"Most people don't value their privacy."
"Or they have something to hide."
Lillianna coughs into her napkin, clearly fighting a smile.
Madison watches us like a tennis match. "Wait, you two know each other?"
"We met on the train when I first came here,” Ivy says in a clipped tone. "Briefly."
"Very briefly," I add.
"How briefly?" she presses.
"Madison." Ivy's voice carries a warning.
"What? I'm just curious how you met Mr. Thorne Evander Blackstone." Madison draws out the full name with theatrical precision.
Fuck this. Time to get the focus off me. “Have you had time to visit your friend?” I ask Ivy.
Her brows pull together. “What friend?”
“His name is Dave.” I glance from Madison to Ivy, refusing to look at my sister. “You had a box for him…you ended up giving it to me.”
“What was in the box?” Madison asked.
Ivy’s eyes narrow slightly at me, then she smiles at Madison. "Nothing important. I mean, obviously, if I gave it to him."
The hit lands, but I pretend it doesn’t. “If you don’t even value yourgifts. That says more about you than me.”
"What can I say? Sometimes I make the wrong choice." Her gaze holds mine for just a beat before sliding away, like I'm not worth the effort of looking at. "I won't make the same one twice."
Lillianna coughs into her napkin, clearly fighting a smile. "Well, this is fun."
“No. It’s not.” My hand tightens around my glass. I take a measured sip of bourbon, the burn doing nothing to kill the irrational surge of possessiveness coiling in my gut.
Patrica enters with the main course. Silence falls, broken only by the soft clink of glasses and silverware. Then Lillianna asks, “Madison, you’re going to be a freshman?” She is clearly trying to ease the tension, but why bother? We should all get used to it. This will be our lives for the next three months.
“Yeah. At Anchorage High,” she tells the table, like we don’t already know this. It’s why she forced herself and Ivy on me. Forced me into this purgatory.
And that’s what this is. Having Ivy in my house for three months is going to be pure torture. Yet some traitorous part of me thrills at the thought of passing her in hallways, catchingglimpses of her at breakfast, maybe even hearing her laugh when she doesn’t know I’m listening. I hate that she’s here. I hate even more that I want her to stay.
“Do you play any sports besides swimming?” Lillianna asks Madison.
“Not really. I’m more into reading.”
Lillianna clutches her heart. “A girl after my heart. Sebastian’s wife, Rosalia, and I have a bourbon bookstore boutique hotel. What do you read?”
Madison launches into a description of her favorite fantasy series. I risk another glance at Ivy. She’s cutting her salmon with precise movements, her face revealing nothing.
But her body language reveals a lot. Her spine is rigid as a bourbon barrel stave, unyielding and tense. And her knuckles are white where she grips her fork.
Is it because of the situation with Madison? Or, like me, she keeps picturing our night together? Is she remembering the way I made her come apart in that narrow train bed?
Neither answer is comforting. Both make everything worse. Because if she’s thinking about my hands on her skin, her breathless moans in my ear, the way she said my name, well, my middle name, then I’m not the only one struggling to keep my composure.
And that’s dangerous. One-sided attraction is easier to manage.
“Ivy?” my sister asks with false innocence. “Why a train instead of a plane?”
