“You cheated on me,” I snarled.
“Only because you pushed me to it!” Camilla whined. “You ignored me and didn’t buy me nice enough presents or support me in the wedding planning! This is your chance to make it up to me. Daddy said you were going to have dinner with me, and then he would discuss the property with you.”
I looked out the window at the blurred lights as I zoomed down the road. I did not want to reinvolve myself with Camilla. I wanted to move on and have a clean break. But the property… If I could get this deal done with the Svenssons, it would make my hedge fund a major power player in the real estate world.
What about Ivy?
Was she even interested?
It’s not like you want a relationship with her. You can’t right now anyway; you have too much baggage with Camilla. You were just trying to get her to sleep with you, nothing more. No one is going to get hurt by a dinner.
I took a deep breath then said, “How does tomorrow evening sound?”
21
Ivy
“Look at that swoon!” Mrs. Russo said, poking her head out her door when she heard me coming up the stairs. “That must have been some date.”
I grinned in spite of myself. Evan surprising me, the way he had pressed himself against me, the very personal outing that he had planned—I had to admit, I was impressed. He had only been in my apartment a few times, and I’d never talked about the clock tower penthouse, yet he’d just organized a date around it.
“It wasn’t a date.”
“Then what was it?” Mrs. Russo asked.
“Uh—” Good question. One that I wasn’t sure I wanted to consider.
He was just trying to sleep with you.
Was that a bad thing?
“You need to put a ring on that man,” my elderly neighbor said.
“I just met him!”
“Back in my day, people married quickly. Why, I met my first husband at a dance. A month later, we were married.” She sighed happily. “When you know, you know!”
“I do weddings for a living,” I countered. “An engagement has to last at least a year and a half just for the wedding planning, and ideally, you would have known the person several years before that.”
“A big fancy wedding?” Mrs. Russo scoffed. “We just went down to the courthouse; I wore my good church dress. Then he took me to Niagara Falls and fucked my brains out over the weekend in a seedy little motel. It was like a porn flick.”
That took a turn.
* * *
I layin bed that night thinking about Evan.
Ivy:Is it a date if a guy takes you to a nice piece of real estate and brings a portable charcuterie tray?
Amy:Was it to a public place?
Ivy:It was the clock tower penthouse, and very private.
Grace:Sounds like a HOOKUP! Did you see his ding-dong?
Brea:I bet it’s way too big to be referred to as a ding-dong. You should call it his weapon.
Ivy:No and no.
