10. Ivy
— ? —
Ivy
I wake up at six to find him gone from the porch swing.
For one disorienting moment, I think I dreamed the whole thing. The alley, Wade, Kurt’s car parked at my curb all night. The door I left open an inch because I couldn’t make myself lock it.
Then I look out the window and see his car still there, empty, and I hear water running in my kitchen.
He’s inside.
I come downstairs in my robe, hair tangled, armor nowhere to be found, and there he is. Standing at my sink, washing a mug, looking like he belongs in my kitchen even though he absolutely doesn’t.
“You came in.”
He turns off the water. Sets the mug in the rack. “The door was open.”
“The door was open an inch. That’s not an invitation.”
“Then what was it?”
I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t know what it was. A moment of weakness. A test I was hoping he’d fail. A crack in the fortress I’ve spent two years building. I hate being complicated.
“I made coffee,” he says. “There’s a cup for you on the counter.”
“I don’t want your coffee.”
“It’s your coffee. From your pot. I just pressed the button.”
He’s being reasonable. I hate when he’s reasonable.
“You should go.”
“Probably.”
“Kurt.”
“Ivy.”
We stare at each other across my tiny kitchen, and I’m suddenly very aware that I’m wearing nothing but a thin robe and he’s wearing yesterday’s clothes, rumpled from sleeping on my porch swing.
He looks tired. Human in a way he never let himself be when we were married.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I say. “When I come back down, you should be gone.”
“Okay.”
I wait for the argument. For the push, the negotiation, the Kurt Mason closing technique that always got him what he wanted.
It doesn’t come.
He just stands there, coffee cup in hand, letting me leave. Letting me set the terms. Letting me have the control I never had in our marriage.
I hate him for it. I hate how much I don’t hate him for it.
I go upstairs and I shower, trying to wash away the feeling of his eyes on me, the memory of him sitting on my porch all night, the knowledge that he came in when I left the door open and didn’t push for more.
When I come back down, he’s still there.
“I told you to leave.”
“You told me I should be gone. That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s exactly the same thing.”
“No, it’s not.” He sets his mug down on the counter. “Should implies a suggestion. A preference. Not a command.”
“This isn’t a board meeting. I’m not negotiating with you.”
“Then tell me to leave. Say the words. Mean them.”
I open my mouth. He waits.
“I can’t do this,” I finally say. “I can’t have you here, in my kitchen, acting like you have a right to be here.”
“I don’t have a right. I know that.”
“Then why won’t you go?”
“Because you haven’t actually asked me to.”
The truth of it lands in my chest and stays there, a weight I can’t shift. He’s right. I’ve said should and probably and you need to, but I haven’t said leave. I haven’t said the one word that would end this.
Because I don’t want him to go.
“Maddie will be up soon,” I say, because it’s easier than the truth. “She can’t see you here.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’ll get confused. She’ll start to think you’re a permanent fixture instead of a visitor.”
“Maybe I want to be a permanent fixture.”
“You don’t get to want that. You lost the right to want that.”
He moves closer, and I should step back, but I don’t. “I know I lost it. I know I threw it away with both hands. I know I spent a year treating you like furniture while I built an empire that doesn’t mean anything without you in it.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m not asking for another chance. I’m just asking you to stop pretending you want me to leave when we both know you don’t.”
“You arrogant son of a…”
He kisses me.
Or I kiss him. I’m not sure who moves first. His mouth is on mine and my hands are fisted in his shirt and years of loneliness are crashing through me like a wave I can’t outrun.
This is a mistake. This is such a mistake.
I don’t stop.
His hands come up to cup my face, gentle, reverent, like he’s holding something precious. I remember these hands. I remember what they feel like on my skin, how they used to trace patterns on my back while I fell asleep.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” I gasp against his mouth.
“I know exactly what it doesn’t mean.”
“I still hate you.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing. Don’t say anything.”
I pull him toward the stairs, and he comes willingly, no questions, no negotiations. For once in his life, Kurt Mason isn’t trying to close a deal. He’s just following my lead.
Upstairs. Door closed against the possibility of Maddie waking up, though the baby monitor shows her still sleeping, thumb in her mouth, oblivious to her mother making the worst decision of her life.
He stops at the threshold.
“Are you sure?”
“No. Shut up.”
I pull him in by his collar and kick the door closed behind us.
This is want without permission. Grief without resolution. A year of no detonating all at once.
My robe hits the floor and his sharp intake of breath fills the silence. His eyes travel down my body slowly, hungrily, and I feel it everywhere his gaze lands.
“This is just weakness,” I tell him, yanking his shirt over his head. “This means nothing.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m angry.”
“You’re perfect.” His hands find my waist, palms hot against my bare skin. “Every inch of you. God, Ivy.”
“Don’t make this romantic.”
“I’m not. I’m making it true.”
He walks me backward until my knees hit the mattress, and then we’re falling, tangled, graceless. The weight of him presses me into the sheets, and my body arches into his on instinct, muscle memory overriding years of carefully constructed walls.
Nothing like the careful choreography of our marriage bed. This is hunger with teeth. This is starvation finding a feast.
I rake my nails down his back hard enough to leave welts, and he groans against my throat, the vibration of it humming through my skin.
“Harder,” he breathes. “I deserve worse.”
“You deserve nothing.”
“Then give me nothing. I’ll take whatever scraps you throw.”
His mouth moves lower, trailing heat down my collarbone, the valley between my breasts, the soft plane of my stomach. He pauses at the silver stretch marks, tracing them with his tongue, and my hands fist in the sheets.
“Don’t.”
“You grew our daughter here.” His voice is wrecked. “You did that alone. You’re incredible.”
“It’s ugly.”
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Lower still. The raised scar from the C-section, pink and permanent. He presses his open mouth against it and stays there, breathing me in, and I feel wetness on my skin that isn’t sweat.
“Are you crying?”
“Yes.”
“Stop it.”
“I can’t.” He looks up at me, eyes red, face devastated. “I should have been there. I should have held your hand. I should have been the first person to hold her.”
“You weren’t.”
“I know.” He crawls back up my body, settling between my thighs, and the contact makes us both gasp. “Let me be here now. Please, Ivy. Let me be here.”
I answer by pulling his mouth to mine, swallowing his grief, drowning my own.
He moves against me and I stop thinking.
Just feeling. The slide of skin on skin, slick with sweat. The stretch and the fullness and the ache of something I’ve denied myself for so long. His hands everywhere, greedy and reverent at once, learning the new topography of my body like a man studying a map to buried treasure.
“So tight,” he groans into my neck. “So warm. I forgot. How did I forget?”
“You forgot a lot of things.”
“I know. I’m remembering now.” He shifts his angle and hits a spot that makes my vision blur. “I’m remembering everything.”
My nails dig into his shoulders. My legs wrap around his waist, pulling him deeper, demanding more. The headboard knocks against the wall in a rhythm that would be embarrassing if I could think, but I can’t think, I can only feel.
“Tell me this means nothing.” His voice is ragged, his hips relentless. “Say it again. I need to hear you lie to me.”
“It means nothing.”
“Again.”
“It means nothing.”
“Liar.” He buries his face in my hair, his whole body shuddering. “Beautiful liar. You feel everything. You’ve always felt everything. That was the problem. You felt it all and I felt nothing.”
“Shut up.”
“You feel this.” He drives deeper, and I cry out before I can stop myself. “You feel me. After everything I did, you still feel me inside you.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I hate that I want this.”
“I know.” His hand slides between us, finding the place that makes my back arch off the bed. “But you do want it. You want me. Even now. Even after.”
“Don’t make this mean something.”
“It already does.”
His fingers work in tandem with his hips, relentless, expert, remembering exactly how to unravel me. The pressure builds, coiling tighter with every thrust.
“Let go,” he whispers against my ear. “I’ve got you. For once in my life, I’ve got you.”
“Kurt…”
“Let go, Ivy. Fall apart. I’ll catch every piece.”
I shatter.
The orgasm rips through me, ruthless and blinding, and I hear myself cry out his name like something I’ll never be able to take back. He follows moments later, groaning my name into my shoulder, his whole body trembling with the force of his release.
We lie there afterward, panting, sweat-slicked, still tangled together.
Neither of us moves. Neither of us speaks.
What have I done?
Kurt turns his head on the pillow. I feel his eyes on me, waiting, wanting, hoping for a version of this moment that I can’t give him.
“Ivy…”
“Don’t.”
“We should talk about…”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” I sit up, pulling the sheet with me. “This was a mistake. A moment of weakness. It doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I’m out of bed now, grabbing my robe from the floor, cinching it tight around my waist. Armor back on. Walls going up. “This was just… bodies. Muscle memory. It doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“I’m not asking for forgiveness.”
“Good. Because you’re not getting it.”
I can’t look at him. If I look at him, I’ll see the hope in his eyes, and I’ll have to crush it, and I don’t know if I have the strength right now.
I walk to the dresser, open the bottom drawer and pull out a folder.
The papers land on the bed between us with a soft thump.
“What’s this?”
“Divorce papers.” I manage to keep my voice entirely steady, taking a quiet moment to feel proud of that composure. “I had them drawn up when Maddie was six weeks old. I’ve been waiting for the right time to file.”
He remains motionless and refuses to reach for the folder, staring at it as though it were a bomb that might detonate at any second.
“Open it.”
He does, slowly. Reading each page with that careful attention he gives to contracts worth millions. I watch his face and see nothing. The CEO mask is back on, impenetrable.
“You’ve had these for quite some time.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re showing them to me now. After this.”
“I want this finished.” I wrap my arms around myself. “Legally. Clean. No more ambiguity, no more maybe, no more wondering what we are to each other. I want it done.”
“Why now?”
I’m terrified because what just happened proved I’m not over you, and I need to be. I can’t build a life with one foot stuck in the past.
“Because it’s time.”
He closes the folder. Sets it on the nightstand.
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not signing.”
“You don’t get to refuse. This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Everything is a negotiation, Ivy. You taught me that.” He stands up, and I take a step back because he’s too close, too present, too much. “You want to know why you pulled out these papers right now? After what we just did?”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“You’re scared.” He says it simply, without accusation. “You’re scared because that meant something, and you’d rather end this legally than admit it.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Then look me in the eye and tell me you felt nothing. Tell me that was just muscle memory. Tell me you don’t still love me, and I’ll sign every page.”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
He waits with a quiet certainty that used to infuriate me when he applied it to work or business deals instead of us, but now he directs that exact confidence toward this moment.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“I can’t just… let you back in. After everything.”
“I’m not asking you to let me in. I’m asking you to stop trying to lock me out.”
He picks up the folder and slides it across the bed toward me. “Keep these. Put them back in your drawer. Pull them out again the next time you’re scared. But I’m not signing anything that makes staying easier for you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re going to have to actually choose, Ivy. Stay or go. Forgive or don’t. But these papers?” He taps the folder. “I will never sign them unless you tell me the words.”
He walks past me, out of the bedroom, down the stairs. I hear the front door open and close.
Through the window, I watch him get in his car and drive away. The divorce papers sit on the bed, unsigned, exactly where he left them.