Weston shook his head. “I’m sorry. You deserve better than that.”
“Yeah, well, Scarlett has a saying, ‘Any time you spend wondering if you deserve better is time wasted. Because if you’re wondering, you do.’ I’ve spent too many years questioning whether I deserved the way my father treated my mother and me, so I’m not going to waste anymore time dwelling over it. I always knew the answer.”
Weston looked down. “You deserve a lot better from the men in your life—a fuck of a lot better.”
Chapter 23
* * *
Sophia
Weston looked as stressed as I’d felt the last few days.
Our bids were due in less than two weeks, and we both still had so much to do. Though, if I was being honest with myself, it wasn’t just the looming deadline that had me on edge. Weston and I hadn’t spoken about the logistics of what would happen after the bids were opened, and that had begun weighing on my mind.
Once one family owned the majority of The Countess, the other family would inevitably be pushed out. Weston and I had talked about going to a charity event together Labor Day weekend, but that was two months from now, which seemed like a lifetime. The more immediate question was, what would happen when this contest was over?
One of us wouldn’t be involved in the day-to-day operations of the hotel anymore. Did that mean Weston wouldn’t be slipping into my room at night? If I won, would he be holed up at one of his own family’s properties across town like he’d been in the months before Grace Copeland died? Or would he be sent back to Vegas where he still owned a house? There was so much up in the air, and the unknown was like a giant shadow following me around.
It didn’t help that Weston had seemed to distance himself a little the last few days. Ever since the day my father and I had our blowup, it felt like something had shifted—a crack had formed in the ground of our relationship, and each day it seemed to widen. After the bidding ended, would we need to yell in order to hear each other from the two sides we stood on?
To outsiders, though, we probably looked business-as-usual as we left the construction of the new ballroom.
“It’s really coming along great,” I said.
Weston nodded. “The mayor and his niece want to come see the room. Louis had been holding them off, but it should be in a presentable state by late next week.”
I glanced over at him. “I guess that means one of us will get to meet the mayor.”
Weston held my gaze. He frowned, but said nothing as he nodded.
Clearly, he had no plan to initiate the discussion we needed to have, and that frustrated the hell out of me. In fact, with each step I took, I felt my anxiety grow. By the time we got into the elevator, I’d started to feel like there wasn’t enough air, particularly in the confined car. My choices were to lean over and hyperventilate, or lift the boulder off my chest so I could breathe again. Halfway between the sixth and seventh floor, I decided I couldn’t take it. Jamming my finger into the red emergency stop button, I brought the elevator to an abrupt halt.
“What’s going to happen next week?” I asked.
At first, Weston looked genuinely confused, but it didn’t take him more than a few seconds to catch up. He shook his head and shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “I don’t know, Soph.”
“Well… What do you want to happen?”
“You mean between us?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes. What else would I be talking about? It’s pretty clear from a business standpoint. The lawyer for Easy Feet is going to open two envelopes, and one of us is going to become the majority shareholder. We both know neither of our families will want to manage the property jointly, so the winner will take over running The Countess, and the loser will get some hefty profit checks a few times a year. But where does that leave us?”
Weston nodded and pointed to the camera in the corner of the elevator. “Unless you want security to know I’m not ready to stop fucking you, maybe we should have this conversation somewhere else. I have a call in a few minutes. Does six o’clock work?”
“My meeting with legal is at six. Seven?”
He nodded. “I’ll order us some dinner and meet you in your suite.”
“Okay.”
***
We made small talk through dinner. I was anxious to have a discussion, but figured maybe Weston preferred to wait until we were done so it seemed less like a business meeting and more like a regular couple’s date. After we finished, he rolled the room service table out into the hall and walked over to the bar.