The Rivals

Chapter 2-1

Sophia

“Going the wrong way, Fifi.”

I stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor, only to be greeted by Mr. Wonderful himself.

“Go away, Lockwood.”

He stepped into the elevator I’d just exited, but reached forward and stopped the door from closing. Shrugging, he said, “Suit yourself. But there’s no one in conference room four twenty.”

I turned back. “Why not?”

“They moved the meetings to the hotel’s attorney’s office—downtown, in the Flatiron Building.”

I huffed. “Are you kidding me? No one contacted me. Why did they move it?”

“Don’t know. Guess we’ll find out when we get there.” Weston let go of the button on the panel and stepped back. “I’m leaving. You coming or what? They’re not delaying the start time, and traffic’s gonna be a bitch.”

I looked back over my shoulder in the direction of the conference room. No one else was around. Sighing, I stepped into the elevator. Weston was behind me at the rear of the car, but the minute the door closed, he took a step forward.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, move back. Don’t stand so close.”

Weston snickered, but didn’t budge one bit. I hated that I noticed how good he smelled—a combination of a freshly chopped oak tree and something clean, maybe with a little leather thrown into the mix. The damn doors couldn’t open fast enough. The moment they did, I darted out. I took off into the lobby and ran for the front door without looking back.

Forty minutes later, after an attempted cab ride that didn’t make it more than half a block in ten minutes, followed by two hot-as-hell subway rides, the second of which smelled delightfully of freshly baked urine, I rushed into the lobby of the Flatiron Building.

“Can you tell me what floor Barton and Fields is on, please?” I asked the reception desk.

“Fifth floor.” He pointed to a long line. “But one of the elevators is out today.”

I was already late and didn’t have time to wait. Sighing, I asked the security guard, “Where are the stairs?”

After climbing five very long flights of stairs in four-inch heels while carrying a leather bag full of files and my purse, I approached the double glass doors to The Countess hotel’s law firm. The receptionist was helping someone, and two other people were ahead of me in line, so I checked the time on my phone. I really hoped they didn’t start the meeting on time after moving it without notice. Then again, how could they? It had probably taken Weston just as long to get down here. When it was finally my turn, I approached the receptionist.

“Hi. My name is Sophia Sterling. I have a meeting with Elizabeth Barton.”

The receptionist shook her head. “Ms. Barton is uptown for a meeting this morning. What time is your appointment?”

“Actually, our meeting was originally scheduled uptown at The Countess, but it was moved here.”

The woman’s brows drew down. “I saw her leaving as I walked in this morning. But let me double-check. Maybe she came back while I was getting coffee.” She punched a few keys on her keyboard and listened through her headset for a minute before removing it. “She’s not answering. Let me run back and check her office and the conference room.”

A few minutes later, a woman in a suit walked out from the back with the receptionist. “Hi. I’m Serena, Ms. Barton’s paralegal. Your meeting is uptown at The Countess today. In room four twenty.”

“No. I was just there. That’s where it was originally scheduled, but it was moved here.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Whoever told you that gave you the wrong information. I just called Elizabeth on her cell and confirmed. The 9AM meeting started almost an hour ago.”

I felt heat rise from the bottom of my feet up to the top of my hair. I’m going to f*****g kill Weston.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” I announced as I entered.

The woman sitting at the head of the conference table—who I assumed was Elizabeth Barton, The Countess’s chief counsel—looked at her watch. Her face was stern. “Perhaps someone who was on time would be kind enough to fill you in on what you’ve missed.” She stood. “Why don’t we take a ten-minute break, and I’ll answer whatever questions you have when we reconvene.”

Weston smiled. “I’ll be happy to fill Ms. Sterling in.”

The attorney thanked him. She and two other men I’d never seen before walked out, leaving me alone with Weston. It took everything in my power not to blow my top—at least until she was out the door. Weston got up like he, too, was going to take a break and walk out of here unscathed.

Not a chance in hell.

I stood in front of the door so he couldn’t get out.

“You asshole!”

He buttoned his jacket with a smug smile. “Didn’t they teach you anything at Wharton? All’s fair in love and war, Fifi.”

“Stop calling me that!”

Weston picked imaginary lint off the arm of his overpriced suit. “Would you like me to fill you in on what you missed?”

“Of course I would, asshole. Because it’s your fault I wasn’t here.”

“No problem.” He folded his hands and looked at his nails. “Over dinner.”

“I am not having dinner with you.”

“No?”

“No!”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself. I was trying to be a gentleman. But if you prefer to go straight to my suite, I’m good with that, too.”

I cackled. “You’re out of your mind.”

He leaned forward. Because I was blocking his way, I had nowhere to go. And I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of flinching. So I stood my ground while the i***t who still smelled delicious brought his lips to my ear. “I know you remember how good we were together. Best hate f**k I ever had.”

I spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m sure you’ve never had any other kind. Because no one in their right mind would like you.”

He pulled his head back and winked at me. “Hold on to that anger. We’ll make good use of it soon.”

By eight o’clock that evening, I really needed a drink. This had been the never-ending day.

“Can I order food here, or do I need to get a table?” I asked the bartender at the hotel restaurant.

“You can order at the bar. Let me get you a menu.”

He disappeared, and I settled onto a stool. Pulling a notepad out of my gigantic purse, I started to scribble down everything my father had said in the last twenty minutes. I used the word said loosely. Because what he’d actually done was scream at me from the minute I’d answered the phone. Not even a hello—he’d just started to rant, yelling question after question. Had I done this yet or done that yet, but never taking so much as a breath so I might actually get a few words in and answer.

My father hated that Grandfather had assigned me to look after The Countess. I’m sure he would have preferred my half-brother, Spencer, do it. Not because Spencer was competent in any way—make enough donations to an Ivy League school and they miraculously let anyone in—but because Spencer was his puppet.

So when my cell phone flashed Scarlett’s name, I put my pen down for a much-needed break.

“Isn’t it, like, one in the morning there?” I asked.

“Sure is, and I’m bloody knackered.”

I smiled. My best friend Scarlett was just so British, and I loved every knickers, knackered, and knob that came out of her mouth.

“You have no idea how much I needed to hear your terrible accent right now.”

“Terrible? I speak the Queen’s English, my dear. You speak Queens English. Like, as in that dreadful borough stuck between Manhattan and Tall Island.”

“It’s Long Island. Not Tall Island.”

“Whatever.”

I laughed. “How are you doing?”

“Well, we hired a new woman at work, and I thought she might be a possible replacement for you as my only friend. But then we went to a movie last weekend, and she wore leggings with the outline of her thong showing through.”

I shook my head with a smile. “Oh boy. Not good.” Scarlett worked in fashion and made Anna Wintour look tolerant of a style faux pas. “Let’s face it. I’m just irreplaceable.”

“You are. So have you grown bored with New York and decided to return home to London yet?”

I chuckled. “It has been a trying twenty-six hours since I departed.”

“How’s the new job?”

“Well, on day one, I was late for a meeting with the hotel’s attorney because the representative of the family that now owns the other part of the hotel sent me on a wild goose chase.”

“And this is the family of the man who fifty years ago was boinking the woman who owned the hotel, at the same time your grandfather was boinking her?”

I laughed. “Yes.” While it was a bit more complicated than that, Scarlett wasn’t wrong. Fifty years ago my grandfather, August Sterling, opened a hotel with his two best friends—Oliver Lockwood and Grace Copeland. The story goes that my grandfather fell in love with Grace, and they became engaged to wed on New Year’s Eve. The day of the wedding, Grace stood at the altar and told my grandfather she couldn’t marry him, confessing she was also in love with Oliver Lockwood. She loved both men, and refused to marry either, because marriage was an act of dedicating your heart to one man, and hers was not available for only one.

The men fought over her for years, but ultimately, neither could steal half of her heart away from the other, and the three eventually went their separate ways. My grandfather and Oliver Lockwood became bitter rivals, spending their lives building hotel empires and trying to best each other, while Grace concentrated her efforts on building one luxury hotel, rather than a chain. All three were enormously successful in their own right. The Sterling and Lockwood families grew into the two biggest hotel owners in the United States. And though Grace only ever owned one hotel, the first that the three of them had started together, The Countess, with its sprawling views of Central Park, grew to become one of the most valuable single hotels in the world. It rivaled the Four Seasons and The Plaza.

Three weeks ago, when Grace died after a long battle with cancer, my family was shocked to find out she’d left forty-nine percent of The Countess to my grandfather and forty-nine percent to Oliver Lockwood. The other two percent went to a charity, one that was currently auctioning off their new ownership to the highest-bidding family—which would in turn give one of us a very important fifty-one percent controlling interest.

Grace Copeland had never married, and I saw her final act as a beautiful Greek tragedy—though, I guess to outsiders it seemed crazy to leave a hotel worth hundreds of millions of dollars to two men you hadn’t spoken to in fifty years.

“Your family is nuts,” Scarlett said. “You know that, right?”

I laughed. “I absolutely do.”

We talked for a little while about her last date and where she was thinking of going for holiday, and then she sighed.

“I actually called to tell you some news. Where are you right now?”

“In a hotel. Or rather in The Countess, the hotel my family now owns part of. Why?”

“Is there alcohol in your room?”

My brows knitted. “I’m sure there is. But I’m not in my room; I’m at the bar downstairs. Why?”

“Because you’re going to need it after I tell you this.”

“Tell me what?”

“It’s about Liam.”

Liam was my ex. A playwright from West London. We’d broken up a month ago. Even though I knew it was for the best, it still caused an ache in my chest to hear his name.

“What about him?”

“I saw him today.”

“Okay…”

“With his tongue down Marielle’s throat.”

“Marielle? Marielle who?”

“Pretty certain we both know only one.”

You’ve got to be joking. “You mean my cousin Marielle?”

“The one and only. Such a twat.”

I felt bile rise in my throat. How could she? We’d grown pretty close while I lived in London.