My phone buzzes in my purse. I pull it out, still floating, and freeze.
It’s a text from King.
King:
How was your day? I've been thinking about our conversations lately. I hope you know I see you, Ivy. Every part of you.
The words hit me like ice water. Guilt floods through me so intensely I feel sick.
I just kissed Declan. Opened up to him. Started seeing him in ways I haven't seen before. And now King is sending sweet texts, completely unaware that I'm craving someone else.
Someone real. Someone I can touch.
My fingers hover over the screen, but I don't know what to say. How do I respond to King when my lips still taste like Declan? When my body still remembers the tender way Declan held my face?
14
DECLAN
Gentleman
I'm standing outside Ivy's apartment at six in the morning, holding two cups of coffee. We’ve spent the last week talking to each other like long lost friends catching up as much as we can. But today is going to be different.
The rational part of my brain, the part that's kept me alive in the NHL for a decade, is screaming that this is a terrible idea. That taking Ivy two hours away from the city, alone, to a place where no one can interrupt us, is the kind of reckless move that ends careers.
But the rest of me, the part that's been awake since three a.m. planning every detail of today, doesn't give a damn about rational.
I knock.
Thirty seconds pass. Then a minute. I'm about to knock again when the door swings open.
Ivy stands there in an oversized sweatshirt that falls off one shoulder, sleep-mussed hair tumbling around her face, warm brown eyes still heavy with drowsiness. No makeup. No carefully constructed armor. Just soft and unguarded Ivy in the early morning light.
My chest tightens painfully.
"Declan?" Her voice is rough with sleep, confused. "What are you doing here?"
"Morning, beautiful." I hand her one of the coffees. "We're going somewhere."
She blinks at me, processing. "Going where?"
"It's a surprise."
"A surprise." She repeats the words like they're foreign. "At six in the morning."
"The best surprises happen early."
I lean against her door frame, watching her take a tentative sip of the coffee. I made it exactly how she told me likes it: oat milk, one sugar, a hint of vanilla. Her eyes widen slightly when she tastes it, and satisfaction curls through me.
"Get dressed. Wear something comfortable. We'll be outside."
"Declan, I have research to review."
“Today is Saturday, and the research isn’t running away.”
She frowns. “You should have asked first.”
“But I’m asking now. Give me one day, Ivy.”
