Chapter One #2
To find her here, now, was the last thing he’d expected and he hated being caught off guard.
He’d known he’d have to deal with her eventually, but not today.
Even worse, regardless of his abject resistance, her appeal was more potent and far more disturbing than he’d allowed himself to remember.
Despite the make-up and designer clothes, she carried an air of vulnerability in the set of her shoulders, the jut of her chin, that called to some deep dark part of him that only she seemed to unearth.
And he detested that. He could never trust her again, an actress who didn’t flutter an eyelash at destroying marriages or using him for photo opportunities, just like his mother had.
‘And yesterday, how did it go?’ she whispered, raising her head to stare intently at the landscape painting that hung over the fireplace, like she’d never seen it before, although it had been in the same place for as long as Ethan could remember.
‘It was…’ He paused to collect himself, the lump in his throat intensifying. How could he describe what yesterday had been like?
‘A celebration of her amazing life,’ Ivy finished for him.
‘Yes,’ he croaked.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here—that I missed it.’ Crossing her arms she rubbed them in an oddly protective gesture. ‘That I couldn’t make it.’
‘And yet, you waited five days to tell me, via your assistant.’
Her eyes locked on his for a fully loaded minute. ‘Yes. Are you going to offer me a drink?’
It took a moment for her words to register.
The very reason he’d come into the room, which he’d forgotten the moment he’d seen her.
Although both of them knew she could get it herself, it was one of Ruby’s preferences that if a man was present, he poured the drinks from the well-stocked antique drinks cabinet.
Old-fashioned as it was, he’d always honoured Ruby’s wishes, and obviously so had Ivy.
He nodded tersely and made for the other side of the silk wallpapered room.
‘You’re having?’ he asked.
‘A soda water please.’
‘With?’ She looked like she could do with something stronger, like him.
‘Nothing, thanks.’
Ivy didn’t drink alcohol anymore? That day she’d had a never-ending glass of champagne in her hand.
When she’d been the absolute life of Ruby’s eightieth birthday party, animatedly circulating amongst the guests and dancing the charleston in her red tasselled dress, drawing all eyes to her.
And as much as it sickened him to admit it, especially his.
He mentally pulled himself up; he wasn’t heading down that path again.
Crouching, he opened the double walnut doors, revealing two shelves of sparkling crystal glassware reflected in its mirrored back.
Selecting two, he placed them on the cabinet’s polished surface next to an ice bucket and assortment of decanters.
Filling hers with ice and soda water, he fixed a tumbler of brandy for himself and fought the urge to knock it back in one shot.
Instead, the click of ice cubes loud in the otherwise quiet room, he headed towards her.
Her eyes widened and his chest tightened, but still he kept going until he stood before her and held out her drink.
She raised a hand and her scent washed over him.
Was it her perfume, soap, shampoo? He didn’t know, only he’d never smelt its likeness anywhere else.
A mix of floral and something uniquely her that reminded him of springtime, that he never realised he’d stored in his memory banks, until now.
He turned abruptly and sat across from her, on the opposite plush chair.
‘To Ruby, diminutive in stature, immense in love,’ Ivy said, lifting her glass, mimicking the toasts of yesterday, that had lasted well into the night.
He raised his in response. ‘To Ruby, Little Big Boss,’ he replied with the affectionate nickname he’d always called her.
Ivy smiled, and his body throbbed, remembering the taste of her lips, their feel against his. But why? It definitely hadn’t been his first, nor last, kiss, so it made no sense that it was imbedded on his brain like no other.
‘Why are you here, Ivy Flame?’ He purposely used her stage name, not the one Ruby always called her, and he once had. ‘Now that everyone’s left.’
* * *
Ivy stiffened, Ethan hadn’t even used her real name like he had eight years ago.
She refused to let it hurt, as she tried to adjust to being here, without Ruby and with him.
He shouldn’t still have the power to make her knees tremble and make her ache for something she’d glimpsed in a fleeting moment of time.
Until she reminded herself, as she had back then, too, why she had a pact and why she could never, ever break it.
She was here today because of Ruby. That’s why her insides were twisted into knots; it had nothing to do with Ethan.
Finally, she got her brain to connect back to what he’d asked. ‘I’d been…’ Horrifyingly, her eyes watered and she blinked furiously.
Hounded by the press because of a marriage breakup that had absolutely nothing to do with her. She’d never been in a relationship with Ben and never planned to be. He’d been her married co-star, categorically nothing more.
‘Out of contact. No-one could reach me. I didn’t hear until it was too late.’
He looked far from convinced. He looked even better than she remembered, and she remembered plenty.
Dark haired and olive skinned, he showed his father’s Spanish heritage.
It was only his pale blue eyes that revealed his mother’s English one.
She and Ethan remained seated, but if they stood, her five feet ten inches without heels would make her eyes level with his lips.
Lips that turned up when he smiled, laughed. But he wasn’t doing either now.
His darkened jaw hinted at afternoon shadow, his black shirt with three top buttons undone revealed a smattering of dark hair and his turned-up cuffs, strong forearms. She gulped.
Mourning couldn’t diminish his raw masculinity.
Nor hide abs more suited to someone who physically built, not owned and ran, a world-famous luxury hotel empire.