Chapter 6: Colleagues

The Union League dining room had a ceiling so high it needed its own weather.

Godfrey had put them at the long table between the library board chair and a man in a gold-buttoned blazer who kept saying "per se."

Craig sat directly across from Eli, with his phone face-down beside his bread plate.

He gave Eli a little wave.

"Colleagues," Declan murmured, and pulled out Eli's chair for him with exquisite coldness.

Eli sat.

Declan sat.

Their elbows were eleven inches apart.

"Eleven inches. I can measure it. I'm a professional."

The chair of the board was a tiny woman in her seventies with white hair cut like a helmet and eyes that missed nothing.

She looked from Declan to Eli and back, and set down her wine.

"You two are the ones who fight," she said.

"Not at all," said Declan.

"Constantly," Eli said, at the same moment.

"I thought so." She looked pleased. "My late husband and his brother were exactly the same. They hated each other for fifty years and shared a boat."

"We don't have a boat," Declan said.

"Yet," said the chair.

Declan's knee touched Eli's under the tablecloth.

It was an accident, and Declan moved it at once.

"Sorry," he said, to his plate.

"Not sorry. Not sorry. Do it again. No. Don't do it again, Craig is looking."

He was.

Craig had his chin on his hand, watching their shoulders.

Eli kept his face pleasant and reached for the water.

The man in the gold blazer leaned toward Declan.

"Mr. Corcoran, we hear your last tower had a glazing problem. Per se, a failure of attention to detail."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Kissed My Rival, Hear His Mind from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.