Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
brOOKS
I wake up to the sound of something I haven’t heard in years: silence that doesn’t feel like a vacuum.
Usually, the mornings in the Hamptons, or Manhattan, or London, are preceded by the mental ticking of a clock.
I wake up and immediately begin triaging the day.
Categorizing risks. Reviewing spreadsheets in my mind.
Preparing myself to be the man the world expects me to be.
The strategist. The successor. The liability-free billionaire.
My life runs on containment, and every morning is spent making sure nothing leaks through.
But this morning, the only thing I can focus on is Ivy Sullivan’s head on my chest and the soft, rhythmic puff of her breath against my skin.
I don’t move. I don’t even want to blink. I’m not looking for a way out. I’m not calculating the ROI of the moment or wondering how this would look on the cover of the Journal. I am … still.
The guest cottage is bathed in the pale, watery light of a Tuesday morning, light that usually feels cold and judgmental in the Hamptons.
But here, it feels soft. There's no "Great Wall of Down" this time; just her leather jacket tangled with my discarded dress shirt on the floor.
Casualties of a war we've finally stopped fighting.
I look down at her. Her dark hair is a wild halo against the white silk of the pillowcase, a chaotic contrast to the sterile perfection of this room.
There is a faint smudge of yesterday’s mascara under one eye, a messy human detail that makes my heart do a slow, painful roll in my chest. Her lips are slightly swollen from the way I’d spent half the night worshiping them, and she looks small in the center of the massive bed.
She looks fragile, and yet, she is the only person on this entire godforsaken island who had the balls to dip into a half-million-dollar fortune to set me straight.
Something fierce and possessive tightens in my chest. I’ve spent my life thinking of people as assets or liabilities, as moving parts in a grand machine of my own making.
I treated Ivy like a project to be managed, a fire to be contained.
But as I watch her sleep, I realize she isn’t the fire; she’s the light.
And I have been stumbling around in the dark for years.
Ivy stirs, a soft moan escaping her as she presses closer to me, her hand splaying across my stomach. Her skin is hot, alive, and so intensely real that it makes my throat ache.
“You’re thinking too loud,” she mumbles, her voice soft with sleep, her eyes still closed.
I reach down, my fingers tangling in her hair, pulling her head up enough so those brilliant, sharp eyes meet mine. “I’m not thinking, Ivy. I’m observing.”
She cracks one eye open, a sleepy, wicked smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. It is the look that has undone me from the beginning. “Observing what? The structural integrity of the ceiling? Or the fact that you’re officially a man who was rescued by a girl in a second-hand leather jacket?”
“I’m observing the fact that I’m never letting you out of this bed,” I growl, rolling over until I am hovering above her, pinning her into the mattress with the press of my body.
The playfulness in her eyes fades, darkening into something deeper, something that makes my blood simmer. She reaches up, her arms winding around my neck, pulling me down into her space. “Is that a threat, Taylor? Because I think there's a clause that specifically forbids unauthorized overtime."
"The contract died when I gave you that waiver," I whisper, my lips brushing against the sensitive shell of her ear. "There are no clauses left. No rules. No management. We agreed to that last night."
“Yes, we did.”
I kiss the column of her throat, my teeth grazing her skin enough to make her gasp. “This isn’t about biology, Ivy. And it’s definitely not about ‘release.’ This is about me finally admitting that I’m a total disaster without you.”
I move slowly, deliberately, wanting to memorize every inch of her in the morning light.
I want to map the curve of her hip, the dip of her waist, the way her breath hitches every time I touch that one spot on the inside of her thigh.
I want to be the only thing she feels, the only thing she thinks about.
I enter her with a slow, filling slide, my eyes locked on hers as the world narrows down to the point where we meet.
It is an explosion of color in a world that has always been monochrome.
Every movement is a confession, every touch a promise I intend to keep.
She meets me stroke for stroke, her body a living counterpoint to mine.
There is no performance here. It's Ivy, raw, honest, and utterly devastating.
When the end comes, it isn’t a “release.” It is a shattering. The last of my defenses crumble, the icy walls I’ve built around my heart finally melt under the sheer, brilliant heat of her. I bury my face in her neck, a guttural sound of surrender escaping me as we both go over the edge together.
An hour later, the sun is higher in the sky, and the real world is starting to bang on the door in the form of my vibrating phone. I’ve ignored sixteen calls from my attorney and twenty-two emails from the board.
I sit on the edge of the bed, a towel wrapped around my waist, watching Ivy as she sits cross-legged in the center of the mattress, wrapped in one of my oversized white dress shirts. She is holding a mug of coffee like it is a holy relic, her eyes distant.
“We have to deal with it, don’t we?” she asks softly. “The loose ends. Penelope.”
“Penelope isn’t a problem anymore, Ivy.”
“Brooks, she has that photo,” Ivy says, her brow furrowing with worry. “The text from Savvy that basically confirms our relationship was fake. If she leaks it, the stability the board voted on becomes a joke. They’ll think you’re a fraud. They’ll pull their support before the ink even dries.”
“Let them try,” I say, standing up and walking over to my laptop. “I spent the night doing a little ‘fixing’ of my own while you were asleep.”
I turn the screen toward her. On it is a frozen frame of security footage.
It is the library in the main house, the Taylor family sanctuary.
The time stamp is from Friday evening, shortly before Ivy disappeared.
In the frame, Penelope Vanderbilt is clearly visible.
She isn’t just standing there; she is hunched over the desk, her hand deep inside Ivy’s handbag.
She pulls out a phone, her face lit by the screen as she scrolls through it, a triumphant, ugly look on her face.
Ivy gasps, her hand flying to her mouth. “You have her on camera? Stealing my phone?”
“Not stealing it,” I say, my voice cold as ice.
“Accessing a locked device without consent, which is a felony in this state. And then using the information gained from that theft to extort a confession out of you, which is another. I’ve already sent a copy of this to Arthur, and another to the Vanderbilt family’s primary counsel.
I told them that if a single word of that text message ever sees the light of day, or if Penelope so much as breathes in your direction again, I will not only file criminal charges, but I will systematically dismantle every brand she’s ever touched.
I’ll buy her trademark just to turn it into a line of budget toilet paper. ”
Ivy stares at the screen, a long, slow breath escaping her. “You ruined her.”
“No,” I correct her. “She ruined herself. I provided the documentation.”
I sit back down on the bed, taking Ivy’s hand in mine. “But there’s one more thing we have to handle. The story is public. Our ‘engagement’ is the lead on every financial site this morning. And my parents… they’re expecting us for breakfast in twenty minutes.”
Ivy tenses against me. "Brooks, your mother … she's not an idiot. Helicopter. Biker jacket. That was not subtle. She's going to know something is off."
“Good,” I say, reaching for my clothes. “Because I’m done with the camouflage. I’m done with the ‘fake’ version of us. When we walk into that dining room, we’re walking in as partners. Real ones.”
The dining room at Eastmoor is a cathedral of “Old Money” restraint.
Floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the Atlantic, the morning sun catching the silver tea service and the crisp white linens.
On the center of the table is a massive arrangement of white hydrangeas, overflow from last night's party, that catches the morning light like clusters of pearls.
My father is buried behind a copy of the Wall Street Journal, while my mother sits at the head of the table, her spine as straight as a ruler, her eyes fixed on a bowl of sliced grapefruit. The air hums with tension that usually precedes a corporate takeover.
As we walk in, my father doesn’t look up, but my mother’s gaze snaps to us immediately. She looks at me, then her eyes travel slowly, glacially, over Ivy.
Ivy is wearing her jeans and one of my white dress shirts, knotted at the waist. The sleeves are rolled up. Her boots are still on. She hasn’t touched her hair. It is wild. She looks like a woman who is done pretending.
“Brooks,” my mother says, her voice like a chime of glass. “I see our guest has decided to rejoin us. A rather… dramatic entrance last night, wouldn’t you say?”
“It was effective, Mother,” I say, pulling out a chair for Ivy. “Which is what Ivy does best.”
My father finally lowers his paper. He looks at me, his eyes sharp and calculating, then he looks at Ivy. To my surprise, there is a faint, almost imperceptible glimmer of respect in his gaze.
"The paperwork finalized at 4:00 AM," my father says, his voice a low rumble. "The board is ecstatic. They're calling it the 'Taylor Triumph.'"
I take a breath. "Before we go any further, there's something you both need to know."
For the next half hour, I lay it all out. The fake engagement. The contract with Ever After. The concussion that started it all. Penelope's blackmail attempt. Ivy's sacrifice. Every detail I've been hiding for eight weeks comes spilling out across the breakfast table like a deposition.
My mother's face remains unreadable throughout. My father sets down his paper and listens the way he does in board meetings when someone's about to lose their job.
When I finish, the silence holds long enough that I can hear the ocean through the open windows.
Finally, my mother speaks. "I see." She pauses, her spoon hovering over her grapefruit. "So she was a... consultant. In the truest sense."
"She's my partner," I say, reaching for Ivy's hand under the table and lacing our fingers together.
"In every sense of the word. And while we're on the subject, I've decided to make a change to the family's protocols.
Moving forward, anyone who attempts to use internal family information for extortion, like Penelope Vanderbilt did this weekend, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. "
The silence that follows is absolute. My mother's spoon clicks against the china, the only sound in the room.
She looks at me, really looks at me, and I know she sees the change.
The "stability" she's been grooming me for has finally arrived, but it doesn't look like the cold, obedient version she imagined.
It looks like a man who finally knows what he is fighting for.
"I see," Betty says, her voice softer now. She looks at Ivy, her gaze lingering on the lack of a ring on Ivy's finger. "And what does the future hold for Ever After, Inc.? I imagine after such a... high-profile success, the phone won't stop ringing."
"Ever After is expanding," Ivy says, her voice clear and confident.
She doesn't look at me for help; she doesn't need it.
"We're no longer 'managing' crises. We're building legacies.
And as for my role here... well, I've decided to take on one more very high-maintenance client on a permanent basis. "
My father lets out a short, sharp bark of a laugh. He folds his paper and sets it on the table. "Good. God knows this family needs a little 'aggressive floral' in the mix. The place was getting dusty."
He looks at me and nods, a silent acknowledgment of a man to a man. "Congratulations, Brooks," he says. "On the deal. And on the... acquisition."
"It's not an acquisition, Dad," I say, looking at Ivy, her presence filling every corner of my vision. "It's a partnership. And it's the only one I ever intend to sign."
As we walk out onto the veranda after breakfast, the salty breeze catches Ivy's hair, blowing it across her face. I reach out, tucking a strand behind her ear, my thumb lingering on her cheek.
"That went better than expected," she whispers, her eyes shining with relief.
"They know they can't beat you, Ivy," I say, pulling her into the shadow of a stone pillar. "And they know they can't have me without you. That's a powerful combination."
"We're a liability, Taylor," she teases, her hands finding the lapels of my blazer. "A big, messy, expensive liability."
"No," I say, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a small velvet box. "We're an investment. And I'm ready to double down."
I don't get down on one knee. That isn't us. I open the box, revealing a ring that isn't a family heirloom. It is a stunning, radiant-cut diamond, surrounded by a halo of smaller diamonds. It is bright, bold, and entirely unique.
"I bought this the morning I left your apartment," I admit, my voice low. I take a step closer, leaving no space between us. "I didn't care about any of it. The business, the family ties, the fallout. I wanted the girl from River Bend."
Ivy stares at the ring, her breath catching in her throat. "Brooks..."
"I don't want a stand-in, Ivy. I don't want a contract. I want the real thing. I want the woman who tackles me in gardens and spends thousands of dollars on helicopters. Will you stay, Ivy? Not for the eight weeks. Not for the payout. But for me?"
Ivy looks at the ring, then back at me, her eyes shimmering with tears. She reaches out and takes my hand.
"On one condition, Taylor," she says, her voice tight with emotion.
"Anything."
"You never, ever tell my mother how much I spent on that helicopter. She'd kill me for not using a coupon."
I slide the ring onto her finger, the fit perfect, the light catching the diamond until it looks like a piece of the sun. 'Deal,' I say, and kiss her with everything I have.