"Yes."
"And she's still there?"
"She's back at the cottage. She had tea with my mother this afternoon."
Mark shakes his head, smiling a little. "She's tough. I'll give her that. But Brooks? Resilience has a limit. You keep pushing her, and eventually, she won't push back. She'll just go."
He finishes his drink.
"Go home," Mark says. "Apologize. Grovel. Buy flowers. Do whatever you have to do to fix it. Because if you lose a woman who can handle your mother and your baggage? You are the worst investor in New York."
I stare at my whiskey.
She's resilient.
She's a fixer.
I stand up.
"You're right," I say.
"I usually am," Mark says. "That's why I'm the happy one. You owe Ivy, Brooks. Big time."
I throw a hundred-dollar bill on the table and walk out.
I need to get back to the Hamptons. I need to fix this.
But as I drive back toward the tunnel, traffic building, the sun setting, I can't shake the feeling that I might have broken something that can't be fixed with an apology.
I told her it was a mistake.
I have to convince her, that the mistake wasn't sleeping with her.
The mistake was thinking I could ever let her go.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IVY
If Brooks Taylor wants an employee, I won't just be the Employee of the Month. I'll be the Employee of the Year, the Employee of the Damn Century.
It is 10:15 PM on Sunday when I finally hear the crunch of gravel outside the guest cottage.
I’m sitting in the armchair by the cold fireplace. I'm not reading or drinking wine. I'm staring at the unlit logs, my hands folded in my lap, waiting.
I have spent the last eight hours dissecting every word he said to me this morning.
A release. Biological. A mistake.
Every syllable was a strike, designed to dismantle the intimacy we built in the storm. And it worked. The intimacy is gone, replaced by a hollow, aching crater in the center of my chest.
But I am not going to cry. I am not going to pack my bags and run back to the city, leaving Ever After, Inc.vulnerable to a lawsuit. I am a professional. I manage disasters for a living.
And Brooks Taylor is another disaster.
The door opens.
Brooks walks in. He looks wrecked. His tie is gone, his collar is unbuttoned, and he carries the weight of the city on his shoulders.
