Page 88 of Ruled By Rivalry

By now, my eyes had moved off the menu and back onto him. I’d never considered the fact that Elliot might not want to feel like the First (or Fourth?) Son of New York City sometimes. He didn’t like the constant paparazzi attacks and headlines, sure. But I’d been convinced he liked everything else that came with his celebrity status.

“So you come here to . . .” I tried to find the right words. “Feel normal?”

“I guess.” Elliot shrugged, played with my sketchbook still lying between us. “It’s just a lot, sometimes. Knowing that we have all the money in the world at our fingertips, and we’re not really . . . doing anything with it. But the second I start lobbying for climate reform and forming the foundation, it’s this ridiculous notion to the rest of my family. Stupid, little Elli. Just let him have this so he doesn’t bother the grown-ups.” He huffed. “I feel like they don’t get it. And I’m scared that if I just keep going to fancy bars, expensive restaurants, and networking dinners with kings of foreign countries, I won’t get it anymore either.”

“So, you come here to remember what you don’t want to forget,” I figured, kind of hating that there was more to the sustainability idea.

Elliot nodded, had already opened his mouth to say something when Mary appeared at the edge of our booth again. “Found something, darling?”

“I’ll have the maple pancakes, please. With bananas, if possible.”

Mary nodded, like she’d heard it a million times. “Elli’s usual, got it.”

Oh. So maybe she had.

From the other side of the booth, Elliot smiled. With me? At me? I wasn’t sure.

“Anyway.” I shook my head, reminding myself that we were here to work, and the reason why we’d left our apartment was to clear our heads. Not to get him stuck in there again. I flipped through the sketches until I got to our most recent one, tapping it. “If we add a second layer to this, I might like it.”

By the look on his face, Elliot knew exactly what this was. A desperate attempt to distract me from how I’d love to lean across the booth and kiss him right now. He still had enough decency to ask, “A second layer?”

“I don’t know.” It was a stupid idea. Or not. His proximity was clearly throwing me off my game. “Something that makes it more. Better.”

“The layers of this one, maybe?” He pointed at an airy dress, where flowers and butterflies of the same fabric made up a second layer.

“I don’t know,” I repeated. “Maybe.”

Probably not. Still, I drew an arrow that connected the two sketches. For his sake. “We haven’t thought about Ryan at all in this,” I noted, eyes flicking across the pages for the hundredth time.

“Objectively speaking, Daphne will be the star of the show. Of their show, at least. We’ll be able to do much more with her look.”

I frowned. “I don’t want him in a black suit, though.”

“Neither do I.” A sigh later, he added, “Ryan should match Daphne, not the other way around. Once we’re set on a direction for her, I can start thinking about his outfit. That was the plan, right? Daphne’s your client. Ryan’s mine.”

Yes. “But—”

“We can have weekly check-ins on progress, so we’re not working in opposite directions.” In what seemed like an absentminded gesture, his finger brushed mine in the middle of the table. “And I’m not just suggesting that to see your name in my calendar more often.”

I smiled. “No?”

“Just an added bonus.”

The same way those flutters in my stomach were an added bonus.

Chapter 34

Fashion week was fast approaching, and Camila was all over the place. Final approvals here, completely new last-minute looks there. She’d barely managed to glance over our ideas for the Annual between the last sip of her third coffee and her first bathroom break all day. It was past five.

But her hastily scribbled notes still made my day. Love! Keep going, she’d written on one of my sketches.

After Mary’s terrible coffee (Elliot had been right about that), our quick diner visit had turned into a full-on night shift. Several times, he tried to get us to go home.

I’d been relentless, though. Scratched out, rethought, sketched many more drafts before finding one . . . okay. After a few of those night shifts, it was good enough to show Camila, and the fact that she loved it sent me skipping through the Adeline Ashwood halls. Even if a lack of sleep had been incapacitating her for the past few days, I took it as what it was: a win.

The first one in a while.

Elliot wasn’t in the neighboring office, though. That’s why I was hurrying across the second floor, trying to spread the good news. Not because he was the first person I wanted to share them with. Not because I wanted to kiss him and hear him whisper against my lips how great I did.