EXCERPT
REVEAL
Title:
The Rivals
Author:
Vi Keeland
Genre:
Standalone
Contemporary Romance
Release
Date: July 13, 2020
Excited about Vi
Keeland’s upcoming release, The Rivals? Check out this SNEAK PEEK
The feud between
Weston Lockwood and me started at the altar.
Only neither of us
attended the wedding, and the nuptials happened decades before either
of us was born.
Our grandfathers had
been best friends and business partners, at least up until my
grandfather’s wedding day—when his bride-to-be blurted out she
couldn’t marry him because she was also in love with Weston‘s
grandfather.
The two men spent
years fighting over Grace Copeland, who also happened to be their
third business partner. But in the end, neither man could steal
half of her heart away from the other.
Eventually, they all
went their separate ways. Our grandfathers married other women, and
the two men became one of the biggest business rivals in history.
Our fathers continued
the family tradition of feuding. And then Weston and I did, too.
For the most part, we
kept as much distance as possible.
Until the day the
woman who started the feud died—and unexpectedly left one of the
most valuable hotels in the world to our grandfathers to share.
Now I’m stuck in a
hotel with the man I was born to hate, trying to unravel the mess our
families inherited.
As usual, it didn’t
take long for us to be at each other’s throats.
Weston Lockwood was
everything I hated: tall, smart, cocky, and too gorgeous for his own
good. We were fire and ice.
But that shouldn’t
be an issue. Our families were used to being at war. There was just
one minor problem, though. Every time Weston and I fought, we
somehow wound up in bed.
Sophia
“What the hell?” I
pressed the button on the elevator panel a second time. It
illuminated, yet the car continued to sit there. So I jabbed my
finger at it a third time. Finally, the doors started
to glide closed. Just as they were about to shut
completely, a shoe blocked them from closing.
A wingtip shoe.
Weston’s smiling
face was there to greet me when the doors bounced open.
My blood was near
boiling. “So help me, Lockwood, if you try to get in this car, I
can’t be responsible for what happens to you. I’m not in the mood
anymore.”
He entered the
elevator anyway. “Come on, Fifi. What’s wrong? I’m just playing
around. You’re taking things way too seriously.”
I counted to ten in my
head, but it didn’t help. Fuck
it.
He wanted to get a rise out of me? He was going to get one. The
doors slid shut again, and I turned and backed him into a corner.
Seeing my face, he at least had the decency to look a little
nervous.
“You wanna know
what’s wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong! My father thinks I’m
inept because I don’t have an appendage dangling between my legs.
The man I spent the last eighteen months with was cheating on me with
one of my cousins. Again.
I hate New York City. I despise the Lockwood family. And you think
you can get away with anything you want just because you have a big
dick.” I jabbed my finger into his chest and punctuated each
staccato word with another stab.
“I’m
Tired.
Of.
Men.
My father.
Liam.
You.
Every single fucking
one of you. So leave me the hell alone!”
Frazzled, I turned
back around and waited for the door to open, only to realize we
hadn’t started to move yet. Great.
Just fucking great. I jabbed the button a few more times, closed my
eyes, and took deep, cleansing breaths as we started to move. Halfway
through breath three, I felt the heat of Weston’s body behind me.
He had to have moved closer. I continued to try to ignore him.
But the
fucker still smelled
good.
How the hell could
that be? Whose cologne lasted for—what had it been
now?—twelve hours? After the gauntlet run he’d sent me on across
town this morning, I probably smelled like BO. It pissed me off that
the asshole smelled...fucking
delicious.
He moved closer, and I
felt his breath tickle my neck.
“So,” he whispered
in a gravelly voice. “You think my dick’s big.”
I turned and scowled
at him. While this morning he’d been clean-shaven, he now had
a five o’clock shadow all along his chiseled jaw. It gave him a
sinister look. The suit that hugged his broad shoulders probably cost
more than Liam’s entire sweater wardrobe. Weston Lockwood was
everything I hated in a man—wealthy, good looking, cocky, arrogant,
and fearless. Liam would hate him. My father already hated him. And
at the moment, those were actually Weston’s strong points.
While I struggled with
my body reacting to his scent and how much I liked the stubble on his
face, Weston slowly reached out and put a hand on my hip. At first, I
assumed he thought he needed to steady me, as he had when I’d
wobbled in the bar. Had I wobbled again? I didn’t think I had.
But I must’ve.
Though when his hand
glided from my hip around to my ass, there was no misunderstanding
his intention. He was not trying
to help me stay on my feet. In my head, my immediate reaction was to
scream at him, but somehow my throat felt too clogged to speak.
I made the mistake of
looking up from his jaw into his blue eyes. Heat flickered, turning
them almost gray, and his eyes dropped to my lips.
No.
Just no.
This was not
happening.
Not again.
My heart thundered in
my chest, and the blood in my ears roared so loudly I almost didn’t
hear the ding of the elevator announcing that we’d arrived at my
floor. Thankfully it snapped me out of whatever moment of insanity
I’d slipped into.
“I…I need to go.”
It took all of my
focus to put one foot in front of the other, but I managed to walk
down the hall and make it to my room.
Though…
I wasn’t alone.
Vi Keeland is a #1 New
York Times, #1 Wall
Street Journal, and USA
Today Bestselling
author. With millions of books sold, her titles have appeared in over
a hundred Bestseller lists and are currently translated in
twenty-five languages. She resides in New York with her husband and
their three children where she is living out her own happily ever
after with the boy she met at age six.
