Page 70 of Mr. Romantic (Mister 2)

I end the message and go back into the bedroom. Ivy didn’t wake up so I go out into the hallway, walk along the catwalk that overlooks the living room, and hop down the stairs two at a time.

I grab a water from the fridge and I’m just about to call Claudette back when the doorbell rings. When I get to the foyer I can see Claudette through the glass doors, standing on the step, hands on hips, looking very pissed off.

I open it and say, “Jesus Christ, Claudette. I was just going to call you. No need—”

“Is she here?” Claudette cuts me off.

“Yeah, why?”

Claudette pushes past me, ignoring my question. “Where?”

“Upstairs. And keep your fucking voice down, she’s sleeping.”

Claudette shoots daggers at me with her eyes. “You fucked her.”

“What the fuck do you want? And why the hell did you follow me here?”

“I need to tell you something. But I don’t want her to hear. Let’s go into the kitchen.”

She doesn’t give me a chance to object or agree, just walks off to the kitchen. I follow, helpless to derail her when she’s in a mood like this.

The kitchen is open to the living room, so it only offers a little bit of privacy. “What?” I ask her.

“What do you know about this girl? Ivy Rockwell? How did we get her résumé?”

“Corporate sent it. Why?” My sister is agitated. Which is not uncommon. She’s about as high-strung as those horses down on the racetrack. Her hair is blonde, but not naturally. And it’s short and has a soft curl that that makes it look bouncy. How the two of us are related is beyond me. My hair is dark, my eyes green. And even though she dyes her hair, it’s not really dark, so the blonde looks good on her. Her eyes are blue though. My mother’s eyes, I suppose, though they are more gray than blue.

“Well, he’s fucking with you then.”

“Why?”

“Do you know who Ivy Rockwell’s father is?”

“Some pastor up in New England. Why?”

“Because he’s a little bit more than that, Nolan. He was on the board at Brown.”

“So?” I’m not following. And my sister likes to make her points in dramatic ways that I have no patience for. “Just tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“He was on the board when you were expelled, Nolan.”

“Hmm. Is that weird?”

“Don’t you think it’s weird?” Her eyes are wide in surprise. “I mean this girl shows up practically uninvited, with a fake résumé, and now we find out her father was on the board when you were kicked out?”

The five of us weren’t technically expelled. We were ‘asked to leave’ by the administration with the understanding we could return if we were found not guilty. None of us thought it would take two years to clear things up. And by that time, college was nothing but a dead end in the rearview mirror.

“Did you forget Amy, Nolan? The girl who tried to sue you six months ago?”

“Shit.” Amy was a manager at one of my clubs. She and I had a similar affair. Not the fantasy stuff. We never got that far. But the whole, I’ll fuck you before I hire you thing. We did fuck. And then I hired her and fired her all in the span of a few months. She was totally incompetent. We didn’t do anything while she was actually working for me, but we did before. And after. Which is why she tried to claim sexual harassment.

But Match did some digging for me and found out she was an outspoken advocate for the girl who accused us of rape. Some blogger who wrote the most vile things about us online. I don’t know what Match said to her, but the sexual harassment threat disappeared a lot more quietly than it appeared, and I never heard from her again.

“I think this Ivy girl is in on it.”

“In on what?”

“Trying to take you down. You know I was convinced that you were the reason the whole thing blew up.”