5. Ivy
IVY
M y phone won’t stop buzzing. The screen lights up again:
Wilson Scandal Explodes—Runaway Bride Or Publicity Stunt?
News alerts, messages, pings from numbers I haven’t saved in years. Some are reporters. Most are worse, “concerned” acquaintances who want the inside scoop dressed up as sympathy. I toss the phone face-down onto the marble kitchen counter. The headline still burns behind my eyes.
A photo of me, blurry, and grainy, taken from across the street, staring out the window of Graham’s apartment.
Someone must’ve tipped them off, maybe a doorman with a camera phone and no loyalty, or maybe it didn’t take much.
One blurry shot of me in Jack’s building was enough to send the press sniffing in every direction.
Of course they recognized it. Jack’s building. Jack’s scandal.
The kettle whistles on the stove. I pour the water into a chipped ceramic mug and watch the steam rise in delicate ribbons before vanishing into nothing. I wish I could do the same, evaporate, just for a moment.
I drift through the living room, the soft wool socks I borrowed from Graham making no sound on the hardwood. The television stays off. I can’t bear to hear what they’re saying about me, can’t stomach the sound of my life becoming someone else's talking point.
My feet carry me to the window again. I part the curtain just enough to peek outside. Cameras are already gathering like vultures. Flashbulbs pop even though I’m not outside. Not yet. I press my back to the wall and close my eyes.
The front door unlocks, and I hear it before I see him.
‘Ivy?”
Graham’s voice cuts through the haze, low and steady. I turn as he steps into the apartment, carrying two takeout bags and a look that says he’s already read every story.
“You hungry?” he asks, walking past me to the kitchen.
“I should be,” I say. “I’m not.”
He nods, setting the food down. “You’ve been in every story today. Every room I’ve walked into had your name on someone’s lips.”
“I know.”
He doesn’t say I told you so. He never does. He just starts unpacking containers, handing me a fork even though I haven’t asked.
“I saw the one with this building in the background,” he says after a moment.
“Of course you did,” I reply.
He looks at me, searching. “You okay?”
I manage a shrug. “I left Derek. I’m holed up in my brother’s apartment. My face is on three gossip sites, and I haven’t cried.”
Graham places the fork gently on the counter. “That’s not an answer.”
“I don’t know how I feel yet. I just know I don’t regret leaving.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then he pulls me into a side-hug, rough and warm.
“My place is your place,” he says, voice gruff. “Always.”
I nod into his shoulder, feeling the familiar steadiness of him. My older brother, the only person who’s never needed an explanation to understand.
We eat in relative silence, picking at Lo Mein and cold dumplings. Graham mutters something about a client call and disappears into the guest room he’s turned into a makeshift office.
Before he closes the door, I stop him. “Graham?”
He pauses.
“Can you cancel the wedding? Officially? Call the planner, the venue, everything. I can’t do it. Not today.”
He nods, no questions asked. “Consider it handled.”
I change into jeans and a sweater, then wrap a scarf around my neck like armor. The hallway hums with a muted stillness, the kind that makes you feel watched even when you’re alone.
Jack appears at the end of the corridor, coffee in hand. He’s dressed in black slacks and a dark coat, sharp enough to pass for a magazine spread. His gaze lands on me like a touch.
“They’re out front. Photographers,” he says.
“I figured.”
“There’s a back entrance. It leads through the service alley. No one will see you.”
He says it like an offering, not an order. Like he’s giving me the out I’ve been craving. I hesitate, then nod.
We walk side by side, not speaking. His presence hums at the edge of my senses.
Every step feels heavier with the silence between us.
The service door creaks open, and cold air rushes in.
I pull the collar of my sweater tighter, even as the warmth of his hand lingers on the doorknob.
He doesn’t ask about the articles. Doesn’t mention Derek.
Just holds the door until I step through.
It’s more grace than I know what to do with.
***
Later, after the sun has dropped low and the sky is streaked with copper, I knock on his apartment door to return the spare keycard.
He opens it wearing a plain T-shirt and joggers, like he hasn’t been in a boardroom all day. He doesn’t look surprised to see me, just tired, and handsome, unfairly so.
“I won’t need this anymore,” I say, holding out the card.
He takes it, but his fingers tighten around it for a beat too long. On the kitchen island, a tabloid lies open. My face stares up from the page.
I stiffen. “I didn’t expect to find that here.”
He glances down. “Didn’t buy it. It was already here when I got back. PR leaves copies whenever there’s a media fire with the family name on it.”
“I didn’t ask if you did.”
Tension hangs in the air, stretched thin. His apartment carries the low hum of the refrigerator and the ambient murmur of distant traffic, but beneath that, there's a stillness weighted with something unnamed.
He doesn’t offer an apology, and I don’t ask for one, though the space begs for something. A flicker of acknowledgment. A shared admission neither of us is brave enough to say aloud.
I tell myself it’s better this way, safer, yet when I catch the way his eyes track mine, the barely-there shift of his jaw, I feel the lie of that thought settle under my skin like a bruise.
My hand lingers at my side longer than it should. I turn to go. The keycard still warm from his hand. He stays rooted where he is, not moving, not speaking, offering nothing to stop me, but not quite letting me go either.
I glance back over my shoulder. He’s still watching me, his gaze unwavering, as though he's waiting for something he won’t let himself ask for. For a moment, I wonder what would happen if I gave it to him, if I stepped forward instead of away, reached for the tension instead of retreating from it.
Just as I’m about to step back into my brother’s apartment, my phone buzzes again. This time, it’s my father.
I swipe to answer, bracing myself. “Dad?”
“Ivy,” Jonathan Stone says, his voice calm but careful, like he’s rehearsed this call in his head a dozen times. “Robert Wilson called me this morning. He’s... concerned.”
I lean back against the kitchen counter. “Concerned? Or calculating?”
He exhales. “He said the wedding could still be salvaged. That this is a PR crisis, not a real fracture. He wants to know what your plans are.”
“My plans? To move on from being a business transaction.”
There’s a pause.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Ivy. But you should understand, Robert’s worried about the deal, yes, but so are others. Investors. Partners.”
“So you called to pressure me into going back.”
“No,” he says quickly. “I called because I wanted to hear it from you. Because I’m your father. Because I know what it’s like to feel cornered by legacy.”
His voice softens. “Did he really cheat on you?”
“Yes. With intent. With detail. And with women who knew my name.”
Silence stretches long enough that I think he might hang up.
Then, “Then you were right to leave. I should’ve protected you from this. I should’ve said something earlier.”
The weight in my chest eases, just a little. “Thank you.”
“Whatever happens next, it’s your story to tell, not theirs.”
And for the first time since the headlines broke, I believe him.
I slide the phone into my pocket and glance once more at Jack’s door.
The urge to knock again is dangerously close.
Not because I need anything from him. But because out of everyone, my father, the press, even Derek, Jack is the only one who hasn’t asked for explanations.
He’s the only one who didn’t try to spin this into something strategic, and that makes the pull between us even more dangerous.
If I ever find out he was the one who sent that envelope, the one who turned my life into a headline, I don’t know if I’d forgive him.
Even if it was the truth. Even if I needed to know, because the truth, when delivered without trust, doesn’t feel like honesty.
It feels like betrayal with better packaging.