Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Ivan
“Is it weird that I’m kind of excited?” Jane talked nonstop from the time we’d left the penthouse building and began our quick journey to my mother’s home on the other side of the city.
The Fairchild brothers didn’t want anyone to know where we would go, and they wanted us under the radar.
They mentioned something about beefing up security, but I told them that wouldn’t be necessary considering, no one had more security surrounding them than my mother did.
It was the last place anyone would think to look because I was a shadow.
It was on a need-to-know basis that I was even the bodyguard to the Fairchild daughters.
“I mean,” Jane stopped, fiddled with the edge of her jumper, and then wiggled in her seat. “I would have never thought we would get to meet your mother. What is she like? Is she, um, poor?”
“Jane,” Don warned from the front seat.
She rolled her eyes as if Don was her annoying father and not one of her bodyguards. “I know, I know, you can never assume someone’s social or monetary standing. Especially since, technically, I’m poor now.”
“You’ll see when we get there,” was all I could say because she would know as soon as we stepped into the lobby of the new building.
She would see the luxury in every single detail.
My mother wanted the best, and she always got it.
It helped that it had some of the best surveillance and was locked up tighter than the White House.
She wanted to feel safe after everything that had happened a few years prior, and I didn’t blame her.
If this was what made her feel safe, then that was all that mattered.
“She’s going to love me,” Jane said confidently. “I mean… I think she will. I’m good with moms. Well, except my mom. I think she hates me. She won’t answer any of my texts. I don’t think I have it in me to call. I think that would hurt more.”
My jaw flexed.
What did I say to that? My chest ached for her, but there was nothing to say…
Because right then, the car began to turn onto my mother’s street, and Jane leaned toward the window, mouth falling open as the building came into view.
A sweeping marble entrance. Gold sconces. Uniformed doormen. A doorman at the doorman’s station. A cascading water wall lit from beneath. Two armored SUVs were parked out front that looked like they came from a presidential motorcade.
“Oh,” Jane whispered.
Yeah.
Oh.
“My mom isn’t poor,” I said quietly, pushing open the door as Don pulled up to the curb. “Far from it, actually.”
“Wow,” she whispered. “She lives here? Here?”
“Yeah.”
“And she’s—like—normal?”
I huffed a humorless laugh. “Define normal.”
But before she could answer, the doors slid open, and two large men stepped out—my mother’s private security.
“Ivan Cristof,” one of them said with a nod. “Your mother’s expecting you.”
Jane held up a hand. “Wait. A. Fucking. Second.”
My sharp gaze slid to her. “You should really watch your language.”
“And you really shouldn’t give my sister googoo eyes all day when she’s going to marry someone else, but here we are.”
I sighed. “Okay.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Of course, she wasn’t wrong.
Teenagers had the infuriating superpower of seeing through every lie adults tried to tell themselves.
“You’re Ivan Cristof?” she demanded, stepping in front of me now like I’d personally betrayed her. “As in—Cristof Cristof? Like… Dimitri Cristof? The Dimitri Cristof?”
I closed my eyes. “Yes.”
“And why,” she continued, poking me in the chest for emphasis, “is someone like you babysitting us? Why are you our bodyguard? Why didn’t you tell us you were basically New York royalty with a side of… I don’t know—murdery muscle?”
“Jane—”
“No. No, no, no.” She circled me like a shark now.
“This whole time, you’re over here acting like some broody, mysterious guy with a tragic past and a weird allergy to smiling—and turns out you’re from the Cristof family?
Do you know how many TikTok edits Dimitri has?
Poppy is going to spontaneously combust when she hears this. ”
“Jane.” My voice dropped. “Stop.”
She stilled. “She knows, doesn’t she?”
I nodded my head.
A loud smack came a few seconds later as her palm met her forehead. “Of course. I’m so silly. You were at that engagement party, and then you were staying in that expensive ass hotel that we were in. I don’t know why I didn’t put it all together sooner.”
Don stood behind us with a smirk on his face. “Because you’re a teenager, which means you spend more time in your room with your face in your phone than you are watching the world around you.”
Her cheeks stained pink, and she motioned for us to get on with it. I dreaded what was waiting for me on the top floor, but it was now or never.
The front door opened to my mother’s home, and she rushed out to greet us.
Ever since everything happened with my father, she’d changed.
She was the woman I knew from my childhood, the woman that raised me in secret.
The woman our father never treasured, nor cared to.
She smiled more, ate what made her happy, and was always in the city instead of the stuff old money in upstate New York.
Don’t get me wrong, she loved her snotty, rich shit.
But she missed her boys, and this was the best way for her to be close to them because no one wanted to go back to that empty, depressing mansion again.
Her blonde hair was longer and hung in loose waves around her shoulders, and surprisingly, she wore sweatpants and a sweatshirt.
I was sure they were designer, but for the first time in my life, I couldn’t tell where they’d been created.
There were more smile lines around her blue eyes than normal, and where she’d once been skin and bones… She’d filled out some.
Mother wasted no time pulling me into a crushing hug. “Ivan! I didn’t think I would see you again until the wedding. I missed you.” She pulled back and looked over my shoulder at Jane. Her face softened as she took in the now-shy teenager lurking behind me. “Who is this pretty thing?”
Jane raised her chin and took a step forward, all confidence and grace. “I’m Jane Fairchild, ma’am.”
My mother’s eyes warmed in a way I rarely saw. “Fairchild,” she repeated gently, as if tasting the name. “Well, aren’t you just lovely?”
She opened her arms.
To my absolute shock, Jane stepped into them. My mother hugged her like she’d been waiting to do it forever.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmured into Jane’s hair. “You’re safe here.”
My throat tightened—not something I would ever admit out loud.
Jane pulled back slowly, staring up at my mother with wide eyes. “Thank you. You have… a really nice place.”
My mother laughed softly. “You should see the bathroom.”
Jane’s eyes sparkled. “Can I?”
“Of course,” my mother said, linking their arms like they were already friends. “Come, I’ll show you everything.”
Just as they passed through the threshold of her home, she shot a look over her shoulder at me.
I hadn’t told her everything, but enough for her to know that I needed somewhere safe for my friends.
But now that she knew Jane’s last name, she knew that this wasn’t just friends.
She knew Jane’s father. She probably knew the shit he’d been involved in, and now she was obviously wondering what I was involved with as well.
She held my gaze a moment longer, then turned away with Jane, her hand resting gently on the girl’s back as she led her deeper inside.
My mother would keep Jane and Poppy safe. I didn’t doubt that.
But keeping them safe wasn’t the same as forgiving me for bringing this storm to her doorstep, and judging by the look she’d given me… I was about to eat shit for it.