Bitter Rival: an enemies to lovers romance Read online

  I pressed my lips firmly together before admitting, “I only went out with him so that he’d stop asking.”

  “Kind of like what you’re doing now with me?” James sounded even more offended than before, and I hated that he could even think to compare himself to someone like Todd Lestare.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  Now, he was the one pushing me on purpose. James was going to force me to say it, and I wouldn’t ever be able to take it back. Once this line was crossed, we could never uncross it. I was so caught up in the moment, in the way James was looking at me, the pain in his eyes when he talked about me and Todd, that I couldn’t let him continue to think the two men were one and the same in my mind.

  “I actually want to be here with you,” I said before clarifying, “I didn’t want to be there with him.”

  And, just like that, the world righted itself and started spinning again. The smile on James’s face filled me with something I’d never felt before whenever I looked at him—hope. Could there truly be such a thing for the two of us?

  “Young lady”—old man Johnson stopped at our table and gave me a pointed look—“your father would be so disappointed in you.” He tsked at me before walking away.

  Any hope I’d thought we might have dissolved into thin air right in front of my eyes, bitter reality replacing it in its wake.

  Oh God.

  What the hell had I been thinking?

  I pushed away from the table, the smile on James’s face instantly falling to a frown.

  “Don’t. Julia, don’t,” he begged, but it was too late.

  That little comment from Mr. Johnson was all it took for me to doubt it all. I was usually so levelheaded. James had apparently made me stupid.

  “I never should have come. We can’t do this. Your family might not disown you for being out with me, but mine will.” I reached for my purse and my coat, fumbling with them both as I tried to leave before he could stop me. “I’m sorry,” I said before rushing away from him and pulling up the number for the only cab company in town.

  GET THE GIRL

  James

  No, no, no, no, no, no! I paced back and forth between my seat at the table and hers.

  Everyone in the restaurant was looking at me like I was half-mad. Maybe I was. I was about to throw my hands in the air and ask the gawkers for advice when Ginny appeared at my side, our dinner in her arms.

  “So, I guess you want this to go?” she asked in a smart-aleck tone.

  “Sure. Yes. Sorry,” I said before sitting back down, my head in my hands.

  I shot up in the next breath and ran, chasing Julia like my life depended on it. Hell, maybe it did. Maybe it always had.

  Throwing open the front door, I burst outside, and the cool night air hit me like a slap to the face.

  “Julia, please. Wait. Let me at least drive you home.” I sounded broken as the words tumbled from my lips, but I didn’t care. My pride was forced to take a backseat in this moment.

  She turned to face me, her long, dark hair blowing in the breeze. Holding her phone toward me, she said, “I already called a cab.”

  Defeated, I nodded.

  Why was I always losing when it came to Julia La Bella? No matter what I did or how I uncharacteristically put myself out there for her, I couldn’t win.

  “I really don’t want you to go,” I said, giving it one last shot.

  I watched as she swallowed hard, her hazel eyes focusing on my feet as opposed to my face. “I know. We just can’t, James. We were stupid to think we could.”

  The cab pulled up, and my heart sank as she moved closer to the curb.

  “Just tell me one thing.” My voice cracked, and she stopped moving but didn’t turn around. “Why does your dad hate me so much? Do you even know why?”

  “Because of the bet,” she tossed easily over her shoulder before getting inside the car and closing the door.

  I wanted to rip all my fucking hair out in my frustration. Nothing made any sense. That idiotic bet was generations old, and why our families chose to hold on to the bitterness instead of trying to get along, I’d never understand.

  “But your family won it!” I shouted as the cab pulled away and disappeared out of sight, but I swore, I saw the look of surprise in her eyes.

  * * *

  “I don’t know, man. She looked sort of shocked when I said that her family had won the bet. It was almost like she didn’t know or something.” I sat on a stool in the barn, talking Dane’s ear off. I’d actually called him to come over and calm me down, but he seemed to be having the opposite effect.

  “Maybe she doesn’t? Have you ever even thought of that?” he asked as he spun around on the chair.

  I watched him spin and spin and spin, half-tempted to knock him right off. “Can you stop spinning for two seconds?”

  His feet hit the ground as he came to an abrupt stop. “Killjoy.”

  “Child.”

  “So?”

  He flipped me off, and I looked around for something to throw at him.

  “You really think she doesn’t know that her family won?”

  He shrugged. “I’m just saying, what if she doesn’t? Want me to go ask her?”

  “No,” I bit out way too quickly, and he started laughing at me. I noticed the food I’d brought back, as Ginny had insisted, sitting on the table. “Do you think I should go over and bring her dinner?”

  “It would be the gentlemanly thing to do. She’s probably starving over there. All alone. By herself. Stomach growling.”

  This time, I did grab a paintbrush and lobbed it at his head. He ducked at the last second, and I watched it bounce on the ground before skidding across the floor.

  “Okay. Wish me luck.”

  “You need it.”

  “Go home,” I said as I walked away, food in hand.

  “Nah. You might be back soon. I think I’ll wait it out. Maybe I’ll paint something.”

  Stopping quick, I turned around. “You remember what happened the last time you touched my paints?”

  He threw his hands in the air. “I was ten!”

  “You painted over my mom’s birthday present! You didn’t even grab a clean canvas. You just painted all over the one I’d just finished. It had taken me two weeks.”

  “Yeah, and then you knocked me over the head with it. Took two weeks for the paint to come out of my hair.”

  “Good. I’d do it again,” I growled.

  “I won’t touch your precious paints, ya big baby. Go bring the girl some food.”

  Instead of arguing any further with my knuckleheaded best friend, I looped the plastic bag around my fingers and headed across the darkened fields toward Julia’s place. I knocked at her front door and waited. She had to know it was me, which was probably why she took her sweet time and let me stand outside in the freezing cold for so long. Maybe she thought, if she didn’t answer, I’d go away.

  That wasn’t happening.

  “Julia, come on. I know you’re in there. Don’t make me break your door down.” I continued knocking. “I brought you food.”

  “Food?” she asked softly from behind the door.

  I wondered how long she’d been standing there, debating on whether or not to open it for me.

  “Yeah. From the restaurant. Ginny boxed it up.”

  The lock on the door unlatched with a loud clunking sound, and I held my breath. Her face appeared first, followed by a see-through pink robe that barely covered her tiny boy shorts and tank top. She had already changed from our date and was apparently ready for bed.

  She glanced down at her bare legs before grabbing the robe and holding it tight around her middle. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  I wanted to grab her and pull her hard against me. I wanted to claim her lips for my own. I wanted to tell her to always fucking expect me, day or night or anytime I damn well pleased. But I didn’t. Instead, I held out the bag of food and waited for her to either take it and try to slam the
door in my face or invite me inside. When she opened the door wider, allowing me in, I took it as a good sign.

  “Ginny would kill me if I didn’t bring you yours,” I said with a laugh, and she smiled. “And you know she’d ask.”

  “We can’t have that,” she said, reaching for the bag of food before disappearing into the kitchen where I noticed the flowers I’d brought her earlier were still proudly on display.

  I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she had tossed them in the garbage the second she got home.

  “About earlier,” I started to say, but she put up a hand to stop me.

  “No. James, it’s not you. I mean”—she paused for half a breath—“it is you. But can I ask you something?”

  It wasn’t what I’d expected, her wanting to ask me a question, but I nodded. “Of course.”

  “What did you mean about my family winning?” She walked past me and moved toward the couch, her food plated. Once she got comfortable, I watched her take a not-so-tentative bite. “God, this is good.”

  “Would have been better at the restaurant with some wine,” I added.

  She swallowed before wiping her mouth with a paper towel. “Whose wine though?” Her head tilted as she waited for my answer.

  “You know, I actually thought about that before we left. I was a little stressed out about it.”

  She laughed out loud. “You were? I thought about it, too, and figured I’d just do the opposite of whatever you suggested.”

  “Why are you so hell-bent on messing with me?” I sat down on the couch but positioned myself against the opposite corner. The last thing I wanted was to frighten her off.

  “’Cause it’s fun,” she said before taking another bite, kicking her foot against mine like we’d done this a hundred times before instead of it being the first. “Now, about the bet.”

  This woman loved to maneuver the topic away from us the first chance she got.

  “You really don’t know?”

  “Uh-uh. I mean, all I know is that your family accused us of stealing and being thieves and that, apparently, you tried to ruin our name before we even had one?” she said it all like a question before offering a small shrug.

  Jesus. That was the only part of the story she knew?

  “First of all, I didn’t try to do anything.”

  “I didn’t mean you as in you, James Russo. I meant you as in your family.” She forked another bite of food into her mouth and watched me, waiting for me to fill in all the gaps.

  “I just want to be clear that whatever happened between our great-granddads all those years ago had nothing to do with you or me. If my great-grandfather did something to yours, I didn’t do it. I wasn’t there. You weren’t there. I think this whole thing is ridiculous and has gone on for way too long. Don’t you?”

  She stopped chewing, as if she was carefully contemplating her words before saying them out loud to me. “I’ve always thought it was stupid, but then again, I don’t even know what the hell we’re supposed to be so mad about, aside from what I just told you. Anytime I ask my dad, he just yells and snaps at me but never gives me any more information. Sometimes, I wonder if he even knows what really went down. Why else wouldn’t he just tell me?”

  I shook my head. The weight of her words made me feel like I was trapped in a bad movie with no way out. How, in this century, could things still be so backward and illogical? Why were our dads so hell-bent on staying stuck in the past?

  “What are you thinking?” Julia’s question snapped me out of my own head.

  I had no idea how long I’d been sitting there, not responding, but I noticed that her plate was clean and sitting on the coffee table in front of us. She had a glass of water in her hand and was drinking it.

  “That I don’t understand why our dads still hate each other. They don’t have to, you know? It’s all a choice, and they choose to stay mad. They choose to continue this feud for no reason other than, what? Pride? Ego?”

  Julia’s head nodded in what I could only assume was agreement. “I’ve thought about that a lot before. I think, for my dad at least, it is some twisted version of loyalty and familial obligation. His dad raised him the same way he keeps trying to raise me”—she tucked her feet up under her body—“to hate you all implicitly without questioning why.”

  “But you keep questioning,” I said with a proud grin.

  “Always have.”

  “That’s my girl,” I said without thinking, and she choked on her water, coughing and smacking at her chest. “Sorry,” I said, feeling like a jerk for making her choke but not for my words. “I didn’t mean,” I fumbled. “I’m just proud as shit, is all.”

  The coughing stopped, and I felt it the moment her walls went flying back up around her. Every crack I’d made in her armor immediately fused back together, and I was shut out again. I longed to rewind the clock a mere thirty seconds, so I could stop myself from ruining the moment.

  She cleared her throat, her hazel eyes glassy from choking before she took a deep breath. “First of all, I’m not your girl. Second, why are you so proud?”

  I knew it—walls. “I think it’s a big deal that you question your dad instead of just accepting what he tells you. That’s all I meant. I like knowing that your mind isn’t swayed by the thoughts of others. No matter who they are. That’s a hard thing to do. And it’s a respectable quality to have.”

  She put up a single finger. “Before you give me too much credit … I might do a lot of questioning, but I don’t do a lot of standing up for it.” Her hand moved to her mouth, and she played with her lips, her eyes tightening as she formulated the rest of her thoughts. I could practically see the wheels spinning. “You see, I don’t agree with my dad at all on this subject, but I’m scared to death to call him out on it.”

  “You really think he would take the winery from you?”

  How was I ever going to get inside her heart if she felt like she’d lose everything because of it?

  Her long, dark hair spilled over her shoulders as she ran her fingers through it, her frustration clear. “I know it sounds ridiculous. Totally over the top, right? But you don’t know my dad, James. Even if he doesn’t know why he’s supposed to hate you, he still does. Fiercely.”

  I looked around her place, my mind searching for an answer in the exposed brick of her fireplace. I wanted to fix this, fix us, or at least figure out how to give us a chance, but I had no idea how to convince her.

  “You know Jeanine calls us Romeo and Juliet,” she said, and I sensed her walls softening.

  “Is there a version of the story where they live happily ever after instead of dying?”

  A small laugh escaped from her lips. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  I scooted over on the couch, my body inches from hers instead of feet. “Then, I think it deserves a rewrite.”

  I watched as her gaze moved between my eyes and my mouth. Her tongue darted out and wet her bottom lip. The combination of the two only meant one thing; she wanted me to kiss her as much as I wanted to.

  “What did you have in mind?” she asked as her eyes focused back on my lips.

  I placed my hand on the back of her neck, pulling her toward me, and I let my tongue and mouth do all the talking as I prayed she wouldn’t stop me. I’d been waiting for this my whole damn life.

  LOVE OR LUST

  Julia

  Oh, sweet baby Jesus and all of his friends. Did Jesus have friends? It didn’t matter; nothing mattered because James’s lips felt like home.

  The man was skilled, kissing me softly yet firmly. He was slow in his movements but aggressive as well, and I had no idea how one man could command so many contradictory feelings with his mouth, but he did.

  I knew immediately that my body would bend and curve to his whim, his hands controlling our pace, his tongue fueling our mutual desire. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had made me feel this alive, like a lit fuse on the end of a firework ready to explode. To be honest, I
didn’t think I’d ever felt quite like this before. Hell, with James’s tongue in my mouth, I could barely remember the last time I’d had sex. That wasn’t true. I definitely remembered it, but it was so awful that I wished I could forget.

  I should have hated how comfortable being in this position with him was, but I found myself craving more. Kissing James was supposed to repulse me, remind me that I was in enemy territory, but it only made me want to kiss him more. And, when he lifted me up like I weighed nothing, tossing my robe to the floor before carrying me back into my bedroom, I should have fought against what was coming instead of practically fiending for it.

  Truth be told, I considered stopping what was about to happen for all of twenty seconds. Then, his fingers brushed along my inner thigh, and I forgot that I was supposed to hate him. All I wanted was more; my body reacted, my pulse quickened, and my heart raced. Add in the fact that I’d been fighting my attraction and desire for this man for the majority of my life, and you had a ticking time bomb ready to explode between my thighs.

  I didn’t want to fight it anymore.

  But I really didn’t want to hate myself for giving in either.

  “I’ve thought about this at least a thousand times,” he said as he pressed kisses against my neck before his teeth nibbled on my ear.

  “You have?” I asked breathlessly.

  He stopped moving and looked at me, those blue eyes shining. “Haven’t you?”

  “I might have had some fantasies starring your beard,” I admitted.

  He bit his bottom lip before running a hand across it. “My beard, huh?”

  I placed my hand on top of his and moved across his jawline. “Yeah. It’s sexy as hell.”

  “Good to know.” He grinned. “This has starred in my fantasies,” he said before his thumb ran down the length of my neck. “You have the sexiest neck.” He leaned in and pressed kisses there before moving lower. “And your shoulders. God, I’ve wanted to bite them for years,” he said.