Dearest Ivie

by J. R. Ward

  As he did that stare-at-her thing again, she put her hand on the closed leather menu. "This is getting really heavy and deep for a first date, isn't it."

  "This doesn't feel like a first date."

  Ivie found herself swallowing hard, mostly because she felt the same way. And then there were those eyes of his. Low-lidded, intense...compelling.

  "I always thought aristocrats were frivolous, somehow," she blurted. "You're not like that."

  Silas's broad chest rose and fell. And then he picked up his menu. "Frivolous is a fair critique of many of us, for sure."

  "What do you do for a living?"

  He opened the leather cover and peered over the top of it at her. "Do you want me to be honest?"

  "You better be. I'm putting everything on the table, I expect you to do the same."

  Silas smiled, glanced at the menu. Shut the thing. Put it down in front of him. "Do you know what you'd like?"

  "The fettuccini Alfredo. That is my idea of heaven. Cream, cheese, and noodles, and I will not apologize for picking that over the salad and grilled chicken most of your dates usually have."

  "I don't go on a lot of dates."

  "Really? I find that really hard to believe."

  "It's true. And as for what I do? To be honest, I'm rich for a living. I started with assets that have been in my family for generations, and then I pulled a Forrest Gump with them, investing in a fruit company in the eighties. I hung on through the non-Jobs era and came out on the iUniverse side of things like you read about. Then I jumped on a jungle company called Amazon in the nineties and now I'm into Bitcoin. So yes, I don't do anything, and feel free to judge me. I know I do."

  "Good Lord, you have it made in the shade. I am so jealous."

  His eyes drifted off toward the fire. "Don't be. I would trade it all to be someone else."

  * * *

  --

  "Would you care for the check?"

  As their waitress threw the inquiry out, it was clear by the exhaustion in her voice that she was so flippin' ready to have the pair of them out of sight, out of mind.

  "That would be great." Silas sat back. "Please compliment the chef for us? Everything was fantastic."

  "My pleasure."

  Even though her tone was more along the lines of My God my feet hurt.

  "I would like to pay for this." Silas motioned around their table, which had been cleared of eighty percent of its contents. All that was left were their coffee cups and the half of a cannoli he hadn't eaten. "I respect you as a modern female and don't want you to feel--"

  "Hell yeah, you can pay. This was your idea and I'm not blowing part of my rent money this month just to prove I'm a feminist. I can do that for free by demanding respect and getting it."

  He threw his head back and laughed. "Fair enough."

  Ivie took a deep breath and glanced at the fire. "Thank you. For this. I didn't expect..."

  "Didn't expect what?"

  "I didn't expect to have anything in common with you. Or to like you, actually."

  "So I'm not that bad, huh," he said with a wink. "Surprise."

  As she studied those features of his, she found it interesting that after the shock of his physical beauty had faded, she was noticing imperfections that she liked even better than the forest-for-the-trees attractiveness: One of his eyebrows was higher than the other, his nose was ever so slightly crooked at the tip, his jaw was growing a shadow of beard already.

  All of this made him real...which, she supposed, made him obtainable. Not that she wanted--

  Oh, who the hell was she kidding.

  "Shall we?"

  Silas got up first, and grimaced as if something hurt. When she glanced over, he muttered. "Damn workouts."

  "You spend time in the gym?"

  "Try to." He picked her coat up off the back of her chair and held it open for her. "That's probably the problem. Better if it's consistent, right?"

  "I've heard that." Stepping into the wool, she felt his hands brush her shoulders, but--tragically--they did not linger. "I've always thought the exercise mentality was a cult, however, so I'm not your best resource on this one."

  That laugh of his made her eyes close for a moment. She really didn't want the night to end--

  "May I just say, I love your perfume."

  "Ahh..." Did she mention it was air freshener? NOPE. "Thank you."

  Together, they walked out past the hostess stand, and then he was holding the door open so they could leave the restaurant. Strolling under the awning, they were side by side without touching--and yet she was exquisitely aware of his body and the way he moved and how tall he was.

  When they got to the end of the arching cover, they stopped. The parking lot was empty except for one car, and she tried to figure out what kind it was. Looked big and fancy, and it was not a Mercedes.

  "I'm over there." He looked at her. "Would you like a ride home? And I'm not asking with any other expectation than dropping you at the curb and waiting to make sure you are safely inside. It ends right there--what's the human expression? Scout's honor?"

  He put up his palm and made a "V" of his forefinger and middle finger.

  "I think that's a peace sign?" she said.

  Silas split his fingers right down the middle, two on each side. "This?"

  "Vulcan salute."

  "What?"

  "From Star Trek."

  "How about this?" He put up his middle finger only.

  "I'm pretty sure you're telling me to fuck off right now."

  Silas retracted that one quick. "This is not working."

  Ivie smiled, but then got serious. "On that note...I don't how to do this."

  "If it's instructing me on human hand signals, you're doing a bang-up job of things."

  Taking a deep breath, she stared out over the night sky. The heavens were clear, except she couldn't see the stars because of the ambient light not just of the restaurant, but from the glow of the city off in the distance.

  When she exhaled, her breath came out into the cold as a burst of white. "I know I'm not supposed to say this because it's too soon, but I don't like to waste time, and if I don't know where I stand, I'm going to find it out. Bottom line, I'm not insecure, I'm impatient and I like clarity--and you might as well know that up front." She glanced back at him. "So what are we doing here? I'm happy to be friends, acquaintances, or try another date. The outcome really doesn't matter to me, I just need to know what the landscape looks like."

  Silas's eyes traced over her features, and he was so serious, so very, very serious. "I don't have time to waste. And instead of finding out what things look like, I want to know what they feel like."

  With that, he took her face in his palms, his thumbs brushing her cheeks...and her heart thundered in her chest as he slowly, inexorably lowered his head.

  Just before their lips touched, he whispered, "Is this okay?"

  She didn't trust her voice so she put her hands on his upper arms and nodded.

  His lips were gentle and soft, the kiss light enough so it was little more than a brief meeting between them, yet the contact was so powerful she felt the sensation throughout her entire body. And, oh, the contrast. The night air was frigid, his mouth against hers was warm, every inch of her was hot.

  "Alive," she whispered.

  "What?"

  "I feel so alive. Don't stop."

  His arms went around her and then she was up against his body, the differences in their heights and builds not lock and key, but a shattering jolt that was all pleasure and anticipation. Now the kiss was deeper, a fusing of their lips, and she gave into the impulse to move her hands up to those shoulders of his. Even through his suit jacket, she could feel the shifting muscles, and she had a feeling he was playing about the whole not-in-the-gym thing.

  It made her wonder what he looked like without his clothes.

  What he felt like.

  When they pulled back, there was a lot of staring. A deep breat
h on both sides. A whole lot of do-we-dare.

  "I'm going to just dematerialize," she heard herself say.

  And as it was kind of hard to kick your own conscience in the ass, she then cleared her throat and smiled. "So thank you. For tonight."

  "I'll call you?"

  "Sure."

  On that note, she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. Easier said than done, but after a moment or two, she managed to avoid the embarrassment of having to call an Uber and ghosted out. When she re-formed a block away from her apartment building, she was in a daze, clips from John Hughes movies going through her head, particularly from Pretty in Pink.

  Rich boy, poor girl, true love.

  Except, of course, he wasn't a boy, she wasn't poor, and neither of them was human. But still.

  Oh, and this wasn't true love.

  Letting herself into the building, she headed to her apartment and dead-bolted the door closed behind her. Leaning back against the panels, she looked around at her flea market furniture and her one splurge, which was an area rug from Pottery Barn. At the moment, she was saving for a nice head-and footboard to her queen-sized mattress.

  Everything appeared diminished compared to how it had seemed before she had left. Then again, she could have lived in a palatial estate, and she would have felt the same way. It wasn't about that dinner.

  It was the kiss.

  For that brief moment, the volume of her world had been cranked up to Metallica levels, and she had loved the booming bass, and the spinning and twirling, and the sense that her heart had taken flight and not left her body, but taken her physical form along with it.

  Night-to-night life, the plodding along at work, the paying of bills, the moderating of how much she spent and ate and drank, was an even metronome that, over time, would create a very nice existence for herself. But there was a black-and-white, monotoned quality to it all.

  When she had been kissing Silas, her movie had been in color and with full sound, IMAX all the way.

  And it was hard to transition back from that.

  Chapter Three

  "Of course he's going to call you."

  As Rubes threw that one out across the clinic break room, Ivie nodded, but didn't say anything. It had been three nights since The Date, as she had come to think of it, and she hadn't heard from Silas.

  For the first night, she had been relieved he hadn't reached out. For one, it preserved the perfection of the time they'd had, that kiss, that floating feeling she'd had afterward. Even though she didn't like to admit it, she had put that moment when she'd stood against him in a mental snow globe, her recalls of the memory the shake that brought the golden sparkles down all over her once again.

  For another, she hadn't wanted him to be desperate to see her. Everything was so charged between them, from their chance meeting to the date to the kiss, that a quiet, reasonable part of her brain was sending out warning signals to pump the brakes, slow down, stay tight. The fact that he hadn't rushed to contact her suggested he might be feeling the same way.

  Plus, she had to work anyway, her four-night-on, two-night-off schedule forcing her to focus on other things.

  "I am so proud of you, Ivie." Rubes took a bite of her tuna salad sandwich. "You stuck your head out, and you took a chance, and look how it all went well."

  "I think the jury is still out, cuz." Ivie split open her single-serve of Lay's. "And that would be true even if he had called me."

  The second night after the date? Her memories had still been sharp, but the physical sensations were starting to fade, each thought of Silas or recollection more an echo of the passion than the sizzle itself. Optimism had still been high, though, and she had expected, at any moment, for him to hit her up. It had made her breaks when she could check her phone exciting, a spring on her step taking her into this break room like she was about to win a lottery.

  Now, with night three, doubts were starting to creep in, even as she pointed out to herself that that was ridiculous. People got busy, even those who were, by their own admission, rich for a living. Besides, like he owed her anything?

  Ivie looked at the clock on the far side of the tiled room. Two more hours and her shift was over, another eight-to-four in her rearview mirror. And then she got to go back to her apartment and do laundry. Yay.

  "So are you going to move over to VIP?" she asked before popping another potato chip in her mouth. "I mean, more money is always good."

  Rubes tilted her head to the side. "Are you changing the subject?"

  "Nope." She crammed her fingers into the tiny bag. "I'm just going to miss you, is all."

  "Aww. I'm going to miss you, too."

  "So is that a yes?"

  Rubes nodded. "I told Havers I would start next week. The raise is good, the shift hours are longer, though. I'll be three nights and days here, four off."

  "You're sleeping here?"

  "In the bunkhouse. But I'll be making an extra five hundred a week."

  Ivie recoiled. "Are you kidding me? I didn't know it was that much."

  "The rich can pay for sure."

  Havers was the race's only healer, and his subterranean clinic, which was at its new site across the river, treated everything from stubbed toes and bad hangnails to the most complex of cases including births, which were all high risk by definition, and advanced elderly care. Nobody was ever turned away, even if they could not pay, and there was one standard of care for all: the very best Havers and his nursing staff could give.

  There was, however, a special unit for people who, by virtue of their wallet size and bloodline, could afford to be indulged--and Ivie had long supposed that that restricted-access part of the clinic was what paid for the many who were too poor to afford what they needed. Havers was running a business, after all, one with fixed costs like drugs and employees and expensive equipment that broke or needed maintenance--and then there was the reality that the massive facility had to be heated, cooled, and lighted.

  So yes, if the rich wanted to check in, either because they had a problem or thought they had a problem, Havers and his special team put on their kid gloves and did what they did for the rest of the commoners, and charged the aristocracy an arm and a leg.

  Rubes was going to be a perfect addition to that part of the clinic. She was beautiful and cheerful and so positive, you couldn't help but be uplifted. She was also wired, so working round the clock and catching sleep when she could wasn't going to affect her performance.

  And yeah, wow, two thousand extra a month.

  That was a whole lot of Zappos.

  "Don't worry, Ivie, I'll still be around lots. I can come out and we'll take our breaks together."

  "I'd like that." Ivie collapsed her empty bag in her fist and got up, the chair squeaking over the clean floor. "I really would."

  "And you didn't hear from that private job again?"

  "Oh, I don't expect to."

  Ivie snagged her empty sandwich bag and Coke can and headed across to the trash can. The break room had a kitchenette and three round tables with chairs, along with lockers, a sofa in front of a TV that was usually off, and a lending library of mostly current People magazines and not-as-current hardcovers and paperbacks. A door toward the back opened up to a bathroom that had showers and toilets, and then there was another one that led to the bunkhouse, where the bedrooms for the nursing staff were lined up one by one as if in a hotel.

  "How's your patient in four?" Rubes asked as she got up and ditched her trash, too.

  "Getting better. Bone has set beautifully and her hellren came in and fed her again, so she'll be out by tomorrow night at the latest."

  "Don't you love a good outcome?"

  "Yes, Rubes, I do."

  * * *

  --

  And this was why you didn't let males you'd just been on a first date with take you home.

  As Ivie shut her apartment door and dead bolted it, she thought back to the magic float she'd been rocking when she'd come h
ome after The Date. Yeah...nope. Right now, she was pulling a pathetic polar opposite of that happy fizzy buzz, her feet plodding their way down to her bedroom, her back aching from work, her head thumping in a dull way that made up for its lack of magnitude with tenacity.

  "It's fine," she said into the silence as she flopped down on her bed. "All good."

  After kicking off her shoes and dropping her bag, she fell back onto the duvet and stared at the ceiling. Man, she'd definitely made the right move not getting into that car with that guy. Things had been so electric between them, she might have done something stupid like invite him up here, and then where would she be with all this he-isn't-calling--

  Her phone went off in her purse and she glanced at the clock on her bedside table. Right on schedule, it was her dad calling to make sure she'd gotten home safely from work. And she was tempted to let it go into voicemail, but that was cruel because he would worry.

  With a grunt, she sat back up and dropped her hand into her bag to fish around--

  Unknown Number. And not "unknown" as it was ten digits that were not entered into her contacts list, but literally the title Unknown Number.

  Accepting the call, she said, "Hello?"

  "I can't wait any longer. I did the best I could."

  Ivie smiled so wide, she put her hand up to cover the dopey expression even though she was alone. "Well, as I live and breathe, Silas, son of Mordachy."

  His deep voice was raspy in a fantastic way. "I didn't want to come across as overeager. So I waited. And waited. My goal was to make it to tomorrow so I didn't look weak and clingy, but I cracked."

  "I'm glad you called. And if you're brave enough to admit you broke down earlier than planned, I'll meet you on that playing field and tell you I was starting to worry you wouldn't be back."

  Oh, that laugh. "Not a chance. I can't stop thinking about you--but not in a stalker way, I promise."

  "A stalker wouldn't have lasted this long."

  "Exactly, so I'm a safe bet. How's work been?"

  Now, as she lay down again, she was back in the float-zone. "Good. One of my patients is going home tomorrow night after a complicated surgery, so I feel like I did my job. How's being rich?"

  "Oh, you know, I gold-leafed my toenails tonight, got the paws on my leopard rotated, and topped things off by burning a couple of Picassos in my fireplace. Same ol', same ol'."