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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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The feud between Weston Lockwood and me started at the altar.<\/p>\n
Only neither of us attended the wedding, and the nuptials happened decades before either of us was born.<\/p>\n
Our grandfathers had been best friends and business partners, at least up until my grandfather\u2019s wedding day\u2014when his bride-to-be blurted out she couldn\u2019t marry him because she was also in love with Weston\u2018s grandfather.<\/p>\n
The two men spent years fighting over Grace Copeland, who also happened to be their third business partner.\u00a0 But in the end, neither man could steal half of her heart away from the other.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Our fathers continued the family tradition of feuding. And then Weston and I did, too.<\/p>\n
For the most part, we kept as much distance as possible.<\/p>\n
Until the day the woman who started the feud died\u2014and unexpectedly left one of the most valuable hotels in the world to our grandfathers to share.<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019m stuck in a hotel with the man I was born to hate, trying to unravel the mess our families inherited.<\/p>\n
As usual, it didn\u2019t take long for us to be at each other\u2019s throats.<\/p>\n
Weston Lockwood was everything I hated: tall, smart, cocky, and too gorgeous for his own good.<\/p>\n
We were fire and ice.<\/p>\n
But that shouldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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Add to Goodreads<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sophia<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhat the hell?\u201d 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,\u00a0the doors started to\u00a0glide\u00a0closed. Just as they were about to shut completely, a shoe blocked them from closing. <\/p>\n 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!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Facebook Profile\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Facebook Page<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0Facebook Group<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Website\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Twitter\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Instagram\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Goodreads<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Rivals by Vi Keeland A standalone contemporary romance releasing 13 July 2020 Apple Books\u00a0 |\u00a0 Audible\u00a0 |\u00a0 B&N\u00a0 |\u00a0 Kobo\u00a0 |\u00a0 Google Play\u00a0 |\u00a0 Paperback Live Release Alert\u00a0or text BOOKS to 77948 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[290],"tags":[432,349],"class_list":["post-53399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-news","tag-excerpt-reveal","tag-vi-keeland"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/The-Rivals.jpg?fit=200%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gaNL-dTh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nExcerpt<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nA wingtip shoe.<\/em>
\nWeston\u2019s smiling face was there to greet me when the doors bounced open.
\nMy blood was near boiling. \u201cSo help me, Lockwood, if you try to get in this car, I can\u2019t be responsible for what happens to you. I\u2019m not in the mood anymore.\u201d
\nHe entered the elevator anyway. \u201cCome on, Fifi. What\u2019s wrong? I\u2019m just playing around. You\u2019re taking things way too seriously.\u201d
\nI counted to ten in my head, but it didn\u2019t help.\u00a0Fuck it<\/em>. He wanted to get a rise out of me?\u00a0He 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.
\n\u201cYou wanna know what\u2019s wrong? I\u2019ll tell you what\u2019s wrong! My father thinks I\u2019m inept because I don\u2019t 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.\u00a0Again<\/em>. 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.\u201d I jabbed my finger into his chest and punctuated each staccato word with another stab.
\n\u201cI\u2019m
\nTired.
\nOf.
\nMen.
\nMy father.
\nLiam.
\nYou.
\nEvery single fucking one of you. So leave me the hell alone!\u201d
\nFrazzled, I turned back around and waited for the door to open, only to realize we hadn\u2019t started to move yet.\u00a0Great.<\/em>\u00a0Just 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\u2019s body behind me. He had to have moved closer. I continued to try to ignore him.
\nBut the fucker\u00a0still<\/em>\u00a0smelled good.
\nHow the hell could that be? Whose cologne lasted for\u2014what\u00a0had\u00a0it been now?\u2014twelve hours? After the gauntlet run he\u2019d sent me on across town this morning, I probably smelled like BO. It pissed me off that the\u00a0asshole<\/em>\u00a0smelled…fucking delicious<\/em>.
\nHe moved closer, and I felt his breath tickle my neck.
\n\u201cSo,\u201d he whispered in a gravelly voice. \u201cYou think my dick\u2019s big.\u201d
\nI turned and scowled at him. While this morning he\u2019d been clean-shaven, he\u00a0now\u00a0had a five o\u2019clock shadow all along his chiseled jaw. It gave him a sinister look. The suit that hugged his broad shoulders probably cost more than Liam\u2019s entire sweater wardrobe. Weston Lockwood was everything I hated in a man\u2014wealthy, good looking, cocky, arrogant, and fearless. Liam would hate him. My father already hated him. And at the moment, those were actually Weston\u2019s strong points.
\nWhile 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\u2019d wobbled in the bar. Had I wobbled\u00a0again? I didn\u2019t think I had. But I must\u2019ve.
\nThough when his hand glided from my hip around to my ass, there was no\u00a0misunderstanding his intention. He was\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0trying 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.
\nI made the mistake of looking up from his jaw into his blue eyes. Heat flickered, turning them almost gray,\u00a0and\u00a0his eyes dropped to my lips.
\nNo.\u00a0<\/em>
\nJust no.<\/em>
\nThis was not happening.\u00a0<\/em>
\nNot again.<\/em>
\nMy heart thundered in my chest, and the blood in my ears roared so loudly I almost didn\u2019t hear the ding of the elevator announcing that we\u2019d arrived at my floor. Thankfully it snapped me out of whatever moment of insanity I\u2019d slipped into.
\n\u201cI\u2026I need to go.\u201d
\nIt 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.
\nThough\u2026
\nI wasn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n
\nAbout the Author<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Vivienne-Vi-Keeland-HeadshotPrint-3.jpg?resize=200%2C300\")
<\/p>\nCheck out our\u00a0Vi Keeland Author Spotlight<\/a>\u00a0for more fantastic reads!<\/strong><\/h4>\n