39. defeat doesn’t suit you, dear
CHAPTER 39
DEFEAT DOESN’T SUIT YOU, DEAR
IVY
The peak of summer brings back a much-missed warmth. Unfortunately, my allergies hitched a ride as well. Still, I brave the pollen strongholds to soak in every ounce of Vitamin D I can.
Sometimes my lungs can’t fully expand until I’ve walked outside. Other days I don’t feel quite myself until I’m looping a reformer strap on my wrist, Emma’s glowing smile reflected back at me on my left. Other times it’s not until I’m sitting next to Lincoln on his sofa, listening to him practice a script.
I’m still searching. Maybe what I’m looking for isn’t tangible.
Except then I find Lincoln, and it’s as if everything I could ever want to see or touch has been distilled into a single point. A nexus of want. Mind, body, soul. Longing in unison.
As soon as the elevator doors open, I’m on him, taking the laptop out of his hands and climbing onto the couch to straddle his lap. “I have news.”
Since leaving Darcy’s office, coming here is all I’ve thought about. Of course, traffic was bumper to bumper all the way down 17th Street, so what should have been a fifteen-minute bus ride turned into an hour. It did give me time to text Emma and Fil, though.
Emma said to sleep on it (called it), then added that Charlie said to go with my gut. Fil’s message included at least three GIFs and most said the same thing.
I agree with all of them. Which is why I need Lincoln to be the tiebreaker. I also want to know what he thinks, what he’d do in my situation.
Lincoln drops his hands to my hips. “Hello, darling.”
I’m all ready to launch into Darcy’s offer, but something is wrong. He’s too quiet, too stiff.
“What is it?” I ask.
His gaze is lowered, stuck somewhere around my collarbone, while his hands— his freaking hands — knead and massage my thighs. I’m trying to keep it together because this seems important, even if my blood is racing right now.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
I’m sure. I cover his hands with mine, stilling them. “Tell me.” Let me be here for you.
He fights it, his jaw rolling under calm eyes. He’s so damn effusive.
“Kyle knows about Pulse.”
Dread lands heavy in my gut. Oh, shit. Of all the people to find out, I can only imagine that asshole’s reaction. Even if he didn’t immediately go for an insult (and I’ll run naked down Main Street if he didn’t), he definitely followed it up with something disgusting.
He’s so fucking predictable.
Lincoln’s lips pull taut. “The one time the prick decides to rub his two fucking brain cells together, and it had to be now.”
“Fuck, Lincoln. I’m so sorry.” But it’s a good point. How did he find out? I can’t imagine Kyle downloading any app made by women, for women.
If I dial 666, will the devil appear? I think it’s time he created a new hell, and I have the perfect guinea pig.
“Now, darling, I know you aren’t going to say something ridiculous like this was your fault.” Lincoln tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, brushing his fingers along my jaw. He knows how much I love that, but I won’t let him distract me.
Because I’m suddenly remembering the dinner. Fuck. The dinner. The notification. I press my head into my hands. “It is my fault, and that’s twice now my mouth has gotten you into big trouble.” It’s a wonder he hasn’t broken up with me yet.
“How do you figure that?”
“Reed’s dinner. I knocked your cell off the table, and Kyle picked it up. There was a message from Pulse on your phone, addressed to Mr. Silver. I didn’t even think.”
He curls his hand around my chin, lifting until I’m hit with the full force of his gaze. Every time I think I’m prepared for it, I find myself falling all over again.
“Ivy, you did nothing wrong.”
Tingles spread down my spine. “What’s his game, anyway? Why bring it up?”
It’s a ridiculous question. I know it before I’ve asked. Lincoln said it at the masquerade— the only reason Kyle does anything is because he wants something.
Lincoln drags a hand through his hair, but it’s already a lost cause, spilling out of place. “My sodding turd of a cousin wants me to convince Reed to hire him.”
“As what? The village idiot?”
Finally, a laugh breaks free, the first sign of the sun under his stormy expression. “Quite. No, he wants a title role or he’ll send the audio to my brother. Not that it’ll get him what he wants. Reed would rather lick the seat of a toilet than hire him. Or me.”
Fuck Kyle. It’s Lincoln’s business to tell his family about his life in his own way, on his terms. I won’t let that asshat ruin it for him.
“So there’s no stopping him?” I refuse to believe that, but if it is true, then… “Okay, worst-case scenario, he shows Reed. What does it even matter if you record erotica anyway?”
I’m not naive, but this is his family we’re talking about. Love is more important than some outdated— and, frankly, misguided— perception of sex work.
It hurts to see how resigned he is to accepting their judgment. It’s so far from the charismatic, confident man he is. “Even if he doesn’t, and it’s a very distant if, I’m imagining the highly cautious businesses my brother’s company relies on will care a great deal.”
Fuck. He’s right. “We have to get ahead of it. Then he won’t have any leverage. Just tell Reed what’s going on, and we can?—”
“No,” he says, and the word drops between us like a stone. “My brother has made it perfectly clear he isn’t interested in what I have to say, especially where Kyle is concerned. Even if he did listen long enough for me to tell him about the blackmail, I’m not interested in the sermon he’ll deliver once he discovers I fake orgasms for a living.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. He’s never spoken about his work this way before. It’s as if his mouth is moving, but someone else’s words are coming out. “Don’t say it like that. It’s more than that, and you know it.”
“Reed won’t see it that way.”
Defeat doesn’t suit him. I’m used to all the easy charm of a man who has never worried about money in his life, stitched and woven around an iron-clad determination, and a body that will finish the job if his words aren’t enough.
Not this.
“Who cares? You’re just going to roll over and play dead instead of being an adult and facing this? What about Darcy?”
He shakes his head, dashing my hopes. His hands have stopped moving now, every part of him tenses under me. “I adore my sister, but she’s the worst liar on the planet. If we tell her, I’ll barely have the sentence out before the whole family knows.”
It’s hard to leave his lap, but I need to think. Slowly, I push away from him, and the fact that Lincoln doesn’t even try to stop me makes everything worse.
My painting is still hanging on the wall behind him. I stare at those little paint dots and pray for inspiration. “Okay, then. We handle it ourselves. This has got to have something to do with how weird Kyle’s been, right? All the sucking up?”
He nods, smoothing his hands down his jeans, shoulders slumped. “I had the same thought.”
I gasp. “Oh my god,” I say, grabbing Lincoln’s bicep. “Oh my god.” Of course. Why the hell didn’t I put this together before? “The day we flew out to the factory. Reed was all tense and broody and dragged you back for a family meeting.”
“I remember.”
“You said it was a security thing, right?”
He hums in agreement.
Come on, he’s a smart guy. Why isn’t he getting this yet? “Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?” I ask, and I see the penny drop.
A smile finally cuts through his broody fog. “You think Kyle— a man who probably pays someone to wipe his own arse for him— tried to hack into the trust?”
“Wait, hack?” He’s right. Kyle’s password is probably something like 69God. He couldn’t hack into a pencil case.
“The accounts are protected, thankfully. But Reed was alerted when someone attempted to access them, and when that didn’t work, tried to brute-force their way into it.”
Jesus, it sounds like something out of a bad movie. “Can’t they tell who it was?”
Lincoln carefully avoids my gaze, playing with the pull tie on the side of my shirt, rubbing the cotton between his fingers. “Not that he told me, but we’re not exactly swapping recipes with each other right now, so that could either mean nothing, or they don’t have enough to point at anyone.”
I trust Lincoln’s instincts, but my gut is telling me it’s Kyle, and it knows how to clock douchebags.
“So, it could have been Kyle.” His silence is enough to tell me he doesn’t believe it yet. That’s fine. I can work on that. “I’m not saying he did it himself. You said he pays other people to do the dirty work. What I want to know is why.”
“That’s easy,” Lincoln says. “Money.”
I groan. The guy needs a new move. “God, that’s so boring.”
My Lincoln reappears when he laughs and pulls me back into his lap, strong hands bracketing my hips. “I’ll tell him you’re disappointed.”
There’s a conversation I’d pay to see. Fuck, I knew Kyle was a dick, but this is low even for him. “I want to dig into this douchebag. No one treats you like this and gets away with it.”
I don’t know if there’s a word for the man who is my fake boyfriend/friend/landlord who once bent me over and railed me to the best orgasm of my life, but the one thing I know is that I’m fucked.
The worst part? It’s not even the sex. Don’t get me wrong, the sex was phenomenal. A multitalented, multidimensional kind of amazing. I can’t tell whether it’s better or worse to look at his hands and remember them gripping my throat and filling me up until I was begging for his cock.
The issue is the way he uses those same hands to reassure me. Brushing the sensitive part of my neck with his thumb, laying his palm on my thigh under the table, holding my hand as we talk.
There’s fondness in his eyes now, sparkling like glitter in sunlight. Like he thinks it’s sweet that I care. Like he isn’t used to anyone who isn’t family giving a shit. It breaks my heart. “You don’t need to involve yourself for me. This is a family problem. I’ll handle it.”
It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, but what else did I expect? He’s right. It’s not my family, not even close. I’m only the make-believe girlfriend, the rehearsal for the real thing. Nothing more.
I scramble off his lap. It’s ungraceful and obvious, and I couldn’t care less right now because he’s looking at me with those sweet silver eyes, and if I don’t get out of here, I might actually start believing my own lies.
“Right, of course. Family. I’ll, uh, get out of your hair, then.”
“Ivy?”
I don’t look back as I call for the elevator and leave. Now I remember why I didn’t want to let myself fall for the fantasy. Because when reality hits, it hits hard.