Page 21 of Lonely Heart

Maybe I’d been considered the guy who never took anything too seriously, but this was something I couldn’t seem to shake.

It was a good thing I had plenty of work to keep me busy, work I tried to focus on instead of thinking about Ivy, Cooper,and that I’d been blind to what had been in front of me all these years.

Having not slept well last night—visions of the look on Ivy’s face as she left the hotel replayed in my mind for hours—I got out of bed early and decided to get to work.

The only way to the villas was to go through the hotel, and unsurprisingly, Ivy hadn’t been working at the early hour. So, I came here and immediately got to work.

It had been hours now, and I was in the thick of it. The villas had the bones of the construction work done—they were full standing structures with doors and windows—but now we were busy working on the interiors.

I was in the back bedroom of one of the two-bedroom villas when I heard the door open. Immediately, I’d assumed Cooper had arrived at work or that one of the other guys had come to work with me, but when I heard the footsteps moving through the space, I knew I was mistaken.

Heels. Stilettos, perhaps.

I didn’t have to see her yet to know it was her.

And in another instance of experiencing things that were uncommon, my body was suddenly wracked by tingling all over as my heart pounded. Not even when I’d been beside her in the bed after she’d woken up from her nightmare yesterday had I felt this way. There was something about the mere anticipation of seeing her that was doing me in.

“Marco?”

I’d been crouched in the closet of the room, but at the sound of her soft, feminine voice, I closed my eyes and dropped my chin. My hand came up and squeezed the back of my neck.

After taking two more settling breaths, I stood.

“Marco, are you here?”

I stepped around the closet door I’d hung, moved into the room, and walked out into the hall.

Ivy jumped back, her hand flying to her chest. “Oh, God. You scared me.”

Shit. I hadn’t been thinking straight. “Sorry, I should have said something. Are you okay?”

As she became steady on her feet, I took her in. Even in the cold winter weather, Ivy didn’t slack when it came to getting herself dressed for work. Obviously, I’d taken notice of her before—the woman was beautiful—but seeing her now didn’t feel the same as it had every other time before.

Now, I was looking at how the navy-blue cable-knit sweater dress she was wearing molded to her curves. Curves my fingers itched to touch. My eyes drifted to the bare skin on her thighs that was exposed just beneath the hem of her dress. Her knees were bare, and I quickly realized I’d been partially correct about what was on her feet. The bottom half of her legs were covered by the spike-heeled black boots with silver accents.

My eyes drifted back up over the length of her body. I felt a heavy, dull ache in my chest. I’d had the opportunity to see her nearly every day for years, but it was only now that I felt like I was really seeing all these parts of her for the first time.

“Yeah, it’s okay. I’m alright.” She held up her opposite hand. “I wanted to return your shirt to you. I washed it for you, too.”

Instantly, I recalled the memory of her wearing my shirt, and it was an effort not to close my eyes, so I could linger in it longer. I took the shirt from her and said, “Ah, you could have held on to it. There was no rush to get it back to me.”

I had wanted to tell her I would have much rather preferred her to wear it several more times and not wash it before returning it to me.

Ivy shrugged. “I appreciate that, but if I didn’t take care of it right away, I probably would have forgotten it altogether, and you might not have ever gotten it back.”

One half of my mouth quirked. “You? I’m not sure I’m buying that. Next to Tate, you’re one of the most organized people I’ve ever met.”

“At work,” she reasoned.

My brows drew together. “What?”

“I’m organized and efficient here at work, because I have to be,” she clarified. “I’m not going to let anyone think I have the job that I do, simply because my family owns this company. I work hard and am on top of things here, but I’ll warn you now. Don’t ever ask to look at my personal laptop. One look at the number of tabs open or all the things on the desktop, and you’d probably lose your mind.”

After all these years I’d known her, I was just learning these details for the first time. And I wanted more.

The smile built slowly on my face, the urge to reach out and wrap my arms around her growing with each passing second.

If I didn’t manage to speak, I was convinced I’d have done just that. “I think you’re pulling my leg.”

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