The falling asleep part just kind of . . . happened.” Another yawn drove that point home.

“I’m sure. I’ll add getting you to bed on time to my daily tasks.”

At his words, those same thoughts—dreams? nightmares?—of him in my bed that had haunted me all of last night flashed in front of my eyes again. I’d managed to push what I’d done into a far, far, far away corner, burying it in patterns and designs and my urge to impress Camila. But it was back now—my hands between my thighs, his name on my lips, and the vicious desire to feel his touch instead of my own when I silently came in the dead of night.

I turned off the small light by my workstation and rushed past him out of the atelier. Embarrassing. I’d never touched myself to the thought of anyone I knew, and staring straight at him less than twenty-four hours later was practically electrifying.

“I can get to bed on time by myself, thank you very much.” Don’t come anywhere near my bed at all, I silently added.

“Alright, Miss Independent.” He raised his hands defensively, amusement on his lips, in his tone, and in the way his eyes crinkled. I averted my gaze and repeated to myself how much I hated it. This comfortable, friendly air he was creating between us.

I hated it. Most of all that I didn’t hate it.

We walked home in silence, side by side, and I caught myself hoping we’d find ourselves in a situation like last night again. Low lights, my breath mingling with his, lips nothing but a single word away from each other.

Fuck, Maeve. Stay focused.

I kept a respectable distance between us to avoid a whiff of the cologne that hung in the air last night too. When he rushed to catch a green light, I made sure to stay on the other side of the street. If Elliot looked at me, I admired the city at night, the pizza place we passed, the groups of people we shuffled through.