Chapter 27
IAN
It was almost a relief when I put Ivy on the plane to LA. Her nerves the past few days had the air crackling between us, and I’d been so busy I didn’t have the time to settle her down or even discover the source of her tension. Not that she’d tell me, anyway. Helping Chloe would probably give her some peace.
I experienced a vague sense of unease that Ivy had to have a purpose—someone to help. If she didn’t think I needed a savior anymore, would she stop loving me? Would she move onto another project? Maybe that’s why the vibe between us had shifted before she’d left.
She’d been distracted. My jokes hadn’t made her laugh. My touch hadn’t soothed her. I’d made it past the two-month boyfriend cutoff, but I could be an outlier. Why didn’t she want to meet my family? Why’d it take her forever to accept a fucking coat from me? Would she even come back from LA?
I’d dropped her off at Heathrow at eleven thirty for her two o’clock flight, which was the precise time for my meeting with Julian Abbott, my finance guy. In the interim, I attended a meeting with the PR team and grabbed some lunch.
By the time I got to Julian’s office building, Ivy had texted me that she’d boarded and sent me pictures of herself settling in. According to FlightAware on my phone, her plane was still on the tarmac, so before I entered the building, I called her.
“I got your pictures. Are you comfortable?”
“Yes, perfect. I’m hoping to sleep, but I have a few books on my Kindle just in case, and I have your whole album on my phone so I can listen to your voice across the miles.”
Didn’t sound like she was ready to dump me. I wedged a shoulder against the corner of the building to get out of the wind. “Shh, top secret.”
“Don’t worry. I’m very good at keeping secrets. Oh, we’re pulling away from the gate. I love you.”
“I love you, too. Say hello to Chloe for me and be careful.”
I muted my phone and dropped it into my pocket. The lift took me up to Julian’s office on the tenth floor, and I waited in his reception area for about a minute while he finished a phone call.
I tapped on the open door. “Hello, Julian.”
Julian glanced up, the light above his desk gleaming on his bald head and reflecting off his glasses. “Nice to see you, Ian and about time. Jack has been keeping me busy with all these expenses, but it’s good to see you releasing new music again.”
“Feels good. How are the investments doing?”
I sank into a deep leather chair facing his desk, inhaling the sweet scent of tobacco from a recently smoked pipe.
“Excellent. I’ll do a top-level review with you. Let me know if you want to dig deeper into anything, and we’ll discuss the distribution of all the money you’ll be earning this year.”
Julian unplugged his laptop and carried it around to my side of the desk. He was a hands-on accountant, who wanted to make sure everything was clear for his clients. That’s what I liked about him. I’d learned loads about business from Julian.
He took the seat beside mine and put the laptop on the desk in front of us. For the next hour, he took me through my investments, and we discussed selling a few properties.
“You plan to stay in your current house in Woodsbury?”
“Yes, hanging onto that. It’s close to my daughter. Was thinking of purchasing something in Los Angeles.”
Julian drew his glasses to the end of his nose. “Again? Same area as before?”
“Not sure. I’ll have to consult my...friend about a location.”
I wanted to buy a house for Ivy, for both of us. If I admitted it was for her, she’d raise all kinds of objections. I’d have to pretend that I needed a residence there for business. My lips turned up thinking about what a fuss she’d make.
“Let me know when you’re ready to look at properties.”
Julian tapped his screen. “Just want to review Jack’s expenditures that he submitted over the past six months, and then we’re done. I’ll send you an email with an attachment of your financial summary.”
My eyes glazed over a little as Julian went through Jack’s expenses for Sarah and Penny, clothes and travel, studio time, payments for the musicians. The voice of Julian’s partner from the other room jolted me out of my revery.
Julian took off his glasses and pushed back his chair. “Excuse me one minute while I see what Robert needs. You can look over the rest, if you like.”
When Julian left the room, I pulled the laptop closer to me and scanned the spreadsheet. My gaze skimmed down the rows until an entry caught my attention. I tapped my finger on the cell and read aloud. “Chase Arts.”
“All done?”
Julian entered his office and hovered over my shoulder.
“What’s this expense? Chase Arts.”
I drove two fingers into my temple to massage the sharp pain that had penetrated my skull.
Julian shoved his glasses on his face and leaned in. “Not sure, really. It’s a newer expense. By the color-coding I use, I can tell it’s a charitable expense but not tax-deductible. Here, let me bring up the spreadsheet detail.”
He reached over me and highlighted a tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet that brought up an itemized account. He studied the data for a second. “Right. It’s a donation to the arts, private, so it doesn’t come under the tax-deductible category. Looks like Jack started monthly payments in October for $25,000 US dollars. Just made a payment for December. Do you have a problem with this? Not authorized?”
Yeah, I had a problem with it. What was it? Why was Ivy’s last name on it, and why did it start in October, the month she moved to England?
I cleared my throat, which seemed to have closed up on me. “Can you tell what the payments are for?”
“Not really. I’m assuming it’s supporting some kind of community art project. I know you like to help struggling artists by paying for supplies and classes and such, and as they’re not a 501c, the donations aren’t tax deductible. So, this isn’t a tax issue.”
“I-it’s just that I’ve never heard of this Chase Arts.”
Coincidentally, I knew a Chase. I just didn’t realize I was paying her for her art...or anything else. Something else caught my eye on the spreadsheet, and I stayed Julian’s hand before he closed it. “Wait. What’s that name?”
Julian read it aloud. “Matt Russo. Ring a bell?”
“Not one. What’s his name doing on this Chase Arts organization?”
“He’s the coordinator for the fund, I suppose. I’d suggest you talk to Jack about it. He’s usually good with his accounting. I haven’t had any suspicions about him at all.”
Oh, I planned to talk to Jack, alright, and I had plenty of suspicions of my own.
***
As I stood outside the building waiting for my car, I turned up my collar and pulled my coat around me to stave off the chilly, damp air that rose from the river. My teeth started to chatter, as I checked Ivy’s flight. She’d been in the air for over an hour and was just leaving the UK. She had another ten hours to go.
She’d also sent me a text message letting me know the flight was taking off, telling me she loved me, and including a bunch of silly emojis. Even the eggplant emoji couldn’t raise a smile from me. What the hell was Chase Arts, and who the fuck was Matt Russo?
I bobbled my phone and dropped it on the ground. Matt. I knew that name. When I’d been in LA with her, she’d gotten a few texts from a Matt. Was I giving my money to Matt? Was this all some kind of huge scam?
I ducked down to retrieve the phone just as my Uber pulled to the curb. When I got into the car, I stabbed Jack’s number on my display. He didn’t answer, so I texted him to let him know I was coming to his place, and I’d wait for him. I didn’t want to give him a heads-up about Chase Arts or Matt Russo. Didn’t want to give him time to formulate a lie. Jack didn’t do well thinking on his feet.
Numbness seemed to take over my brain on the way to Jack’s place. My thoughts moved like sludge. Could this be some coincidence? Wasn’t Chase a common name in the US? I knew Matt was a common name. Had someone conned Jack into thinking this organization was connected to Ivy? If this was for Ivy, why didn’t she just ask me for a donation?
Took a good forty minutes to get to Jack’s place, battling traffic all the way. He’d texted me back that he be home in thirty. I could wait in the lobby of his building.
Didn’t take me long to convince the doorman of my identity and that I was Jack Davies’ client. While waiting, I did a search for Matt Russo in LA. I got about a million hits. I tried Matt Chase and got about two million. I pocketed my phone and clasped my hands in front of me, my mind still roiling with questions.
Jack came through the lobby door, his ruddy cheeks more flushed than usual. He pulled his blue scarf off his mouth. “Hope you weren’t waiting long, mate. Did Ivy get off okay?”
“She’s probably somewhere over the Atlantic about now.”
“Good, good.”
Jack twitched his head, birdlike. “Was there a problem with the PR notes? I thought the meeting went well.”
“Meeting was good.”
I stood up from the chair in the lobby and unbuttoned my coat. “Speaking of meetings, I just came from my meeting with Julian.”
“Julian.”
Jack’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and his fair English complexion grew mottled. “Oh, right, your semi-annual financial review. I-is there a problem?”
“Are we gonna stand down here and talk, or are you going to invite me up to your place?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Jack loped to the elevators with his long stride, and I followed him, knowing in my gut I’d caught him out. I just couldn’t suss out his crime.
He babbled all the way to his floor about the PR meeting, stroking my ego about the music. He dropped his keys at his door and scooped them up hurriedly.
Ushering me inside, he asked, “Something to drink? A fizzy drink? Water?”
“I just want the truth.”
I kept my coat on and shoved my hands into my pockets.
“The truth about what, Ian?”
He left his coat on too and even secured the scarf around his neck.
“I saw the item in the spreadsheet you sent Julian, the item for Chase Arts. What is it, Jack?”
“It’s uh...”
He wiped a hand across his mouth “...some funding for an art project in LA.”
“Bollocks. Why does it have Ivy’s last name? Why did the payments start the month she came out here to live with me? Why did she come out here to live with me suddenly, after dumping me in LA?”
“Mate...”
I drilled him with a hard stare. “Don’t mate me...mate. Just give it to me. Am I paying Ivy a monthly salary to be with me?”
“It’s not like that, ma...Ian.”
Jack mopped his face with his scarf, even though I could almost see my breath in the cold apartment. “We’re paying her, but it wasn’t her suggestion.”
There it was. Jack’s words, although expected, hit me like a bowling ball to the chest. I think I even swayed on my feet for a second. “It was your idea.”
Jack paced to the window, twirling the ends of his scarf, almost strangling himself. Would save me the trouble. “You know how it was, Ian. You missed that woman so much I was afraid it would derail the new music—and it almost did. I figured you’d relapsed, and I was nervous it would happen again. You don’t know what it’s like. The record company breathing down my back”
I gave a sharp laugh that almost choked me. “I don’t know what it’s like. You’re really trying to tell me I don’t know what it’s like to have the record company on my ass.”
“I mean, I know you do as an artist, but it’s a whole different level as a manager. They threatened to drop you, Ian. It would’ve ruined your career. I did it for you, mate.”
“And your own job.”
“I’m not denying that, but you were so close to a comeback, and it was because of Ivy. I knew if she was back in your life, it would put you on track—and it worked. You finally chose the right person, Ian, someone who’s mad about ya.”
“So mad about me she has to be paid to be with me.”
I balled my hands into fists and kept them in my pockets so I wouldn’t put one through Jack’s wall.
“Look, I’m not gonna pretend that I know why she split with you. I thought it might be a money thing, but when I first called her with the plan, she turned it right down. Then she changed her mind and called me a few days later and accepted the deal. What does it matter? You love her, and she loves you.”
“Does she, though. If you love someone, you want to be with that person freely. Love isn’t a transaction, but I guess it is with me.”
I didn’t know what I wanted to do—smash something, take off for Lapland, go home to my mum, but I knew what I didn’t want to do—drink. The idea of boozing in response to this latest failure actually made me sick.
“One other thing...”
Jack held up a finger as if making an argument in High Court “...she doesn’t know it’s your money.”
“What does that mean?”
“She believes the record company is footing the bill. I didn’t think she’d agree if she knew the money was coming directly from you.”
“How fucking...noble.”
I grabbed the back of my neck and took a turn around the room. “One more question, Jack before I fire you.”
Jack’s blue eyes bulged from his sockets. “Wh-what?”
“Who the fuck is Matt Russo? He’s on the Chase Arts invoice, like he’s a fucking CEO or something. Maybe he’s Ivy’s lover, and I’ve been cucked twice over.”
“Matt Russo.”
Jack’s face scrunched up. “Can’t be her boyfriend.”
The throbbing in my head had receded to a dull ache. “How can you be so sure?”
“Must be a relation or something.”
“A relation?”
“Yeah, ‘cuz that’s her name.”
My head finally exploded. “What the fuck are you talking about? Whose name?”
“Ivy’s. Her real name is Maddie Russo.”