Chapter 28
IVY
As soon as I could, I took my phone off airplane mode and tapped my text messages. My bottom lip jutted out. Ian hadn’t responded to my last I love you and my silly emojis. I missed him already.
I sent him another text to let him know I’d landed at LAX and watched my phone anxiously for a reply while I grabbed my carry-on. Nothing. It was one o’clock in the morning there, but I guess I expected him to be waiting for me to land. Thought he’d be tracking my flight on his phone. He’d probably fallen asleep. He’d been so busy the past week, taking charge of the lead single’s release and promo. Couldn’t be prouder of him.
It didn’t take me long to get off the plane and through customs. I’d taken just a carry-on. I didn’t have big plans here in LA—just a burglary. I’d already texted Chloe from the plane, and I headed out front to wait for her.
On the curb, I zipped up my jacket. I’d finally relented and picked out one of the gorgeous coats Sarah had chosen for me, but I didn’t need it here. I wouldn’t call it a particularly warm evening by LA standards, but it felt like a sauna compared to the UK.
I pulled my phone from my purse and scrolled through my messages. Still, nothing from Ian. I probably wouldn’t hear from him until tomorrow morning, his time. I’d stay up late tonight if I could, to catch his text, and then I’d call him. I needed to hear his voice. Even though he didn’t know what I was really doing here, talking to him would give me confidence to deal with Matt.
Chloe and I hadn’t formulated our plan yet, but at least we knew where Matt was hiding the flash drive, and I believed the dumbass when he said he had no copies of it—not that he expected anyone else to be interested in it, and I’d never fought back against my father or my brother before. Until now. I had something to fight for now.
Thirty minutes later, Chloe pulled up in her BMW and popped the trunk. I tossed my carry-on inside and climbed into the passenger seat. Chloe gave me a one-armed hug as she immediately maneuvered away from the curb. The faster you got out of LAX, the better.
“You look great, babe. England agrees with you, or maybe it’s just love.”
Chloe put her hand beneath her chin and batted her eyelashes.
“It’s everything. You know, his house is near John Milton’s cottage, and we went to Oxford one day so I could visit the college I attended for that summer program. We went to Stonehenge, of course, and spent a few days in Bath and went to that fabulous costume museum there. We even went to Stratford and saw ‘As You Like It.’ It was so funny.”
I glanced at my phone cupped in my hand for the tenth time since getting into the car.
Chloe whistled. “Are you trying to seduce the man or bore him to tears?”
“I don’t have to try to seduce him. He’s thoroughly seduced. The sex is...”
I fanned myself with my hand “...muy caliente.”
“So, he feigns interest in your tedious pursuits to get into your pants. Okay.”
I stuck my tongue out at Chloe. “He doesn’t pretend. He enjoys all my little excursions...well, most of them. He does have an irrational hatred of Milton, though. I think he was forced to read ‘Paradise Lost’ in school.”
“Hatred of Milton is not irrational. Not to change the subject from the love of your life, but did we nail it getting to Matt’s hiding place, or what?”
She held out her fist for a bump, and I complied.
“Nailed it. Now we just need to figure out how to get our hands on it.”
“Planning sesh right now, if you’re not too tired.”
My gaze strayed to the phone in my lap. “I’m more wired than tired.”
“Perfect. Diego is waiting for us at Paco’s. I figured you could use some proper Mexican food after subsisting on bangers and mash and spotted dick.”
***
When we got to Paco’s, which sat on the 18th floor of a hotel in Santa Monica with a view of the bay, Diego waved at us from a prime window seat.
As we approached the table, he jumped from his seat and threw his arms around me. “So good to have you home, Ivy. Missed you.”
I kissed his cheek. “Missed you, too.”
“How’s the fabulous popstar?”
“He’s fabulous. Wait until you hear his new album. You’re gonna love it.”
Diego waved a hand over the table. “Already ordered three of those little pitchers of margaritas for us, and you can pick out the appetizers.”
He rubbed his hands together. “I’m just thrilled you’re letting me in on one of your little escapades—even though you won’t tell me specifically why you’re breaking into your brother’s place.”
“The less you know, the better.”
Chloe dropped into a chair and picked up a plastic happy hour menu.
I snapped a chip in half. “Are we going to break in or just pretend we’re there for a perfectly normal reason? I vote for the latter. We don’t need to commit a crime to get into his place. I’m his sister.”
“A sister who never visits him and avoids him like the bubonic plague.”
Chloe ran her finger down the menu. “Nachos, taquitos, and quesadillas.”
“Sounds good to me, but that’s going to ruin my diet.”
Diego patted his mid-section, and Chloe snorted.
“Diego, you drink like a fish. A few taquitos aren’t going to send you over the edge.”
After the drinks came and Chloe ordered the food, we got back to business. “True, I don’t visit Matt often, but we’re kinda in this thing together now. I have a good excuse to visit him.”
Chloe swirled her drink. “And I’m coming with you. You’re not doing this alone. One of us can be a distraction while the other...”
she glanced at Diego happily making his way around the salted rim of his glass “—gets the thing.”
“Okay, so I make up some excuse to drop in on him, or maybe we just surprise him, and you come along. He’s always thrilled to see you, anyway.”
“He is.”
Chloe did a little shimmy, which caught Diego’s attention.
“Eww, you still think he’s hot?”
“He may be a douche, but he is a snack.”
I held up my hands. “There will be no snacking involved. We both go into his place, and then you get him outside somehow. While you’re out of the apartment, I’ll retrieve the...um...item, and then we’ll dip out of there. He won’t even realize what we’ve done until I break it to him—once I’m out of the country again.”
“Okay, how am I going to get him outside if I’m not going to use my feminine wiles.”
Chloe cupped her breasts and hoisted them up.
Diego tapped his glass with his painted fingernail. “Girl, put those things away. Ain’t nobody at this table interested.”
We all giggled, and I felt a warm glow suffuse me, which had nothing to do with the single sip of margarita I’d taken. Chloe had been my friend since high school, and we’d seen each other through many ups and downs. Diego had joined our clique about four years ago when Chloe had been working for his then-boyfriend. When they broke up, we got custody of Diego.
I coughed. “You could show him your car. He likes cars, and he hasn’t seen your Beamer yet.”
“Okay, that’s our plan.”
Chloe smacked the table, rattling our glasses. “You think of some reason why you need to drop in on him, I ask him if he wants to see my new car, you grab the thing, Matt and I return for some more BS conversation, and then we leave with the...thing.”
“I think that’ll work.”
I pointed at her empty mini pitcher and said, “I’m driving home.”
“Oh, go ahead and enjoy yourself. I can leave my car here and we can Uber back tomorrow morning.”
“Eh, I don’t even like drinking anymore to be honest.”
“Ugh, Ian’s turned you into an abolitionist.”
I exchanged a smirk with Diego. “I think you mean prohibitionist, and that’s another reason why you’re not driving us home.”
We finished catching up with each other, and then Chloe and I waited with Diego for his Uber. Once he sped off, I took Chloe’s keys and drove us home. We stayed up talking for a few more hours, which allowed me to kill more time until Ian woke up. By the time Chloe fell asleep on the sofa, and I retreated to my bedroom, it was still only six AM in England.
I’d left my Ian Pope pillow in LA—‘cuz I had the real thing—and now I hugged it to my chest as I lay on my bed. I couldn’t wait to be free of the sword hanging over my head. Once I had that flash drive and destroyed it, I could tell Jack to take his twenty-five grand and shove it and could tell Matt to take his blackmail and shove that, too.
I must’ve drifted off. My phone, which had slipped out of my hand, buzzed against my hip. I squinted at the glowing green numbers on my digital clock, and I jerked awake. It would be ten o’clock in the morning for Ian.
I felt for my phone, which had stopped vibrating, among the bedcovers. I untangled it from the sheets and brought it to my face. Jack, not Ian. I tapped on his text message and froze as I read his words: Ian knows