Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment, #1)(3)

“It doesn’t matter if you know it,” he insisted as he followed her. “I have the assignment.”

She reached her desk and flicked on her lamp. “Of course, Kitt.”

He wasn’t leaving. He continued to stand by her cubicle, watching her set down her tapestry bag and her mangled high heel like it was a badge of honor. She shed her trench coat. He rarely watched her this attentively, and Iris knocked over her tin of pencils.

“Did you need something?” she asked, hurrying to gather the pencils before they rolled off the desk. Of course, one did, landing right before Roman’s leather brogues. He didn’t bother to pick the pencil up for her, and she swallowed a curse as she bent down to retrieve it, noticing the spit polish of his shoes.

“You’re going to write your own article about missing soldiers,” he stated. “Even though you don’t have the full information on the assignment.”

“And that worries you, Kitt?”

“No. Course not.”

She glanced at him, studying his face. She put her tin of pencils on the back side of her desk, far from any chance of spilling again. “Has anyone ever told you that you squint when you lie?”

His scowl only deepened. “No, but only because no one has spent as much time looking at me as you do, Winnow.”

Someone snickered from a nearby desk. Iris flushed, sitting down in her chair. She grappled for a witty reply but came up short, because he was unfortunately handsome and he often drew her eyes.

She did the only thing she could; she leaned back in her chair and granted Roman a brilliant smile. One that reached her eyes, crinkling the corners. His expression darkened instantly, just as she expected. He hated it when she smiled like this at him. It always made him retreat.

“Good luck on your assignment,” she said brightly.

“And you can have fun with the obituaries,” he countered in a clipped tone, at last departing to his cubicle, which was—regrettably—only two desks away.

Iris’s smile melted as soon as his back was turned. She was still absently staring in that direction when Sarah Prindle stepped into her field of vision.

“Tea?” Sarah asked, raising a cup. “You look like you need some, Winnow.”

Iris sighed. “Yes, thanks, Prindle.” She accepted the offering but set it down with a hard clunk on her desk, right next to the stack of handwritten obituaries, waiting for her to sort, edit, and type them. If she had been early enough to snag the assignment, Roman would be the one sifting through this heartache on paper.

Iris stared at the pile, remembering her first day of work three months ago. How Roman Kitt had been the last to shake her hand and introduce himself, approaching her with a hard-set mouth and cold, keen eyes. As if he were measuring how much of a threat she was to him and his position at the Gazette.

It hadn’t taken long for Iris to learn what he truly thought of her. In fact, it had taken only half an hour after she had first met Roman. She had overheard him saying to one of the editors, “She’ll give me no competition. None at all. She dropped out of Windy Grove School in her final year.”

The words still stung.

She hadn’t expected to ever be friends with him. How could she, when they were both competing for the same columnist position? But his pompous demeanor had only sharpened her desire to defeat him. And it had also been alarming that Roman Kitt knew more about her than she knew of him.

Which meant Iris needed to dig up his secrets.

On her second day of work, she went to the friendliest person on staff. Sarah.

“How long has Kitt been here?” Iris had asked.

“Almost a month,” Sarah had replied. “So don’t worry about him having seniority. I think you both have a fair shot at the promotion.”

“And what does his family do?”

“His grandfather pioneered the railroad.”

“So his family has money.”

“Heaps,” Sarah said.

“Where did he go to school?”

“I think Devan Hall, but don’t quote me on that.”

A prestigious school where most of the rich parents of Oath sent their spoiled brats. A direct contrast to Iris’s humble Windy Grove. She had almost winced at this revelation, but pressed on with “Is he courting anyone?”

“Not that I know of,” Sarah had answered with a shrug. “But he doesn’t share much about his life with us. In fact, I don’t really know that much about him, other than he doesn’t like anyone touching the things on his desk.”

Partly satiated with her newfound knowledge, Iris had decided the best course of action was to ignore her competition. She could pretend he didn’t exist most of the time. But she soon discovered that would be increasingly difficult as they had to race each other to the bulletin board for weekly assignments.

She had triumphantly snagged the first one.

Roman had then obtained the second, but only because she had let him.

It had given her the chance to read a published article of his. Iris had sat hunched at her desk, reading what Roman had written about a retired baseball player—a sport Iris had never cared about but suddenly found herself ensorcelled by, all due to the poignant and witty tone of Roman’s writing. She was transfixed by his every word, feeling the stitches of the baseball in her hand, the warm summer night, the thrill of the crowd in the stadium—