Through Rivalry Comes Love

Chapter 2

When her breathing had finally calmed down and her legs felt sturdy, she smoothed out her dress, took a deep breath, and made her way towards the door. She had no idea what to expect once she left the bathroom. Would he have waited around for her after all? She honestly did not want to see him, or that ridiculously sexy smile of his. Life would have been so much easier had he been ugly.

Once outside, she stopped momentarily and scanned across the restaurant until she landed on their table. He was nowhere to be seen. Good. She needed time to compose herself and create some sort of "anti-attraction" serum so she would not melt in his presence anymore. That had been embarrassing. She was always so calm and collected in the presence of others.

With her head held high, she walked across the room and towards the host to collect her jacket. The young man immediately went to retrieve it, though Elena's eyebrows raised in confusion when she saw him return. "That's not my jacket" Elena informed him.

"I'm sorry Ma'am. But the gentlemen you were here with took your jacket and asked that I give his to you" he said with a somewhat worried look on his face. "He said you would understand" he added, hoping that this woman would not rip his head off right there. Because she looked mighty irritated.

And she was. Elena felt her cheeks turn red as she snatched the jacket from his hands and made her way out the door. "That damn, son of a ..." she began to mutter. She stopped abruptly once outside, feeling the cold air hit her, even through the material of her dress. The temperature had dropped significantly since she had been inside.

She looked his jacket over and came to the conclusion that he probably didn't have lice or any other kind of bugs that she could get. She quickly shrugged his jacket on and watched as it fell down to her knees, being slightly too large for her. She held the jacket closed as she began to walk briskly towards her car. God, the jacket smelled exactly like what she remembered from her very intimate contact with him earlier in the bathroom.

Elena shoved her hands in the pockets of his jacket and felt her fingers brush against something. She pulled out a business card. Salvatore Coffee Inc. with Stefan's name and credentials spelled out in shiny gold letters on the front. She turned it over and saw that he had scribbled something on the back. "If you would like to exchange our jackets back, you know where to find me" Elena read aloud. A phone number, a cell number she thought, was listed underneath with the words "Call me, maybe?" under that.

Great. Now she was going to have that damn song stuck in her head all night.

If she didn't return his jacket, it would indicate that she was giving up and that he had won. She couldn't let that happen. She would return his jacket and give him a piece of her mind.

XXXX

Elena left work early the next day, successfully avoiding Gregory all day. She really did not want to go into detail about how she had gotten nothing out of Stefan the night before. She also wanted to catch Stefan before he left work, having no intention of calling his cell phone and meeting up someplace else with him.

She pushed through the main doors of Salvatore Coffee Inc. and after seeing no one at the reception desk, she continued on her way down the hall and through another set of doors. The place was practically dead inside. The only sign of life was an elderly woman sitting at a desk up ahead. The woman smiled when she saw Elena approach. "How may I help you Dear?" she asked, adjusting her glasses.

Elena's intent to be as rude and as stern as possible quickly faded in the presence of this woman. "I umm ..." she said, forgetting her words all of a sudden. "I'm here to see Mr. Stefan Salvatore" she said, much more quietly than she had intended.