Page 32 of Born To Be Bad

I give up my struggle. I close my eyes and stand there, face angled up at the weeping gray sky, feeling the drops land on my face. A cloudburst takes my breath away. A cleanse; an anointment; a baptism.

When I open my eyes again, a familiar-looking limo glides to a stop, and Alistair leaps out to get me.

“Ivy!” he exclaims, tutting at my cold hands.

He bundles me into the back of the vehicle while Macavoy hands a blanket through from the front. I’m about to ask him how he found me, but of course, there is a tracker on my phone.

“I know you want to be alone, but I started getting worried. Are you okay?”

I nod. I’m shivering. “Thank you for picking me up. I was trying to get a taxi.”

“You’re freezing! Poor thing.” He strips my sopping cardigan off me and wraps me tightly in the soft blanket, then pulls me into him so that I’m practically sitting on his lap. He wraps his strong arms around me and I feel so small, and so protected.

“We’ll get you home and dry,” he says. “I’ll make you a hot chocolate.”

I lean into him, loving the feel of his warm skin on mine. I feel empty inside, and I don’t feel like talking. In an unspoken agreement, we travel in silence while Alistair holds me tight and my warmth slowly returns.

CHAPTER 19

The Walk was the Rain

ALISTAIR

I feel so terrible. Seeing Ivy standing there alone in the deluge as if all hope had left her. I’ll never forget that image. God, I’m such a fucking asshole. When we arrive home I get her into a warm bath with music and scented candles. I bring her hot chocolate with a shot of Baileys in it. She thanks me but is still quiet. I kneel beside the bath, pick up a sea sponge, and start washing her back, squeezing the warm water down, over and over. She had already stopped shivering in the car, but I won’t be happy until she’s glowing pink from warmth. I don’t want to push her to talk, so I wait for her. We go a good ten minutes without speaking at all.

“Will you get in?” she finally says.

I peel off my clothes faster than a hungry monkey with a ripe banana.

“Ah,” I say as I climb in, feeling the warm velvety water. “Nice.”

“Turn around,” she instructs.

I do so, and she washes my back as I had hers. It feels like an act of love. I hope she has forgiven my revolting behavior at the hospital.

“How was your walk?” I ask.

“More like a swim, really,” she replies.

I find myself smiling. I turn around to face her, and start massaging her feet under the water. “Okay, then. How was the walk, apart from the rain?”

“You can’t really separate the two,” she says. “The walk was the rain.”

“That sounds pretty zen. Something like Marcus Aurelius would say. Were you listening to a stoic podcast while you were walking?”

“Nope. It was more like a direct download into my brain. No interpreter or podcast host necessary.”

“Like when god speaks to people,” I say.

“Maybe,” she replies. “The downpour was pretty biblical.”

“Plague next?” I ask. “Or locusts?”

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

She shrugs. “Your karma.”

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