Ivy gave Kayleigh her number and waved.
“I don’t know what’s up with her, but I feel like she’s hiding something.”
“She knows she has you,” Ivy said. Then her cheeks warmed as Quinn stared at her.
“Yeah. I guess she does. Ivy, what can I do for you?”
“Um…” Where did she even start? The last time she tried to protect Gabe, it didn’t end well for her. Suddenly, she couldn’t get enough breath into her body, her hands shook, and the world spun a bit.
“Easy.” Quinn slung an arm around her. “Here, let’s go inside. Kayleigh threw me off there. Do you have siblings?”
Quinn guided her to the austere door of Avis Management. A box beeped as Quinn stared at the retina scanner, and a light flashed green as the door clicked open. He held the door for her, and Ivy walked into the big, open area, passing an empty reception desk.
“In here,” Quinn said. He led her over to a conference room. Instead of the usual conference room furniture, it had a kitchen table and chairs. Ivy tried to relax, resting her hands on the back of a chair as Quinn spoke into his phone.
God, what if this was a mistake? What if, when Gabe found out, he hit the roof? What if she was betraying him by being here? Instead of supporting what he wanted to do?
“No, I don’t have siblings. I’m close to my cousin Alice though,” she answered when Quinn was done with his phone call.
“Sit down, Ivy.” Quinn took a bottle of water from the mini-fridge, uncapped it and handed it to her.
Ivy pulled out the chair, gulped down a mouthful of water and stared at Quinn as he sat across from her. “Thanks,” she said. “Sorry, I’m nervous.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Quinn leaned back in his chair.
“I know you guys all hate me after what I did.”
“I hate everyone equally.” Quinn smiled.
“I know it seems I betrayed Gabe or whatever, but he wouldn’t listen to me, and I had to do something to get his attention. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing, making that post, but at the time, it was the only thing I could think of.”
“It was a difficult time for all of us. We had just lost Jordan. Maybe we should have been paying closer attention to what you said, and maybe we should have gotten all the details before writing you off.”
Ivy’s swallowed, blinking back tears. That was almost an apology.
“Also, I didn’t realize until recently that Gabe kicked you out of your condo and that scene at Club Bandit? You’re one gutsy woman. Gabe doesn’t deserve you.”
Ivy shook her head, wiping away the sudden tears.
“I love him,” she said, and it was true. It was refutable that she loved the man, with all his stubbornness and single-minded focus.
“Tell me what’s up, Ivy.” His voice turned to warm steel, and Ivy met his piercing blue eyes and felt like spilling her entire life’s secrets, like when she hid Alice’s diary because she thought it was dumb. Or the time she made a sex blog because she needed to talk about kink, and she didn’t have Club Bandit anymore. Her cheeks grew warm thinking about that.
“Ivy?” Quinn raised one eyebrow, and Ivy wondered if they all learned that in Dom school.
“He’s planning on leaving tomorrow morning, at like two am or something, joining up with Winston-Reid. Winston is one of the people who were behind Ribbon of Aid. They’ve given him a second chance. Chantal, Cole’s fiancé’s father, is a bigwig there. He’s the Reid in the Winston-Reid partnership, and they want Gabe in on this job.”
“He’s a dumbass,” Quinn said. “Axis Management just made him sign a no-work agreement.”
“I know. But he needs to work. He’s a different person when he has a job, Quinn.”
Quinn raised his hand. “I know. Ivy, did you hear them say the guys on their mission were disposable?”
She closed her eyes, visualizing that day at Metric. “Yeah, ‘these six guys aren’t going to come back. They think they are dropping off medical supplies into the hostile territory, but it’s drugs. They’re great at what they do, and no one will know it’s us. They’ll think it’s an ambush or something from someone not wanting medical supplies though’. That’s exactly what I heard the guy from Winston-Reid say. They came to Metric for their recruitment ads. I sat in a meeting with them, and it just seemed like he wasn’t on the up and up.”
“I don’t think I ever got the full story before,” Quinn said slowly.
“Can you…I don’t know…check what happened on that job? See if those six guys made it back? If they did and it was just a job, I misheard or jumped to conclusions.”
