Chapter 13
Ivy
My name is innocent again, and apparently available for booking.
Three interview requests arrive before I can close the weather alert. Two want Gabriel and me together. One offers to film us walking through Seabriar to tell “the full story of betrayal, truth, and enduring love.” I delete it.
Apologies, requests, and new inquiries stack over the red storm track. Before six, these people needed proof to call me innocent.
Now they want access.
“No joint interviews,” I tell Lila. “No marriage questions. Decline anything that describes Seabriar as the place owned by the wife framed by billionaires.”
Lila pauses. “Someone used that exact phrase.”
“Of course they did.”
Emma reads another request. “They also want a weekend package.”
“They can book like everyone else.”
Marla Keene calls. She paused her daughter’s October wedding after the gala, calling it temporary while filing a cancellation.
“Ivy, thank God. We saw everything. We’re so glad this has been cleared up.”
Cleared up. As if someone moved a tray from the wrong table.
“What do you need, Marla?”
“We want to restore the October booking. Same weekend, same package. I assume the deposit can simply be reactivated.”
The canceled file shows the date is still free.
“The old booking ended when you canceled. I can offer the date again at today’s rate and under a new deposit.”
Silence.
Then, “We were responding to a serious concern.”
“You were allowed to respond. I am allowed to price the work I would be accepting now.”
Across the room, Gabriel remains beside the filing cabinet. He does not move closer or lift his phone.
Marla asks for the revised proposal.
“I’ll send it after this call.”
Gabriel waits until I hang up.
“May I correct the people my statement misled?” he asks.
It is an exact question. Four weeks ago, he would have called three departments before telling me he had solved the problem.
I write three names on a clean sheet. “Correct your lie, not my business. You do not quote my price, promise my work, or use your name as my endorsement.”
His expression holds.
“I will not.”
I call Marla back with the revised proposal open in front of me. She asks whether Gabriel can confirm that no additional Ashford issue will affect her event.
“Gabriel can speak to what he did,” I say. “He cannot guarantee my business or predict his family.”
I put the call on speaker and nod once.
“I damaged Ivy’s reputation,” Gabriel says. “I don’t get to certify her work now.”
Marla is quiet for a beat. “We canceled because the necklace was found in her bag.”
“You canceled after I stood in front of cameras and told the public she no longer represented my family.”
“We trusted your judgment.”
Gabriel’s fingers close once around the list I gave him.
“Then my judgment carried authority it did not deserve,” he says. “I gave you a lie in a voice people were trained to trust, and Ivy’s business paid for it.”
Marla releases a careful breath. “I need to know whether this will become another family story before October. Are the two of you reconciling?”
“Our divorce is proceeding.” His voice stays level. “Ivy’s innocence is not a reconciliation story. Seabriar’s work does not depend on whether she ever speaks to me again.”
My finger stops against the edge of the trackpad.
Half a second.
Then I move it back to the proposal.
No sales pitch. No family promise. No rescue hidden inside an apology.
Marla accepts the new terms.
I send the proposal myself.
Then I turn the venue tablet so everyone can see the red center line.
“Public relations is over for tonight,” I say. “We have a storm to prepare for.”
* * *
By 4:17 the next afternoon, the red center line is less than fourteen hours from Seabriar. Seven minutes later, the county warns that the low causeway may close before ten. Three off-site crew members must leave now or risk being trapped. Two others cannot safely reach Seabriar tonight.
I bring the remaining team into the service hall.
Wind presses along the eaves. The service hall smells of damp canvas and generator fuel.
I write five headings on the whiteboard.
Waterproofing. Furniture. Flowers. Glass corridor. Generator.
“Sustained wind at thirty miles per hour, one gust at forty, or any visible structural movement,” I say. “Any one of those happens, outdoor work stops. Everyone comes to the interior ballroom. No exceptions for schedules, flowers, furniture, or heroics.”
Sophie repeats the threshold into the staff channel.
Two people seal the west service doors and check the lower window guards.
Emma inventories the flower room. Lila moves the communication list and release laptop away from the windows.
Maintenance tests the corridor latches and backup generator under load.
Gabriel stands at the edge of the group.
“Which task is mine?”
“Arch first. Then patio furniture and flower crates.”
“Who am I working with?”
“Me.”
He follows me outside.
The wind has stripped the evening’s warmth. Canvas snaps above the lawn, but the wedding arch holds firm against its braces.
Gabriel reaches for the upper crossbar, then stops.
“Do you want the brace moved before we wrap it?”
“Six inches inward. Keep the base square.”
He moves it six inches.
From opposite sides, I feed the wrap beneath the base and he draws it over without pulling it out of alignment. I point to the next anchor. He shifts there and waits for my count.
The rhythm is old.
So is the body inside it. Rolled sleeves. Wet grass on his formal trousers. Six years taught me to notice him.
That is not permission. It is not a decision.
It is only something true.
We secure the last wrap and move to the stacked chairs. Gabriel grabs a gray cover from the supply cart and snaps it open into the wind.
The cover catches, balloons, and drops over his head.
For one second, the public face of Ashford Grand Hotels stands blind beneath a waterproof chair cover.
I laugh.
The sound escapes before I can measure it. Gabriel pulls the cover down and looks at the label.
“Table cover,” he says.
“Strong start.”
His mouth almost curves. “I can recover.”
“By putting it on a table.”
We do.
The ease remains between us for three steps. Then we reach the flower crates, and the weight of everything outside this lawn returns with it.
He takes one end of the first crate. I take the other. We carry it into the service hall without touching.
Once, this kind of coordination convinced me that the private marriage was the real one and the public erasure was temporary.
I know better now.
Working well beside me does not give him a place in my life. It gives him the next crate.
We move four.
The generator catches with a low mechanical thrum. A maintenance call comes through my radio.
“Backup load is holding. Glass corridor is sealed, but the east panels are starting to vibrate.”
The lights blink once inside Seabriar, then steady.
I check the handheld meter clipped to my belt. Sustained wind, twenty-eight. Latest gust, thirty-seven.
Below the numbers. Too close to waste time arguing with them.
“Begin outdoor withdrawal,” I say into the radio. “Secure what is in your hands. Leave everything else.”
The team answers in order.
Gabriel sets down the crate inside and looks toward the lawn. A stack of folded linens strains beneath one remaining tarp.
“Leave it,” I say.
He turns toward the interior ballroom.
No argument. No dash into the wind to prove he can save something expensive.
Outside, the main tent lifts hard against its anchors.
A sound cuts through the wind.
Not canvas.
Rope.
One of the main anchoring lines snaps and lashes across the wet lawn. The tent edge surges upward.
“Outdoor plan is finished,” I say into the radio. “Do not chase equipment. Everyone inside. Interior ballroom now.”