Page 22 of Lonely Heart

“I’m serious.”

I held her stare a beat, deciding not to challenge her. Instead, I asked the one thing that had been on my mind since I’d last seen her yesterday morning when she walked out of the hotel with Cooper. “So, how are you doing?” I asked. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to follow up with you later in the day yesterday.”

She waved her hand dismissively in the air. “Oh, that’s okay. Don’t worry about it. After the trip to the police station, I spent the majority of my afternoon talking to the rest of my family about what happened.”

“How’d it go?”

Ivy huffed. “About as well as you would expect. Wyatt, Tate, Liam, and my dad all just about lost their minds. My mom did her best to stay strong, but she was devastated. And after theinitial shock wore off for Jules, she cheered us both up with cupcakes.”

I laughed. “That was a good tactic.”

“Yeah. We ate them at her bakery, but then she packed up some extras for me to take with me back to my office here at the hotel, where I spent the rest of my day yesterday. I’m trying to avoid scaring the guests off with my face looking like this.”

The evidence of her attack was still present on her face—cuts, scratches, and a hint of bruising. I wondered if the rest of her body was any worse. “There’s nothing wrong with the way you look, Ivy.”

“You can be honest. I’m not fragile, and I promise I’m done crying about this.”

If there was one thing that I knew to be true about Ivy, it was that she was such a strong woman. That she stood here mentioning how she worked as hard as she did because she refused to be viewed as someone who had the job simply because her family owned Westwood’s was a testament to that. But I’d also seen or heard about her in several other instances. She didn’t back down from anything when she had something to say or needed to set things straight. Her brother got that from her yesterday morning when she refused to leave the hotel until he apologized to me.

And though I thought it was one of her most attractive qualities, I was surprised it had led to her resilience in this situation. How had she bounced back so quickly? She’d been crying in my arms and waking up from a nightmare little more than a day ago, and now, barring the physical evidence of her attack, I wouldn’t have known that anything had ever happened to her.

“I’m not saying what I think you want to hear,” I assured her. “Cuts and bruises or not, you’re still just as pretty as you’ve always been.”

Her lips parted in surprise. “Pretty?”

I hadn’t intended to say anything of the sort to her and possibly make things awkward, but I wasn’t going to lie to her, either. I sent a smile her way, my brow slightly cocked. “Are you telling me you don’t already know that you are?”

She shrugged. “I’m not suggesting I’m ugly, but I guess I wasn’t expecting such a compliment from you.”

I attempted to think back to all the interactions I’d had with Ivy. Hadn’t I ever told her she looked nice, even if on some special occasion where it might not have been deemed something more than just a friendly compliment?

“Well, I’m sorry if I’ve never indicated it before. I guess I always assumed you had to know already,” I told her. In an effort to lighten the mood and shift the conversation to something else that wouldn’t get me into trouble, I joked, “In my defense, I do spend the majority of my days working with Cooper. And until Skye came into the picture with him, I’ve always had to contend with his moodiness. I can only imagine how he might have reacted if he learned I’d said something like that to you.”

Her shoulders fell, her head dropping to one side. “I’m still mortified by the things he said to you yesterday morning. I hope you two had the chance to talk about it later.”

I nodded. “We did. And you don’t have anything to feel embarrassed about with that. Cooper’s a grown man. He made his own choices.”

“It bothered me, though. I hope you know that I wasn’t okay with anything he’d insinuated about you.”

I smiled at her and finally gave in to the urge to touch her. My hand landed on the outer cap of her shoulder and squeezed. “I know you weren’t. For what it’s worth, I don’t think he was okay with most of it, either.”

I couldn’t bring myself to say he was okay with parts of his reaction. He did not like the idea of Ivy and me having somekind of relationship that went beyond what it had always been all these years.

“No, I guess you’re right. He was remorseful.” She sighed and looked around the villa. “The villa looks great. You’re much further along than I would have anticipated you being at this point.”

“Yeah, it’s coming along nicely, I guess. We haven’t really had any major delays or disruptions in the project so far, so that helps things.”

She inclined her head in agreement. “Yes, but I heard you were here earlier than normal this morning. I think that probably helps things along.”

“I only did that today.”

“You like working so much?”

Shaking my head, I returned, “I love my job, but that’s not why I came in so early.”

“What was different about this morning?”

“I didn’t sleep well and was up earlier than usual, so I figured I’d do something to be productive.”

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