by Jill Shalvis
“Still not it.” Tina walked in a slow circle around everyone’s favorite nerdy optometrist. Suddenly, Tina smiled. “You got some.”
Haley opened her mouth and then shut it, her face much redder now. “Um . . .”
Tina grinned and high-fived her.
Then she turned on everyone else. “Okay, your girl here’s slacking cuz she used up all of her good energy in bed last night. You guys are going to pick up her slack. Kick-kick-punch!”
They all groaned and went back to burning calories.
“You slept with Dee?” Ivy whispered to Haley as she punched her bag. “The night of the hike.”
“And the two nights since.” Haley bit her lower lip. “But there’s been very little sleeping involved.”
They all laughed, genuinely thrilled for Haley, who’d had a tough time in the love department. And Ivy loved how blissful Haley looked. She’d never begrudge anyone finding some holiday cheer, never would, but she sure wouldn’t mind some of her own.
With Kel, the guy she’d told they weren’t a “we.”
And she meant it, she reminded herself. You need to let go of the idea of having him in your life.
“Make this your best one yet,” Tina yelled at them. “Especially you, Ivy Snow, you’re slacking.”
She was. Because while Haley had been getting lucky since the hike, all Ivy had been doing was thinking about getting lucky. It was all Kel’s fault. He’d kissed her, really kissed her, and apparently all her brain cells had leaked out.
It was the only explanation she could come up with for why she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Or the kiss.
She hadn’t seen him since. The night before last she’d taught her once a month cooking class at the rec center, which she did for extra cash. Last night she’d had dinner with Sadie, who’d said Caleb and Kel were up north in Sonoma on a friend’s horse ranch.
Just as well.
She’d lied to him and he’d caught her at it, and while he’d said he understood, she knew he couldn’t really understand at all.
Or forgive.
He wasn’t that guy.
So it was for the best that she not see him again. She just wished . . . hell. She wished it wasn’t for the best.
“Hands up!” Tina yelled. “Bust it out with every ounce you’ve got left, and you’d better have lots of ounces left since we’ve still got twenty more minutes to go.”
Oh goodie. Twenty more minutes. Ivy tried to concentrate, but there was a lot tumbling around in her head, and though she always, always had reasons for doing the things she did, this time she was having trouble remembering why she’d ever thought letting Kel get close was a good idea.
And that kiss . . .
She sighed. Yeah, it’d been her idea, but when he’d teasingly boasted about his skills, she’d dismissed his promises as pure—and stupid—male ego. And then one touch of his mouth and she’d just about forgotten her own name. He’d truly dazzled her.
Only she hadn’t dazzled him quite as much if he’d still been able to keep his wits, enough to call her out on her lies about Brandon.
It was second nature, making up stories. Hiding in plain sight was what had always kept her safe, like when they’d been living just outside of Atlanta through one very hot, humid summer. Her brother—charismatic, charming, and actually very sweet—had been chasing one get-rich scheme or another as always. He had the best of intentions—or he tried anyway—if not a gray moral code. So mostly when Ivy would get home from school, her mom would still be sleeping and she’d be on her own. Truth was, she liked those hours alone best. But that day in particular, being alone had worked against her because when Brandon screwed over his new—and scary—associates, they’d of course come looking for him.
They’d been conning drunks at the pool for weeks. But Brandon had gotten greedy and stupid at the same time, and thought it’d be a good idea to turn the con on his guys, stealing the whole pot for himself.
Good thing she’d been skinny back then, because once again she’d been able to escape out of a window and run.
Just one of many, many times.
It’d never occurred to her to call the police for help. The police were the ones who brought her mom home late at night after she’d started a fight in a bar. Or her brother when he’d done something stupid. He usually ended up in juvie. Such as when he stole her new principal’s car and crashed it. They’d had to move, which they’d done a lot, but Ivy hadn’t minded that time because she liked where they’d ended up.
Until Brandon had gotten high with some friends and burned their trailer down, leaving them homeless.
So it was really no wonder that she’d learned to have her own back because there was no one else to have it for her.
Hence the kickboxing class.
They’d lived in their car for a while after that, in a different town. Just par for the course. It’d been about survival, with things like material possessions and friends being a luxury she couldn’t afford.
Besides, even if she’d been the sort of girl who easily made friends, she never could’ve had them over or let them into her world. What if Brandon, or one of his guys, did something stupid and someone got hurt? And the odds were in favor of him doing just that. She couldn’t risk it, so she hadn’t.
When she’d run away to go off on her own, she’d actually thought she’d never have to worry again. But she’d made mistakes. She and her mom kept in casual touch every few months and Ivy hadn’t thought to tell her mom not to pass her current whereabouts on. So just about every time she’d started over, working in bar kitchens mostly, Brandon had shown up, flashed his forgive-me smile, and played the family card. Lonely and anxious for a friendly face, she’d usually fallen for it and let him suck her into his vortex, where he’d then ruined everything. Like the time she’d been in LA working at food services at one of the studios and Brandon had talked his way in to see her and then stolen a bunch of costumes. He’d sold them for big bucks and got her fired and nearly arrested as an accomplice.
After that, she’d gone back to moving around more often so no one could pull the rug out beneath her. She’d still been underage, but had portrayed herself as legal so as to not get social services on her ass. She’d stuck to kitchen jobs and lying low.
But that had gotten old, and she’d yearned for more. It’d been a few years since she’d seen Brandon, so . . . She told herself it was okay to settle down and make a place for herself, including friends. And she’d done just that here in San Francisco. She loved her life here, loved being her own boss, loved the people in her life, loved everything about it. But . . . even she knew you didn’t lie to those you cared about.
But how else to protect herself from her past and keep this new life she wanted so badly? Telling little white lies about where she’d come from and the people in her past was what kept her safe.
And her friends.
And she was okay with that.
But she hoped to God whoever had broken into her truck was a stranger felon and not her brother the felon . . . Yes, sometimes she actually missed him. He’d always done his best to take care of her, by whatever means possible, and in spite of all his screwups, he was family and she cared about him. And sometimes, she was just damn lonely for family.
But he’d come in like Hurricane Brandon and blow up her life in some manner, she knew that for a fact. So yeah, her brother was a much better brother from far away. Very far away.
“Unleash your inner athlete!” Tina yelled to the class. “Bring it out with every ounce you have left.”
“Uh, I have negative ounces left,” Sadie whispered to Ivy.
“Just one more!” Tina yelled at her, apparently having superpower hearing. “Okay,” she said when Sadie and Ivy did the extra. “Two more. Make it three. Leave it all in the room!”
Tina said that a lot, leave it all in the room, and it was actually pretty great advice. She was going to go with that. Leave it all in the room . .
. She would concentrate on the things she knew she could handle. Her taco truck. Saving every spare penny for the condo’s down payment. Strengthening the ties with her friends.
She didn’t include Kel in this list. Much as she craved him, he wasn’t for her.
Not even a little bit.
She’d decided on permanence in her life, and Kel—sex-on-a-stick or not—was just about as temporary as they came.
When class was finally over, they crawled to the showers and shared an Uber to the Pacific Pier Building where they all worked. Halfway there, Sadie’s phone buzzed an incoming call from Caleb. She answered, listened, smiled, and handed the phone to Ivy.
“Need a favor,” Caleb said without preamble. That was Caleb. Busy 24–7, he liked to get right to the point.
“Whatever you need,” she said.
This broke him out of business mode enough to snort. “The Ivy I know doesn’t give anyone that kind of power.”
“True,” she said. “But you went through your better half to get to me so I’m not worried you’re looking for anything icky. Plus I owe you, we both know that. We also both know you won’t ask me for anything I can’t do, so . . . spill it. You’re wasting the day away.”
He snorted again. “I’m going to take you up on the ‘whatever you need’ thing in spite of the fact that I happen to know you’re not going to like it. But tough, you already said you’d do it.”
“Okay,” Ivy said slowly. “But now you’re scaring me, so start talking.”
“I need you to cater an event tonight.”
This was not anything unusual. It was part of their deal. Part of the deal of him matching her down payment on the condo was that she pay him back by catering his fancy events at cost. And even then, she got way more out of it than he did because he was high-powered and high profile. Catering events for him always led to other gigs. She’d tried to tell him he was only helping her out even more, but he said he got what he needed out of the deal and was glad she got something out of it as well.
If he wasn’t already taken, and wasn’t a complete control freak, and didn’t wear clothes on a daily basis that cost more than her annual worth, she could’ve fallen in love with him. “Short notice,” she said. “For how many?”
“A hundred.”
She sucked in a breath and remembered there was another reason she didn’t fall in love with him. Because she also usually hated him. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. It’s going to be at a private residence in Nob Hill. Your truck won’t be able to get up the driveway. Get Jenny to help you prep and I’ll cover her hours. I’m sending someone to pick up you and the food at six p.m.”
“Alright,” she said. “Sure. And thanks.”
“No, thank you for the amazing food,” he said.
“You don’t know yet if it will be amazing.”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “See you tonight.”
He disconnected in her ear, and still smiling at his confidence in her, she handed the phone back.
“If he hadn’t put a better, bigger smile on my face just this morning, I’d be jealous,” Sadie said. “But I’m too done in from kickboxing to be anything but a limp rag doll.”
Ivy laughed and set her head on Sadie’s shoulder. She had no idea how she’d gotten so lucky to count them both as friends, but she was grateful.
Those warm fuzzy thoughts faded when she got to her truck and her very busy day started in earnest. She had to call Jenny in early to handle the truck customers while she prepped for the evening ahead. She was still feeling anxious and harried when her chariot arrived in the form of a Ford truck, and Kel got out.
And suddenly all her resolve to let him go faded, replaced by warm fuzzies—until she reminded herself that he was not for her.
He was not for her.
And she’d just keep repeating it to herself like a mantra until it took.
Chapter 10
Make this your best one yet
Ivy stood standing hands on hips watching Kel approach, all long, loose limbed, easy stride, as if he didn’t have a care in the damn world.
Well good for him. But she had a care, a whole damn bunch of them at the moment, not the least of which was that she’d just talked herself out of him, and at just the sight of him, her resolve was melting faster than the ice caps. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I gave you my number to call if you needed me.”
“I don’t need you. I didn’t call you.”
“Caleb called me for you,” he said. He was in dark jeans, an untucked white button-down, and a sports coat, looking incredibly . . . well, incredibly incredible. Damn him.
She grappled with her reaction to him for a moment, along with the fact that Caleb had clearly interfered. “Your cousin is dead rich guy walking.”
This got her a curve of his lips, which she now knew tasted like heaven on earth. Ivy knew herself well. She was almost always in a rush to get from point A to point B. But in exact opposition to that, Kel tended to move with slow, easy purpose. He kissed like that too, and she’d spent a shocking amount of time wondering what else he could do with that slow, easy purpose.
He helped her load all the food, and when he stretched to carefully set his armful into the back, his jacket stretched taut across broad shoulders, allowing her to see the outline of a shoulder harness and a gun. “I don’t think I need an armed escort to a party.”
He shrugged. “I came straight from work.”
“Caleb needs armed guards at work?”
“On some of his projects, yes.”
“What kind of projects?”
Instead of answering, he held the door open for her, waiting until she buckled up before shutting the door. When he slid in behind the wheel, she gave him side eye.
Which he ignored. He simply steered them into traffic, remaining in his zone as he drove them across town.
She didn’t feel in her zone. She felt . . . awkward. They’d fought. They’d kissed. They’d retreated to their own corners—okay, so she’d retreated to her own corner, but she had no idea what to do with him now. The smart thing, of course, would be to stay on track and do nothing. She told herself she was going to be very, very smart.
“I take it we have another problem,” he said, voice calm. Like he hadn’t a damn care in the world.
“No, not at all,” she said in her best PMS voice.
His mouth curved.
And she couldn’t just let it go. “Okay, yes, there’s a problem. It’s you, actually.”
“Me.”
“Yes, you.”
He pulled up to a gigantic house near the top of Nob Hill, from which one could basically see the entire world in all directions. The mansion had to be fifteen thousand square feet, which was a whole lot of house to clean and keep warm, but hey, who was she to judge. She started to get out of the truck, but Kel put a hand on her arm to stop her.
“The problem,” he said. “Tell me about it.”
She blew out a sigh.
He just looked at her. “Let’s say that I don’t understand female loaded silences, so maybe you could translate for me. What exactly have I done?”
She looked at him.
He merely returned the look, his own calm but curious. Patient. And it was that, the patience, that utterly disarmed her. She opened her mouth . . . and then had to shut it. Because what had he done besides buy her food, help her clean up her truck after the break-in, drive her home, make her feel safe, and oh yeah, kiss the thoughts right out of her head . . . “Why did you really kiss me?”
“Because you wanted me to kiss you.” He gave a slow negative shake of his head. “But that’s not the only reason why I did.”
“Then why?”
He smiled the sort of smile a man gave a woman when he was thinking incredibly dirty thoughts, and certain parts of her body stood up at attention.
“Because I wanted to,” he said. “Very badly, in fact.”
Suddenly, it was hot in
his truck. Way too hot. So she shoved open the truck door and got out. Before she could load up her arms with the first of many trips she’d have to make into the house, Kel had come around, and with a knowing smile took twice as much as she could have and was on the move.
“But I’ve got this,” she said to his back.
He didn’t bother to respond. Because they both knew the truth. She didn’t have this. At the moment, she didn’t have anything. He had her all discombobulated and upside down and inside out.
The event was not much different than any of the others she’d catered for Caleb and his associates. Huge, gorgeous house that had probably cost more money than most developing countries’ annual yield. Important people milling around in their couture finery; men in costly suits, women in gowns looking like they hadn’t eaten in weeks to fit into said gowns.
But as she’d learned the hard way, people at these things tended to eat like ravished vultures no matter how they looked, so she always doubled her per person portions when figuring out how much food to cook.
The following hours flew by in a whirlwind of restocking trays and keeping everything fresh and looking good. Before Ivy knew it, it was ten o’clock and the party was winding down. She was gathering her now empty trays when Kel reappeared in the kitchen.
She hadn’t seen him since he’d dropped her off. She’d assumed he hadn’t stayed. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s the second time you’ve asked me that tonight alone. Not exactly trusting, are you.” He took the huge stack of trays from her and turned to the back door.
“I already told you that trusting isn’t in my vocabulary,” she said to his back.
“We’ll work on that,” he said without slowing down or turning to face her. “And I’m here for you, to take you home.”
His calm thoughtfulness made her feel curmudgeonly. “Caleb needs to mind his own business.”
“Caleb didn’t ask me. I’m here of my own free will.” And then he walked out the door, only to return a minute later, arms empty. He took another stack of trays and gave her a challenging look, like what would you like to fight about now?
