Romancing the Rival

by Kris Fletcher

  Oh, if she only knew . . .

  Bree inhaled. “I don’t say this often, but I’m going to say it now. If you two would like to continue this conversation, I’d ask you to take it elsewhere.”

  What did that mean? Had she had a change of heart about her father?

  Jenna waved away her sister’s words. “Come on, Bree. You’re the one who’s given him the least of any of us. I mean, geez, you’re writing a book about him, and it’s not like it’s going to be fiction.”

  “Hold on.” Spence looked at Bree, calmly sipping her wine, though she was clenching that stem mighty tightly. “You’re writing a book about your father?”

  All of a sudden, his prospects looked a whole lot more encouraging.

  “Jenna is simplifying. Our family is one of over a dozen being highlighted in the book, the research for which is also forming the basis of my dissertation examining the impact of parental scandal on their adult children’s locus of control.”

  She was hiding behind her words again.

  “My deadline is in three months and I’m supposed to be working on it right now. So I’d appreciate it if you two would—”

  “Hey!” Jenna interrupted. “You invited me. Remember?”

  Bree turned that great shade of pink that he figured meant she’d been caught in a lie.

  For a second he had a moment of discomfort. Should he really be able to tell when she was lying, just by her body language?

  Then he remembered some of the other messages her body had sent out loud and clear, and thought, what the hell. Collateral knowledge was still good.

  “I had writer’s block. Talking to you helped. I’m ready to work now.”

  Jenna crossed her arms and sat back. “Really.”

  “Really.”

  “I am so delighted to hear that listening to me prattle on about centerpieces and press releases can cure writer’s block.” She shifted in her chair to pin Spence with a glare that almost held up to Bree’s. “Why do I have the feeling you know a lot more than you’re letting on, Spencer?” Before he could come up with some kind of answer, she swiveled again to focus on Bree. “And why do I have the feeling that you, Sabrina, asked me to come over mostly as a shield against old Spence the Fence?”

  “Hey!” He’d spent too much time in the gym over the years to let his old high school nickname be resurrected now.

  But Jenna simply waved him away. “Oh, get over it. Calypso Falls is still a small town. You will always be Spence the Fence, I’ll always be the town slut, and Bree will always be the smart Elias girl who takes after her mother.”

  He hated when people told the truth. It was too damned messy.

  “Breezy, I’m good for a lot of things, though not as many as the bathroom walls would make you believe. However, since Spencey here doesn’t seem to pose any danger, and you have things to do, either with your book or with him, I’m going to boogie.”

  “But you said you wanted to talk to me about something.”

  “I did?” Jenna paused as she rose from her chair, then shook her head. “Right. I was going to tell you about the Screw Our Father committee. Spence can fill you in, if you’re interested.” She grabbed a tiny pink bag and aimed for the door. Since Spence’s chair was blocking it, he stood to give her access. But as he began to step aside for her, she poked him in the chest with one long fingernail.

  “Bree, you still have that rape whistle and the mace I gave you, right?”

  “God, Jenna.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Now you.” She drove the fingernail in a bit deeper. “Hurt my sister and I’ll make sure the next one run out of town is you. Capisce?”

  Did he have any choice other than to nod?

  Seemingly satisfied with his answer, Jenna patted his cheek. “Good. Now move so I can get out of here and you two can get down to whatever has the sparks flying between you.”

  “There are no sparks!” Bree yelled as Jenna slipped out the door.

  As soon as the door had closed, Bree looked him straight in the eyes. “Did you ever sleep with her?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “No. I never even dated her.”

  “Jenna did not always see dating as a necessary precursor to sex.”

  Just in time, he stopped himself from saying that it seemed to run in the family.

  Bree waved toward his chair as she moved into the one Jenna had vacated. “If you’re not going to leave, you might as well sit down. I get twitchy when people stand over me.”

  “Afraid I’m going to pounce?” he asked as he did as instructed.

  “No. Afraid I died in my sleep and the vultures are circling.”

  “You might want to see a shrink about that.”

  “You like spending your days playing in the dirt and making mud?”

  “Where did that come from?”

  “You insult my profession, I insult yours. You play nice . . .” She shrugged and filled her wineglass once again.

  He had no idea how much she’d drunk before he’d arrived, but he was getting the feeling she was already pushing her limit.

  “What if I don’t want to play, Bree?”

  She made an odd gurgling sound that turned into a cough.

  “Seriously, Spence? Why else would you have come swaggering into my apartment like some macho . . . thing . . . other than to play?”

  In a way, he wanted to follow this line of conversation. It had a lot of possibility. He might not have his degree, but he could still take a line and twist it into something fun, something that made women laugh and got their thoughts turning in the same direction as his.

  Bree, though . . . he suspected that she wouldn’t fall for that. Not that she wouldn’t like it or appreciate the humor. But she was probably someone who always asked for the bad news first. Better to lead with the truth and then see where he could go.

  “I came over to tell you about that committee.”

  She stared at him over deep-red wine. “Sure you did.”

  “It’s true.”

  “The one that Jenna so conveniently mentioned, giving you a most excellent opportunity to look all honest and forthright.”

  “Never claimed to be a master of timing.”

  The way she suddenly glanced down at the floor reminded him that he’d had some other timing issues that day.

  “There seems to be a lot of that going around,” she said quietly.

  “I’m not going to apologize for what happened, Bree.”

  She straightened. “I didn’t expect you to. You certainly weren’t alone, and I certainly didn’t . . . well . . . it wasn’t how I’d planned to spend my afternoon, but I can’t quite say it was completely unwelcome.”

  He flinched. “Don’t go overboard with the praise there, Sabrina.”

  She leveled one finger in his direction. “Don’t call me that.”

  “What, ‘Sabrina’? Why not?”

  “Because there are precisely seven people in this world who are allowed to call me that, and since you are neither a member of my immediate family nor the doctor who delivered me, you don’t make the cut.”

  “Damn. And here I was, ready to break out into song.” And before he could stop himself, he channeled his best West Side Story. “Sabrina, I just met a girl named Sabrina . . .”

  She stared at him for a second before letting loose with a sound that he was pretty sure he’d never heard before.

  “Was that a giggle?”

  “For want of a better word, yes.”

  Huh. In his experience, giggles were always a good sign.

  But just as fast as it had appeared, her soft smile vanished. “What do you want, Spence? Besides sex.”

  “You make that sound like it’s a bad thing.”

  “I don’t pass moral jud
gments on people’s sex lives, including my own. But there are definitely times when it would be . . . let’s say, ill-advised.”

  Again with the professor talk. What would it be like, he wondered, to peel away that academic armor she was so fond of and see what was underneath?

  “I want to know what it’s like to relax with you.”

  His answer seemed to surprise her almost as much as it surprised him.

  “That’s not what I expected you to say.”

  “Yeah, well, that makes two of us.” He leaned forward, his outstretched fingers brushing hers. “I’m not looking for anything deep or lasting, Bree. I like my life the way it is. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to turn my back on something that feels like it could be fun.” He grinned and shook his head. “Especially when it seems like whatever’s going on here has a mind of its own.”

  She studied him for a second, giving him a fast insight into the life of a lab rat, then reached behind her and grabbed another wineglass from the counter. Two moves later, and the filled glass was being pushed his way.

  “For the record, I’m not sleeping with you tonight,” she said.

  He pointed to the wine. “Is this my consolation prize?”

  “It’s an overture. An attempt.” A hint of a smile crossed her face. “A start, maybe. At that whole relaxing thing.”

  He nodded. “I’ll drink to that.” And he did, grimacing at the unexpected dryness of the wine. Though really, he shouldn’t have. There was nothing about Bree that screamed sweetness.

  The silence that fell between them wasn’t what anyone would call tranquil, but neither was it awkward. Just . . . unfamiliar. Like the feeling he got when he walked into a client’s property and took that first look around, adding and subtracting features and imagining how the landscape could be transformed.

  Maybe that was what he needed to do: stop thinking of this whole—whatever—with Bree as a relationship and look at it the way he would a project. Relationships had rules, ones that he never quite understood, to be honest, but projects? Now those, he knew. Research. Prepare. Make a plan, break it into actionable steps, stop and evaluate and tweak as needed.

  His history with relationships was about 50/50, but he was hell at projects.

  However, the first step in any plan was to clear the space. Get rid of the weeds. Rip out anything that could interfere with the design he wanted to create.

  Which meant he was going to have to go beyond telling her about the committee.

  He was going to have to tell her why he was working with them in the first place.

  Chapter Eight

  The first words out of Bree’s mouth the next morning were not ones that anyone would call polite.

  Her sisters always acted so shocked when she started cursing, like they didn’t believe she knew how. It was easy to tell that none of them had woken up with her in the past few years.

  “They’d be proud of me this morning,” she said, adding, “that’s for fucking sure,” just on principle.

  Most days she didn’t mind rising before the sun. She didn’t love it, but she was accustomed to it. Last night, though, she had set the alarm even earlier, thinking that since the evening had been a total bust, work-wise, she would go to bed early, get up early, and get her page count in first thing.

  She hadn’t counted on lying awake half the night, wondering what was going on with her and Spence. Or wondering what would happen when she went to his place for dinner on Friday. Or wondering why, exactly, she had agreed to go in the first place.

  It wasn’t until she hauled herself to the computer and took the first sip from her oversize coffee that she admitted the truth to herself: she’d been dwelling on what was happening with her and Spence because it was easier than facing the uncomfortable truth that dug into her every time she thought about people uniting to make her father leave town.

  Jenna was right. No one who was writing a book built around trickle-down shame should be bothered by learning that there were people who wanted their father gone.

  So why was she bothered by this, even slightly?

  She stared at the blank screen that she was supposed to be filling with words of insight—or, at the very least, words that would keep the reader engaged. As fate would have it, she was working on her family’s chapter in the scandal time line right now. She had known it would be the most difficult to write. She hadn’t expected that it would leave her frozen.

  Maybe that was why the whole citizen’s group bothered her so much—because she was reliving her family’s history as she wrote. All the events were fresh in her memory, and yeah, a part of her was still feeling the impact every time she read a statement by one of her sisters talking about how it felt to lose a father to death, then lose him a second time to fury and deceit and lies.

  It was so strange, Kyrie had said in her interview. Like I couldn’t believe anything anymore.

  Paige had said, I remember feeling like God must really hate me, because why else would he let that happen?

  And Jenna, who was not quite two years younger than Bree, had probably put it best: I definitely remember thinking that I could never do anything worse than what he had done. So why should I bother trying to be good?

  All of which fit in very nicely with her thesis, that living through a parental scandal had a detrimental effect on a child’s locus of control. But every one of their statements pulled her back as well. Back to the confusion, to the feeling that her world was suddenly part of an earthquake zone, to feeling like no matter what she did, how hard she tried to grab hold of the insanity and make it stop until she could sort it out, it never happened. Life had spun out of her control.

  Enough. She took another swig of coffee, sat up straighter in her chair, and began typing. She was an adult now. She understood more and could do more. She might not be able to stop people from working against Rob, even if she had wanted to—which she didn’t—but she still had power. She could and would write this book, damn it. She would work past those pesky leftover emotions and attitudes. All she had to do was get through this chapter, then she could push her own story back into the depths of ancient history where it belonged and move on.

  And then she could turn her attention to another man who rocked her sense of control, but in a very different way.

  * * *

  Spence wasn’t in the habit of turning to others for advice. For one thing, no one could understand his situation better than he could, so what exactly did he expect them to bring to the table? For another, there weren’t a whole hell of a lot of people whom he trusted enough to pour all his problems over them. He didn’t see how having something wrong in his life could be made better by having it become common knowledge.

  And yet, his gut kept telling him that he needed some female insight into the whole thing with Bree. Not advice, really. Perspective. A view from the other side, as it were. And while Spence wasn’t so big on trusting people, he absolutely paid attention to his gut.

  Which was why he sent his sister a text Friday morning, asking if she wanted to come over for lunch.

  Ten minutes late as always, Livvy waltzed into his kitchen, dropped her giant mom purse on his table, and grabbed a Coke out of his fridge, all before saying a word. She popped the top, inhaled about half the can, then dropped onto a barstool with an exaggerated sigh.

  “Good God, I needed that.”

  “Rough morning?”

  “The kids had a two-hour delay because of icy roads, my boss gave me hell for coming in late because of said delay—even though Carl got stuck covering the last delay and the snow day before that—there’s rumors that we’re moving to a new building, and one of my favorite coworkers gave her notice today. She got hired away by the competition.”

  “The scum buckets?”

  “The very same. But they waved a silver tray under her face with the magic words of fewer hour
s, more money, and onsite child care.” Livvy hoisted her can. “Kerry might have sold her soul, but at least she made it worth her while.”

  “You know you can come work for me anytime.”

  “I do. And I thank you.” She reached across the counter and patted his cheek. “But you are my baby brother and I don’t want to end up wringing your neck when you make a boneheaded decision, which we both know would totally happen. So thanks but no thanks. Now, feed me and tell me your woes quick, because I don’t dare take a long lunch today.”

  Spence reached into the fridge for eggs and cheese, anticipation spiking when he glimpsed the chicken marinating in a mix of ginger, lime, and mint on the lower shelf. Hello, possibility. “What makes you think I have woes?”

  “Because, sweetie, whenever you invite me over alone, it’s either because something’s wrong with your life or because you think something’s wrong with mine. Given the choice, I’ll stick with your problems, thank you very much.”

  Shit. He had a flashback to the night of the pizza place.

  “I haven’t heard of anything that might be wrong in your life,” he said carefully.

  “Good. Neither have I.”

  It had better stay that way, he thought. The only reason he hadn’t gone after Carl’s sorry ass months ago was because it would hurt Livvy and the kids.

  “Liv—”

  “You know,” she said, pulling herself up straighter in her chair, “you haven’t fed me in ages, and unless people are holding out on me, I haven’t heard anything around town about you seeing someone new. So what gives? Are my sources out of the loop, or is this something that’ll totally blindside us all, like you’re finally coming out of the closet?”

  “Not that it makes any difference to me, because I don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone’s leanings as long as they’re decent people, but why do you keep insisting I’m secretly gay?”

  “Because it would make my life so much easier.”