Page 72 of The Devil of Downtown

“Come on,” he murmurs. “Bed.”

If I respond, it’s almost inaudible. He adjusts his grip and carries me down the hall, nudging his bedroom door open with his foot. He lowers me onto the cool, cloud-soft bed, tucking the blanket over me.

My eyes flicker open for a second, long enough to see him watching me with a softness I’m probably dreaming.

Then his hand moves into my hair, brushing it back gently, fingers warm against my temple.

“Sleep, Ivy,” he whispers.

And I do.

Chapter eighteen

Dane

Dawn presses faint blue light through the blinds when my eyes open. Normally, this is the part where the familiar heaviness rolls in—another half-night of fractured sleep, another morning staring at the ceiling.

But I actually slept. Not long, butunbroken. The kind of sleep I haven’t had for months.

I try to blame exhaustion. Routine. Chance.

Anything but the obvious.

My gaze drifts to the other pillow, and there she is.

Ivy lies on her side, hair spilled everywhere, mouth soft. She’s curled toward me, lashes low on her cheeks, breathing slow and even. She looks nothing like she did last night. Now she looks... peaceful and utterly breathtaking.

Fuck.

She looks likemine.

I lie here longer than I should, staring at her. Last night had been more—much more—than I had expected. And when I’dgone to pick her up from the studio yesterday, seeing her move out on that floor... Jesus. A force of nature. Every time I see her, I feel myself getting more tangled up, and I keep telling myself it’s temporary.

Except it doesn’t feel temporary. It feels like acceleration.

I exhale, deep and ease out of bed before I can think myself into a corner.

My office is cold when I step inside. The early light spills across the desk, landing on the folder Julian sent over yesterday, the private investigator’s first report. I slide into my chair and pull out the blurry printout on top—a grainy gray still from a gas station camera.

Two figures. A giant of a man with a buzz cut and a man in a cap with his back to the camera. Their faces are unidentifiable.

The attendant on duty gave a statement—said they weren’t locals and there were other passengers in the car, maybe a woman. Also, when the buzz cut guy paid for the fuel, he had a large wad of cash in his pocket. The driver, maybe. Or maybe not. People who see something once always think they remember more than they actually do.

The PI’s notes in the margin explain their current angle: they’re tracking down everyone who used that highway exit in the same half-hour window, cross-referencing vehicle types, looking for any car with front-end damage repaired shortly after the crash. It’s a needle in a stack of needles, but it’s something.

I study the photo again. It’s almost nothing. But almost nothing is more than the nothing we’ve had so far.

I open the desk drawer to file it away—and pause.

Her picture sits inside.

Helena. Smiling, sun in her hair, like life was simple, and everything ahead of us was guaranteed. Guilt hits me in the way it sometimes does. We grew up together in Scarsdale. Two houses apart. She knew every phase of my life, every versionof me before the world did. When we reconnected in our late twenties, I was exhausted. Making money faster than I could process it, burning through parties and women like oxygen. She was familiar. Safe. Someone I trusted without effort.

But comfort isn’t fire.

And with Ivy... damn. Nothing about her is safe, and every time I think the spark will die out, it only gets hotter. More complicated. More... real.

I shut the drawer before I can chase that thought too far.