Page 113 of Ruled By Rivalry

My next breath shuddered in my throat. “So, I’m saying thank you—”

“Because you feel guilty. Because I did a nice thing for you, and now you think you owe me—”

I made sure my voice was louder than his when I interrupted him. “Because I’m grateful—don’t look at me like that!” Sadness mixed with anger, and something else that suggested I couldn’t possibly be telling the truth. A perfect frown on his perfect face.

“You think I want to look at you like that?” Defeat with some anger still bubbled in the back of his throat. “You don’t think I’d rather hate you for what you did? For constantly making me feel guilty over being forced into this stupid internship, while you were the one playing dirty? Playing me—” His voice cracked, and he hadn’t even raised it. “I hate this, Maeve. I hate looking at you and feeling this way and—fuck, still thinking that maybe what you did isn’t so bad. We didn’t know each other. I did have an advantage over you. You were just trying to even the playing field. All I’ve done in the past week is rationalize what you did.”

Something cracked. In my chest, below my skin, into a million pieces.

“And I know that you’re sorry. I know—”

“The note.”

He nodded. “But sometimes I have to wonder whether I don’t. I don’t know you. I don’t know what you think or how you feel or what you want.”

You, I thought. I thought it so hard, he might’ve actually heard it.

“I don’t even really know if you’re sorry. I’ve just been telling myself you are so that I can stop feeling stupid about already having forgiven you.”

My eyes fluttered, but not as quickly as my heart was beating. “I am,” I insisted. “I shouldn’t have—”

His brows pulled together when he looked back at me, and I hated how hopeful he seemed. How such simple words that I should’ve said a week ago pulled so much from him.

“I am sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything earlier. I’m not good at this, which is probably why I avoided it. Letting myself feel anything other than hatred for you, I mean. Everyone told me how awful you were and that you’d do anything to win against me, and . . . I mean, I thought I’d have to be quicker than you. Smarter than you.”

“You are.”

“I thought I’d have to scheme and deceive and make you trust me and—I didn’t think I’d actually like you. As a person, you seemed completely obnoxious. Not my crowd. But you make me laugh, and you’re sweet and you’re kind, even to your ex-girlfriend, who probably doesn’t deserve it. I’m sorry.”

He took a step toward me, his lips parted, but I wasn’t done.

“I’m sorry for the coffee and the mean looks and tricking you into liking me, I guess.”

Elliot tilted his head. “I think that just happened all on its own.”

“For tipping off The Goss and being a jealous goblin.”

“Maeve,” he said, shaking his head. “I forgave you the next day. For better or worse, I meant it when I said that I can’t bring myself to be mad at you. The only reason why I left you alone was because I don’t think I could’ve taken it—hearing you say you don’t want this. Me.”

I swallowed thickly, but the lump in my throat remained. The guilt lodged in my windpipe made it harder to breathe. “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “Most of all, for underestimating your ability to so easily make me—”

He kissed me. Roughly and impatiently, with his body pressing mine against the door, one of his hands resting firmly beside my head, while the other clutched me for dear life. It felt like he was punishing me with one swipe of his tongue and forgiving me with the next.

“You don’t get to say it before I do,” he muttered against my lips, breath heavy and grip tight.

My stomach flipped. My cheeks were burning. I was jelly in his hands; glad his body was there to keep me upright. The emotional stress falling away made me just as unsteady on my feet as his lips, still on mine.

I smiled against them, despite myself. “I don’t get to say I love—”

Short kiss to shut me up, and my confused hesitancy didn’t even bother him. “Nope.”

It was the least I could do, though, right? After everything I’d put him through, after everything I didn’t do, the least he deserved was my vulnerability before he gave me his. The assurance that he wasn’t alone in this, and I’d fallen way before I could’ve verbalized it.

But Elliot was as persistent as he was persuasive. “As the more experienced party in every sense of the word.” He smirked, kissed me again, and it felt too good, too right, to hold on to my confusion any longer. “I haven’t even taken you on your first date. There’s a strict timeline with these things. You’re into that, aren’t you?”

I hummed, pretending to think, my restraint finally snapping when he burrowed his face in the crook of my neck. “Strict timelines?”

“Yes,” he muttered, exhaled deeply against my skin. Maybe because my hands had fallen to his belt buckle. I hadn’t quite noticed it either until they started playing with it.