Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
IVY
My apartment is exactly as I left it eight weeks ago.
It smells of dust and the lavender reed diffuser Maddy surely refilled while I was gone, a scent that usually means home but now feels like a reminder of everything that has changed.
The succulent on the windowsill, the one I’d named ‘Survivor’, is finally dead, its leaves shriveled into gray husks.
The stack of unopened mail on the counter is a tower of catalogs and junk flyers, a physical manifestation of the life I hit pause on the moment I tackled Brooks Taylor into that marble cherub.
It is safe, but it is also small and terribly quiet. In the Hamptons, the air always sounded like something: the rush of the ocean, the clink of crystal, the low, steady hum of Brooks’s voice in the next room. Here, the silence is heavy. It feels like a coffin.
It is Labor Day. 5:00 PM.
Right now, at Eastmoor, the sun is beginning its slow dip toward the Atlantic, turning the ocean into hammered gold.
The caterers are putting the finishing touches on the raw bar, meticulously nesting shrimp into beds of shaved ice.
The florists are arranging the white hydrangeas I selected, the ones I argued with Betty about for three hours because she wanted lilies and I knew the hydrangeas would catch the twilight light better.
Betty is probably terrorizing a waiter about the napkin folds right now, her spine a straight line of steel.
And Brooks?
Brooks is probably standing on the terrace, wearing that navy suit that makes his eyes look like the deep Atlantic. He’s accepting congratulations. He is wearing that shark grin, the one that doesn’t reach his eyes, the one he uses when he’s ready for a kill. He is shaking hands. He is winning.
And I am sitting on my beige IKEA sofa, staring at a check for five hundred thousand dollars.
It sits on the coffee table, right next to a coaster stained with old coffee rings.
The paper is crisp, the ink dark. It is enough money to expand Ever After, Inc.
It is enough money to pay off my student loans, put a down payment on a condo, and take a vacation to somewhere that doesn’t smell like hydrangeas and heartbreak.
It is the most expensive severance package in history, but the truth of it is much heavier.
Brooks didn’t hand it to me as a payoff; he handed it to me as an invitation.
He gave me the waiver and the money to level the playing field, to ensure I wasn’t his hostage.
He wanted to see if I’d stay because I loved him, not because I was under contract.
I’m taking the deal. The lie still tastes like bile in the back of my throat. I can still see the look on his face when I said it, the way the light went out of his eyes, replaced by a cold, hollow vacuum. I saw the moment the walls slammed back up, instant and impenetrable.
I had to do it. I’ve replayed the scene in the library a thousand times. I see Penelope’s smug face as she holds up my phone, showing that text notification from the girls. I hear her voice telling me she’d burn it all down, the name, the firm, Brooks’s future, unless I vanish.
I broke him to save him. I needed him to think I had a price so he would hate me enough to let me go. It was the only way to make him set me free without a fight.
I’ve been sitting in the dark for hours. I heard the buzzer last night. I knew it was him. I didn’t need to look at the intercom to know. I could feel the pull of him through the floorboards, the magnetic north of my entire life was standing on the sidewalk, and I was pinned to my sofa, shaking.
I pressed my palm against the cool wood of the door, holding my breath, tears streaming down my face in the dark.
I wanted to open it. My god, I wanted to throw the door wide and bury my face in his chest and tell him everything.
But I couldn’t. If I saw him, I’d fold. And if I folded, Penelope would win.
So I stayed silent, listening to the city sounds, until I finally heard his footsteps retreat down the sidewalk.
A knock on the door startles me now, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the quiet room.
I jump, splashing cold tea onto my hand.
I know who it is. I ignored Maddy’s calls all weekend.
I ignored Savvy’s texts demanding a “proof of life” photo.
I even turned my phone off yesterday because I couldn’t handle the temptation of looking at the news alerts or the social media tags, anything that would show me a world that was continuing to turn without me.
I walk to the door. I unlock it.
Maddy and Savvy are standing in the hallway. They’re not smiling. Maddy is holding a box of donuts and a bottle of tequila. Savvy is holding a crowbar.
"I assume the crowbar is metaphorical?" I ask, stepping back to let them in.
"It's in case you tried to keep us out," Savvy says, marching past me. "Or for Brooks's kneecaps. I haven't decided yet."
“He’s in the Hamptons,” I say, closing the door. “His kneecaps are safe.”
Maddy sets the donuts on the counter and turns to me. Her eyes are soft, filled with that terrifying level of empathy that always makes me cry.
“You look terrible,” she says gently.
“Thank you. It’s the ‘I committed emotional suicide’ aesthetic. It’s very chic in Milan.”
Maddy walks over and wraps her arms around me. I stiffen for a second, trying to hold it together, but the familiar scent of her perfume breaks me. I slump against her, burying my face in her shoulder.
“I’m okay,” I lie, my voice muffled. “I’m fine. The job is done. Our company is safe.”
“You’re not fine,” Savvy says, her voice cutting through the heavy air of the living room. She pauses, her eyes dropping to the coffee table. “Holy shit, Ivy.”
She is staring at the check on the coffee table. I pull away from Maddy and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, feeling the grit of a weekend spent in the dark. I look at the crisp paper.
Savvy picks the check up, snapping the paper between her fingers. She whistles low, her eyes scanning the signature I know by heart. "Five hundred thousand. He didn't waste time buying his way out of the guilt."
“He didn’t.” I sink back onto the sofa. “He gave it to me to level the playing field. He wanted to see if I’d stay because I wanted him, not because of the contract. He gave me the money, so I’d be free to choose.”
“And you took it and ran?” Savvy asks, her brow furrowed.
“I chose the lie,” I whisper. “I took the money, so he’d believe I was the villain. I needed him to think it was transactional, so he wouldn’t follow me. If I’d refused it, he would have known something was wrong. He would have fought for me.”
My voice breaks. I drag in a breath.
“Someone was waiting for that,” I continue. “For the moment he chose me over everything else. For the moment the deal stopped being theoretical and became emotional.”
“Who?” Maddy asks.
I look at them. My partners. My sisters. We built Ever After on trust. I can’t lie to them, not when they can see straight through the Fixer mask to the girl bleeding out on her own IKEA rug.
“Penelope,” I say, my voice thin.
Savvy’s head snaps up. “Vanderbilt?”
“She cornered me in the library on Friday night.” My hands twist in my lap, breath catching.
“She… she had proof. She knew the engagement was a sham. She threatened to tell Betty. She threatened to leak it to the press. She gave me an ultimatum: Leave him tonight, or she burns his entire legacy down.”
“So you took the fall,” Maddy says, her face pale. “You played the villain to save him.”
"I had to." Tears spill before I can stop them. "It's everything to him. I told him I was taking the money. I told him it was a job, so he'd hate me enough to let me go. I love him, Maddy. But I couldn't let him lose everything for me."
“He believed you?” Maddy asks.
A hollow laugh escapes my throat. “Instantly. Because that’s what he expects. He expects people to have a price.”
“He’s an idiot,” Savvy says, pacing the small room. “If he believed you, he doesn’t deserve you.”
“He deserves to win.” My spine straightens. “He worked so hard for it.”
“And what do you deserve?” Savvy asks, stopping in front of me. “You saved his reputation. You took down Royce Aston. You gave him everything, Ivy. And now you’re sitting here with a check you won’t cash and a broken heart.”
“I have the company.” My voice thins. “We have the money now. We’re safe.”
“I don’t want his money,” Savvy spits. “I want to burn his house down.”
“It’s not his fault.” I shake my head. “He didn’t know about Penelope. He… he actually asked me to stay.”
The room goes quiet.
“He what?” Maddy asks.
"He came here last night," I say, barely audible. "He was at my door, Maddy. He buzzed for an hour."
Maddy’s eyes fill with tears. “And you still didn’t open it?”
“I couldn’t,” I sob. “Penelope. If I stayed, she would have destroyed him. I couldn’t let him lose. I love him.”
The confession hangs in the air, heavy and undeniable. I love him.
We sit there for a long time, drinking tequila and eating donuts in a grim sort of silence, watching some mindless reality TV show to fill the space. But an hour later, my phone, which I’d finally turned on to order pizza, starts buzzing.
I ignore it. It buzzes again. And again.
“Someone is popular,” Savvy slurs slightly.
I pick it up. Five missed calls. All from the same number. Area Code 631. The Hamptons. It’s not Brooks. I know his number by heart. It’s not the house line. I answer on the sixth ring.
“Hello?”
“Ivy?”
The voice is male. Frantic. And vaguely familiar.
“Yes?”
“It’s Mark. Mark Green.”
I sit up straighter, my heart rate spiking. Mark. Brooks’s best friend. The one whose wedding I saved. “Mark? Is everything okay? Is Brooks okay?”
“I don’t know,” Mark says. He sounds breathless, like he’s running. “Listen, Ivy. I’m at the party. The Labor Day gala. It’s… it’s a disaster.”