8. Jack
JACK
S he doesn’t see me watching her. From the window of my office, she’s just a silhouette in motion, elegant, determined, entirely unaware of her effect.
Her head tilts slightly down as she moves through the corridor, fingers absently tapping the corner of a folder, lips drawn into a focused line.
I’ve learned what that look means. It means she’s thinking five steps ahead of everyone else. Ivy Stone always is.
She’s magnetic without trying, without even realizing she’s doing it. She’s only been here a few weeks, but already, something in the air has shifted. It’s not obvious. Not the kind of thing you can put on a slide in a boardroom. But it’s there, quiet, electric, undeniable.
The board leans in when she talks. Our numbers are improving, not by accident, but because she sees what others miss.
She spots patterns I stopped noticing years ago.
She’s reawakening a part of the company I thought had gone numb, and a part of me too, if I’m being honest. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s changing everything. Including me.
A knock slices through the stillness. Sharp. Intentional. Before I can answer, the door swings open. Derek storms in like a man looking for a fight. His movements are jagged, eyes already burning with accusation.
“She’s staying in your building.”
I turn toward him slowly, grounding my voice in calm even as something coils tight in my chest. “Who?”
“Ivy.” He spits her name like it burns. “She’s living with Graham and he, last I checked, lives in your building. You really expect me to believe that’s just a coincidence?”
I don’t respond right away. It isn’t a coincidence.
It’s one of those twisted alignments the universe tosses into your lap, unasked for but not entirely unwelcome.
She needed a place, and Graham offered. I hadn’t known she’d end up with him.
But maybe, selfishly, I hoped she would.
I told myself it wouldn’t matter. That her being close wouldn’t change anything.
But it did. Knowing she was just down the hall gave me a kind of comfort I hadn’t expected.
I didn’t push her toward it, but I didn’t pull away either.
My silence is enough.
“You’ve wanted her from the beginning,” he says, voice rising. “Don’t bother denying it. I’ve seen the way you look at her. But here’s something you didn’t know, she wanted me. She still does. She was in my bed three nights ago, moaning my name like nothing had changed.”
I meet his glare head-on. “You cheated on her.”
He laughs, a cold, bitter sound that slices through the room. His smile sharpens, gleaming with cruelty. “She told me she hated me, then let me fuck the apology out of her. That’s Ivy. Says one thing, means another.”
“Don’t deflect. This isn’t about me.”
He snarls. “You were waiting. Hiding in the background like some white knight with a savior complex. Just like Dad.”
That lands deeper than he knows. I feel the hit in my ribs, heavy and immediate.
Our father, the man who taught us everything about power and nothing about love.
The man we’ve both spent our lives trying not to become, in opposite but equally broken ways.
I don’t rise to it. I won’t give him the satisfaction.
After a long pause, he tosses a folder onto my desk. It lands with a hard slap, loud in the quiet. He doesn’t explain. He turns, walks out, and slams the door behind him. The frame rattles.
I stare at the folder. I don’t open it. Not yet. But I already know it’s not about Ivy. That would be too easy. Too impulsive for Derek. He doesn’t lash out, he waits, calculates, strikes when it hurts most. This isn’t about her. It’s about me, and I know exactly what might be inside.
Photos from nights I shouldn’t have risked.
Faces I thought were buried. Context stripped away to look damning.
I’ve made mistakes, some careless, some calculated.
None of them Ivy. But that won’t matter if she sees this.
Not when she still doesn’t know the truth about the envelope.
About me. She thinks it showed up anonymously.
She doesn’t know I’m the one who left it.
***
I’m back from the office, city noise still in my ears, but the hallway outside our apartments is calm. I move toward the cabinet in the corner and pull out the bottle of wine I keep for endings, or beginnings. Tonight feels like both.
Just a few steps separate my door from hers, but they feel weighted, charged with the guilt I haven’t admitted out loud. Part of me always knew it wouldn’t stay hidden—that someone would notice the way I look at her, the way I listen when she speaks.
Music drifts from inside, stripped down and slow, something between background noise and confession. The kind of song that doesn’t try to be heard, but still is.
I lift my hand and knock gently. “Ivy?”
She answers almost instantly. She’s barefoot, wearing a loose tank that bares her shoulders and clings in places I’m trying hard not to notice. Her hair is swept into a messy knot. There’s something about seeing her like this, unarmored, a little disheveled, that hits harder than it should.
Her eyebrows lift. “Jack.”
I hold up the bottle. “Thought you might want something stronger than tea.”
Her gaze shifts from the wine to me, lingering just a beat too long. Then she steps back, nodding. “Come in.”
Graham’s place is minimalist, clean lines, neutral tones. But there are signs of Ivy now. A coat on a chair. A half-finished book on the end table. A silk scarf draped over a doorknob like an afterthought. It looks like she’s trying to settle in but hasn’t quite allowed herself to belong.
She pours two glasses and joins me on the couch. We sit at opposite ends, the wine bottle between us like a quiet boundary neither of us names.
We talk about everything but what’s hovering in the air.
The company. Our intern’s fear of the espresso machine.
A designer who went rogue. She laughs at one of my stories, tips her head back, and something in me flickers.
The conversation stretches longer than I intended.
I watch the way her fingers move when she talks, how she emphasizes a point or tucks a strand of hair.
She makes ordinary moments feel cinematic. Real. Close.
At one point, she pauses, wine glass in hand, gaze lowered. “I thought today was going to fall apart,” she admits. “That pitch meeting nearly wrecked me.”
“You carried it,” I say. “No one else could’ve saved it.”
She glances at me, and her expression softens. The guarded edge she wears at the office slips, revealing something raw underneath. “I don’t know if I’m fixing things or just delaying the inevitable.”
“You’re not delaying. You’re shifting the course.”
She smiles, but it’s small. Tired. “You always know what to say.”
I don’t. Not really. But I mean it when I say it to her.
She reaches for the wine bottle. Her hand touches mine. The contact is brief. But it lingers. Neither of us pulls away.
“Ivy,” I say, softly. Her name lands heavy, like a secret I’ve been carrying.
She turns toward me, eyes wide with something unspoken.
I shift closer. Slowly. Deliberately. My hand lifts to her jaw. She doesn’t move. Just breathes. I lean in and I kiss her. It’s not a question. It’s not an apology. It’s the truth.
My hand slides behind her neck. My mouth finds hers. She tastes like wine and something sweeter I can’t place. Her lips part beneath mine. And for a suspended moment, the world narrows to this, her breath, her hand on my chest, the soft sound she makes when she lets herself want it.
Lets me want her. And I do. More than I’ve let myself admit.
But then…
A knock cuts through the quiet. Blunt. Impossible to ignore. Not just a knock, but a disruption. The kind that ends whatever came before.
We barely pull apart before the door swings open.
Derek.
He steps inside like he owns the place. Like we’re the trespassers. His eyes sweep the room, wine glasses, her bare feet, the space between our bodies. My hand still slightly raised.
A smirk curves his mouth, cruel and triumphant. “Well,” he drawls. “Isn’t this cozy.”
I rise slowly, ready for whatever comes next. Ivy stands too, wine glass in hand. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t hide. But her voice catches.
“Derek, what are you doing here?”
He doesn’t answer. His gaze flicks between us.
Narrowing. With eerie calm, he shuts the door behind him.
The soft click lands louder than any slam.
It’s a declaration, unspoken but clear. A warning dressed as civility.
A line crossed that neither of us can uncross, and the way it lands? It sounds a lot like war.