13. Ivy
CHAPTER 13
Ivy
L ater, with baby Knight back in my arms—because holding babies is one of the best forms of therapy—I’m standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, pointing at random things outside for Knight.
He starts wiggling in my arms. Before I can evade it, his chubby fist whacks my temple, right over the hidden, bumpy scar.
I can’t help but cry out.
“Ivy! Are you okay?”
Blinding pain blurs my vision for a few seconds.
“Take him, please,” I beg whoever is closest.
Immediately, I feel someone lifting Knight from me and then I quickly lean against the nearest wall and grab my head as images flash in my head.
Images that taste so real… and alive.
Green, haunted eyes.
Blood.
An angry boy.
Heavy snow.
Screaming underwater…
A pale, wide-eyed beautiful woman begging me to keep my mouth shut.
Tears well up in my eyes.
The pain is searing… who knew baby Knight was so fucking strong? But more than that, who knew a single whack over the head would bring back the very memories I’m trying to stay oblivious to?
“Ivy? What’s wrong?” someone asks.
“Nothing,” I pant. “Just an old injury.”
I quickly wipe away the tears and steady myself. When I look up, everyone is watching me.
But only one pair of eyes is scorching.
Emmett’s piercing gaze tracks to me, then he stares deeply at my fingers that are covering the scar.
He stares intently for five…eight… fifteen, thirty entire seconds before his cold eyes move and our gazes clash.
His nostrils flare just a little bit, then he grows so still, everything else falls away as we watch each other.
Fuck!
Look away, Ivy, look away right now or he’ll know!
But I can’t.
I’ve never really been able to look away from him, especially when he holds my entire soul captive like he’s doing right now.
It’s as if I’m frozen, trapped, stuck completely with no hope of escape.
Someone clears their throat loudly and I realize then that several pairs of greedy eyes are moving from Emmett to me, so I quickly break eye contact and turn away.
It’s only then that I notice the new arrival in the room… and he too just noticed the silent exchange between Emmett and me.
Double fuck .
Samuel is standing just behind Emmett. It’s obvious they were just talking before my little fender bender with baby Knight.
Whenever I see my brother interact with Emmett, my stomach knots up painfully and alarms ring at the back of my head.
Everything in me wants to separate them but common sense is telling me to stay in my lane.
Samuel shoots me a look, then he stares at Emmett who’s still watching me.
A cold chill goes down my spine.
I’ve made a spectacle of myself tonight, at my own good-luck party or whatever excuse Astraea used to gather us all around again, so I laugh it off and make a joke about how strong the King gene is.
Everyone laughs and it’s all forgotten, except Emmett is still looking at me and my brother is still glaring at him.
Because this scar…
I look away and make my way to the large, beautiful lounge room with the infinity fireplace, looking as blasé as ever.
I mean, if the god of Westbrook Blues can look impassive and cold all the time, why can’t I?
No one else in this room—apart from my brother—knows how exactly Emmett and I met and I’d like to keep it that way.
While I try to be genuine when I interact with Emmett, I get the sense that he pretends to be civil with me.
There is a deep-seated hatred that neither of us ever addresses and the scar on my temple serves as the beginning and end of that hatred.
The first time we ever met, I almost killed him. Literally.
And something in turn happened to me, that involuntarily guaranteed my silence.
I never dared to open my mouth, simply because that encounter was gone from my memories, and sometimes, I wish that were still the case…
Now every time Emmett looks at me, I see him searching for those memories.
He watches me as if he’s waiting to see if my mind is now intact and because I’m fully aware of what he’s looking for, and know I CANNOT under any circumstances show I have what he wants, I pretend to be clueless—because as long as he still wants something from me, he’ll always look at me.
And when his eyes are on me, I feel it; the pull that I’ve only ever felt with him. The one that makes me feel alive.
God, can I be any more pathetic?
“I need a drink,” I mumble under my breath.
Out of nowhere, a perfectly manicured hand pops up in front of me with a goblet of red wine filled almost to the brink. I look up and see Kim’s discerning eyes on me.
“Drink this for the both of us.”
Seeing the look she’s giving me, I want to burst into tears…again… but I’ll never do that.
I’ll stand firm on what I said tonight, so like a badass bandit, I accept the wine and chug half of it down.
“This one’s for me,” I gasp then chug the rest of it down. “And this one’s for your delusional denial.” I tip the empty glass her way.
Kim smirks at me. “I always knew you’ve got an edge. I can’t wait to see who you really are, Ivy Marie.”
“You and me both, babe.”
I catch my brother’s eye from across the room.
He raises an eyebrow at me. My stomach twists and knots up, so I look away but not before I see him snort in disgust.
I get the message, though.
Get it together.
I go to sit down on the couch and look around the room.
There’s laughter, a kind of warm harmony that exists among friends that have been together for so many years, been through so much and made it out alive.
But there’s still an elephant in the room in the size and sculptured form of a god.
I catch the worried glances everyone gives him from time to time.
I see the way Noah, who’s as sober as a newly appointed priest, stays close to Emmett, watching him like a hawk.
Alex also watches but doesn’t hover as much as his wife and Noah.
And me? I pretend not to care why everyone hovers around Emmett while trying not to be obvious about it.
I keep my mouth shut even though I want to tell them that the person they’re concerned about doesn’t care, nor does he appreciate their hovering.
As a matter of fact, I’d bet my entire life that he wants to tell them off, but he never does. He just wears his mask and pretends to be polite and considerate.
And me, I stay seated, pretending like I don’t do what he does…
Like I don’t count like he taught me.
Like people and their happiness don't annoy me.
Like Emmett Easton is now just yesterday’s song.
But there are days when I’m overcome with this insane need, almost like a crazy itch—hell, I think it’s an obsession—to listen to his heartbeat.
But that’s over with too.
Today is a rare occasion where we’re both in the same space, so I do my best not to give him any more attention than I have already.
I don’t dare look at him.
If I do, I’ll betray it all.
As if to drive that point home, Samuel comes to sit right next to me.
As casual and laid-back as ever, he leans over and murmurs so low, for my ears only, “Do you still have those ridiculous feelings for him?”
I quickly whip my head around to look at my brother, almost choking. “What?”
He glares at me. “I saw the way you were looking at each other. Everyone else did!”
“Well, did you also catch the murderous glare he’s been giving me all night?” I whisper.
“That’s because you reminded him that you are a target!” Please, as if Emmett ever forgot. “We’re at a crucial point now, there’s no need for you to remind him or else he might find out.”
“I know that, stop putting pressure on me,” I hiss.
Samuel stares at me. “Then I guess you’re the one that needs reminding of why we’ve been friends with this lot for all these years. The real reason why we came back to this town.”
“Samuel—”
“You need to always remember that little ‘crush’ you had on that boy and made it obvious for everyone to see, it was all a ploy!”
I tremble all over as a shiver knocks through me. We glare at each other, but I’m feeling weak all over.
“I remember the game!” I murmur. “And game well played, asshole!”
“You can curse me out all you want but, Ivy, I’m just looking out for you. I don’t want you to get hurt later.”
Well, it’s already too late for that.
“I can look after myself!” I seethe under my breath. “And let’s be clear here. I had a crush. Why is everyone on this topic tonight?”
“Remember, he rejected you.”
I stare at my brother, wishing I could strangle him.
I mean, it’s not like he wants to hurt me but sometimes, I get this feeling that he brings this up deliberately, to remind me of the pain.
“I’m just saying, he doesn’t deserve you,” he says with a smile, but I don’t miss the seriousness in his voice. “Besides, don’t you ever forget what he did to you. You two don’t have a future or even fate. He’s an Easton!”
Pain slits through my veins, seeping deeper into me until I start feeling sick to my stomach.
My throat closes up.
A sheen of sweat drips down my spine and now, I can’t breathe anymore.
It’s been years since I last had a panic attack, but Samuel's words are almost triggering one.
Not because he’s wrong, but because I’ve worked hard not to think about any of this.
"And honestly, Ivy, do you have to lower yourself to the point where that bastard has to tell you he doesn’t want you?”
It’s like being split apart by a chainsaw.
The thing is, Emmett has not only told me he doesn’t want me, but he’s shown me, proving it time and time again.
“I know, Samuel. You don’t have to break me just so I remember what you want me to do!” I snap. “Haven’t you done enough already?”
“That’s not?—”
I don’t wait to listen to him. Standing up, I grab the nearest bottle of the most expensive red wine I see on the table and make a beeline for one of the terraces of the Kings’ mansion, making sure I don’t make eye contact with anyone.
The sky is gloomy tonight.
There’s rain in the air and I wish the heavens could open up right now and wash away the tightness in my chest.
It’s all too much for me.
Samuel’s reminder while I’m already burdened with the lies I’ve spewed tonight… it’s all too much.
Everything I’ve done in my life has been a failure.
School.
My unrequited crush for a boy.
Being abandoned.
And then there’s…
Urgh! What is it about me that’s so failure coded that nothing ever works in my favor?
My own brother, my flesh and blood, he’s willing to cut off funding to stop me from finding what I need.
He also just said the most painful words to me and still, I can’t even resent him because not one thing of what he said was a lie.
It’s all true and in my agreement to come back to this town, I agreed to the plan.
And now, my entire world is about to blow up in my face.
What would happen if they find out that I’m a fraud?
Hell, I even forged my MCAT scores, that’s how much of a desperate joke I am.
Not only that, but I’m headed to New York for something else other than med school.
If Grammy finds out what I’m up to and that I’m going to meet my father…
Bubbles of familiar panic start to rise in my chest, so I bring the bottle of wine to my lips, but just as quickly, the bottle is snatched away from me.
I look up, only to bump into the torturer of my fantasies.
He’s huge, towering above me, dwarfing me until I feel so tiny in front of him.
With a few dark locks of his hair falling over his brow in a daredevil way.
His jawline is set, as if he could crush marble with it, and those lips—those lips that can utter the rudest words with a gentle tone—they’re closed, giving him his usual silently brooding features that make girls, and some boys, go crazy over him.
Tonight, he’s edgy.
I can tell he’s pissed about something, and I should definitely get out of his way, but I just stand there, looking up at him, staring into the emerald pools of his eyes.
He peruses my appearance then his eyes swing to the scar at my temple.
A powerful shudder goes down my spine.
“May I have that back?” I gesture toward the wine bottle.
“You don’t drink wine,” he says simply.
“You don’t know everything about me,” I murmur, annoyed with my predictable habits.
He just stares at me.
“It’s a newly acquired taste, okay.”
Emmett tilts his head slightly to the left, watching me closer than he ever has… and then he gives me that oh-so familiar look.
The searching gaze.
The one he gives me when he’s penetrating deep into my soul, my skin, my heart, and everything I am… as if he wants those memories.
FUCK.
“Emmett, I really need that back please,” I say hurriedly but he just stands in front of me. The wind is now blowing but I don’t feel it because he’s literally blocking it from touching me with his huge body.
“A newly acquired taste, huh?”
I quickly nod.
“Have you acquired anything else as of late?”
An intense shudder moves through my body as I struggle to hold his gaze steadily.
Does he suspect that I remember? Does he know? Oh fuck…
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say in a low but firm voice.
I want to smile, to brush it off, but I know I can’t manage that right now.
“So you don’t have anything to tell me?”
“Anything to tell you—” I repeat, my heart racing and thundering as if there’s a jackhammer at work in there.
Emmett steps closer, his head angled down in my direction.
“Tell me,” he demands.
As if he just electrocuted my nerve endings with just that command, I look up and hold his gaze.
“I’m leaving,” I whisper. Why am I whispering? “I’m going to New York for my studies.”
Emmett is silent. Just behind him, the patio glass door that I had left open is now closed shut.
“Are you?” he says gruffly.
“Yes,” I almost gasp.
“Is that all?” he questions in a deep, dark purr.
“I… I wanted you to know that…” I continue in a whisper. “I didn’t think I’d see you tonight, but I’m glad this has happened. Now we can say goodbye properly without anything hanging over our heads.”
Right? Let’s agree that we have nothing between us…not even the hatred of past grievances caused because as far as you know, I still don’t remember anything.
I hold his cold, icy stare, waiting on bated breath for him to say something, but instead, he takes another step closer until I’m literally backed up against the railing.
I can’t breathe anymore. I can’t think… he’s too much.
His intense gaze tracks from my eyes, to my lips, then to the scar at my temple.
He’s still silent, watching me with a deep gaze, but I’m fighting to stay calm.
After all these years, I’m still unnerved by his extreme silence.
There’s nothing much to say, so I force a smile that comes off as creepy no doubt and give him an awkward wave.
“I hope you take care and keep well,” I murmur.
I go to move past him, but his words reach my ears before I can move a single muscle.
“Did that make you cry?”
I freeze, then stare at him.
“What?”
“Everything. Tonight.” Two clipped words. “Did that wreck you?”
I stare into the depths of his cold eyes. Maybe this will be the last time I’ll ever be this close to him. The last time I’ll ever be honest with him. The last time he ever affects me.
“It made me cry, yes,” I admit. “But it didn’t wreck me. I’m beyond that mere pain now.”
A perfectly shaped eyebrow rises as he watches me.
“Is that what you think? That your little feelings are now beyond my reach or wreckage?”
“Excuse me?” Did he just say that?
Without warning, I feel Emmett’s huge hand at the back of my neck and then in a familiar, old move that weakens my knees, he pulls me closer, pressing my head to the left side of his chest until my ear is right over his heart.
A huge wave of déjà vu hits me right in the vital organs when I hear the unusual, tortured, slow heartbeat of a sick, unhealthy heart.
My stomach drops.
Intense and acute pain swells up in my chest.
“Do you hear that? It’s still beating,” I hear above me, but his voice vibrates through his chest, and into me. “So if you think you and I will ever be done, then you’re betting on the wrong goodbye , Angel.”
I think I die right then.
A gasp escapes my lips. His words are both cold and ominous, giving me a bad feeling.
“I…I don’t know what you mean,” I croak.
“You’ve never been a really good actor so drop the confused acts,” he says simply but with such a coldness that I feel it square in my chest.
“I’m not…”
“Angel…” he starts but trails off, watching me with such brazen hostility mixed with something else as he leans in even closer. His eyes track down to my lips, staying there until I start feeling like he’s going to do something but instead when he looks back into my eyes, there’s a stillness in them that can’t be missed.
Shit.
“You and I will have plenty of time in the near future to discuss your little feelings .” He says the last two words in such a condescending manner, as if just the very thought of my “feelings” is irrelevant and ridiculous to him. “After all, I made you a promise and you know me, Angel. I keep my promises, don’t I?”
A powerful, back-breaking kind of shudder goes through me so much so that I swear he felt it too.
“I know you do,” I murmur, a glimpse of the past flashing in my head.
To everyone else, Emmett Easton wears an impenetrable mask of civility and calmness.
He's gentle and not easily perturbed.
I’ve seen Noah try constantly to rile him up but it never works.
He stays indifferent, cold, as if the whole world is nothing but dust.
Once upon a time, I believed it, the mask he wore.
But the thing is, every now and then, whenever he showed me glimpses of the darkness and bleakness within that he kept tightly reined in, I’d look away and lie to myself.
Our group of friends really don’t know anything when it comes to the history between Emmett and me.
While they now know about the one life-saving incident, they don’t know about the blood oath Emmett and I made to each other.
Or how he once retaliated for a sin I never committed.
They might have an idea on how ruthless he is but to them, he’s the kind of guy that shakes things off of him. To them, he pretends like he’s not affected by anyone and anything and that he doesn’t hold grudges.
But the true god of Westbrook Blues is much more cold-blooded, cruel, and unforgiving than any of them.
And now, he’s just reminded me of that.
That first time at the hospital when I woke up with no memories, he showed me exactly what he can do and who he really is, but I chose to drown in the emerald green of his deadly eyes.
I buried the truth deep within my fantasy of him, but I do know him.
I know him more than I bargained for.
“You do, huh?” he gruffly whispers. “And here I thought you had a shit memory.”
Everything in me screeches to a halt.
I look up at him so fast, I can barely breathe.
“Tell me, are you afraid, Angel?” he purrs in a dangerously low voice that melts me from within.
Stunned, I stare up at the gorgeous, dreamy, godlike face of my unrequited love. The face that inspires so many fantasies in my head…
“Why would I be?” I whisper. “Am I in danger?”
He closes the tiny gap that was between us and this time when he leans toward me, his fresh breath blows on my face.
His utterly kissable lips are right in front of mine, only a whisper away, but his heavy-set gaze is still piercing my very anatomy.
“Do you feel like you’re in danger?” he whispers.
My knees weaken.
Why do I feel like I’m being caged in when we’re clearly in an open space and I can flee at any time?
Why does it already feel like he has the upper hand here and he’s maneuvering me, pulling the strings, awakening every inch of fear within me?
Not to mention, I feel like I’m running out of breath.
“You’re trembling and backing away,” he says knowingly.
I freeze in my tracks, realizing that’s exactly what my body is doing.
Fuck!
“Do you have something to tell me, Angel?”
The look in his eyes now… the way he’s piercing into me, as if he’s scanning, searching, trying to shatter my armor.
Does he suspect something?
“You haven’t called me that in years,” I whisper hoarsely.
“Well, lately you’ve been reminding me of something,” he says. “Death.”
I stare up at him. “That’s hard to believe… that you’d spare pathetic me a thought.”
“Your tendency to disparage yourself is still in full effect, I see.”
“Or likely it’s just the truth.”
“The truth out of your mouth is as rare and unimaginable as the sky falling…well, that is until I will it to,” he says seriously.
My heart drops to the floor.
“Emmett, I…”
“That guilty expression on your face, the deceit in your eyes, the poison on your tongue…” he trails off, shaking his head. “You speak life to everyone else, but I know you. You’re a fraud, and nothing in you is alive apart from death.”
His voice is low, soft, soothing even, but as an electric shiver zaps down my spine, the alarms start blaring full-on in my head.
Danger.
“Are we dropping all pretenses then?” I straighten my back and stand as tall as I can. “If so, thank God. Your act of civility for the past few years has been making me sick.”
“I learned from an expert,” he counters simply. “After all, you lie with such a sincere face, how could I not learn a thing or two about deception?”
“Deception?”
We stare at each other, locked in on a precipice that’s making me feel like I might pass out.
This man was once the boy I went over a cliff with during a blizzard.
He saved my life.
He’s the one I wanted to kiss.
The one I wanted to hold my hand.
To be loved by him…
It’s just that, when you’re stuck trying to get over the boy that told you he doesn’t feel the same way for you, it’s like being stuck in a vicious nightmare.
But the thing about fate, it strikes whenever it has your name on the docket.
Just like the cold, lonely night that features in my nightmares from time to time…
“Do you have something to tell me, Angel?” he suddenly asks. His voice soft. Direct. Lethal.
“I just told you…” I mutter so low I’m sure he can hear the guilt in my voice. “I’m leaving.”
Emmett moves suddenly.
He reaches for my chin with his callused, long, deft fingers.
He’s gentle, almost caring, but I know there’s nothing caring about any of this.
My body is now pressed against him.
I can feel his huge virile male body covering me, caging me in, reminding me in ways words never could, that I’ll never be able to escape him.
He lowers his voice to a low, dangerously soft tone and whispers against my lips.
“You left that time too. You disappeared on me,” he says gruffly, the notes of anger clear, sinking into my veins. “Do you think I’ll accept this goodbye and not know that something’s up with you, Angel?”
I think I die right there as the past awakens in my head.
“What do you mean?” I try to deflect. “Nothing’s up.”
“Then prove it,” he sneers.
“What?”
“Did you forget what happened last time?” he whispers. “Don’t worry, Angel, I know how shitty your mind is, so if you forget, I’ll always help you remember everything. ”
“Last time…” My mind starts racing. Last time I never said the words. Samuel just took me and we left.
“Yes. Make this goodbye the same as the last one…” He smirks then, but his eyes cool down to green icicles. “Bleed.”
Inferno.
It’s like my entire body just ignited into an inferno…or maybe this is hell and my warden is this brooding, dangerous, unknown god of Westbrook Blues.
His calloused thumb strokes ever so gently on the underside of my jaw.
“You bled then,” he says in a low whisper that twists me up. “Do it again.”
I feel intoxicated.
I can’t think.
Can’t move.
All I do is stare, desperate for his touch, greedy for his attention.
His eyes drop to my lips and then as if he can’t help himself, he quickly runs his thumb over my bottom lip.
“Don’t worry, Angel, you will, whether you like it or not.”
Before my gasp is audible enough to embarrass me, the glass door behind Emmett slides open and Noah pokes his head out. Emmett moves away from me so fast, as if he’s just been electrocuted. When I blink again, he’s gone, and Noah is looking at me with a strange look.
“Dinner’s ready, Doc.”
“Oh, uh, thanks,” I croak.
Noah laughs out loud. “Seems like this party’s about to rock in more ways than I thought!”
But I don’t hear him.
Emmett’s last words just left me with a sinking, nasty feeling deep in my heart.
What was that?