Page 16 of How to Kill Your Rival

If temptation is all she’ll give me, I’ll take it. For now. Until she’s ready.

Her throat bobs as she meets my gaze, her pink lips parting slightly as I take her hand and pull her against me.

‘I can help you forget all of their bullshit,’ I whisper, my lips tickling her jaw.

She braces her hand against my chest, her fingertips spreading before she pushes back, separating us.

‘Even if I deigned to lower myself to rutting with you, it sure as hell wouldn’t be under my dad’s roof. You’re my stepbrother.’

‘We’re adults; it’s not like we grew up together,’ I say, aching for more of her. It’s like being near her sets my pulse rocketing.

‘So you think they’d be fine with finding you bending me over the fucking table?’ Eliza raises her eyebrow.

‘It’s not a fucking table… yet. We could fix that.’

Evan would likely run me through with one of the many ancient swords which hang on the wall of their Scottish mansion. It might be worth it…

‘I’m willing to chance it,’ I say.

‘That’s because us being caught wouldn’t affect you the way it would me. You’ll be lauded for taming Evan’s protégée, whereas I’ll be seen as just another wee slag who sleeps her way to the top.’

‘If you were sleeping your way to the top, I’m not sure you’d be starting with me.’ I understand her concerns, and I hate that she has to consider them.

‘True,’ she laughs. ‘But either way, we’re not a thing, James. We’ll never be a thing.’

Oh, Sweetheart, we’re going to be so much more than that. One day. You’ll see. I always win.

If it takes five more years of being her rival before she lets me in, then so be it.

Eliza leaves me there, no closer to winning her heart. Or her knickers.

I watch her go, hoping with a childish optimism that she’ll turn back.

She never looks back.

But today, she pauses with her fingers on the doorframe like she’s considering my advance.

The pause is enough to fuel my obsession with her.

When she continues out of the door, I go to find Evan’s well-aged whisky instead.

6

ELIZA

Richard Kormack is dead.

Which would be fine if I were the person who killed him.

My knife handle digs into my palm as I grip it with cold fury. Richard Kormack is – no, was – a financial adviser who’d been stealing from his clients for eleven years. The kind of guy who slowly filters away money, taking it from pots that won’t be noticed until retirement hits and it’s too late for recourse.

The fact that ole Dickie-boy has a gaping hole in his forehead wouldn’t be a problem, except that the arsehole trying to undermine me put it there.

I assume. It’s not like they left a note.

So I’m left standing in his very swish living room like a total lemon. A very sour lemon at that. Because who the hell is getting to my contracts before me, and why? They aren’t claiming the kill fee. Just doing it to annoy me. Which is why James is my first suspect. Even if he denies it. I almost hope it was him. At least then it would be part of our one-upmanship.

Otherwise, it’s someone trying to make me look weak. And the very thought makes me want to nuke the Council.