Page 53 of Twins for the Mountain Daddies

"Shh, just sleep." That's all I can offer. Words are too clumsy for what churns inside of me.

Her breathing steadies, each exhale brushing against my chest. Ivy's presence fills the space, erasing the cold emptiness that usually dwells here. It's a strange kind of peace, holding her. And with every calm rise and fall of her chest, something shifts in me.

I'm not falling. That's a lie I've been telling myself to keep the walls up. But they're crumbling now, fast and without mercy. Because the truth hits me—I’m not falling. I already have.

"Damn it, Ivy," I whisper to the darkness, to her, to myself. "What are you doing to me?"

Chapter 25

Ivy

My face burns hot enough to fry an egg on it. Of all the people to catch me sobbing over a stupid dream at stupid o’clock in the morning, it had to be Hank. Tall, quiet Hank with his stormy eyes that see too much and his mouth that says too little.

Waking up next to him? Infinitely worse.

This man doesn’t want me. If he did, he surely would have taken up any of the very obvious offerings over the last couple weeks. Holt and Wyatt can’t keep their damn hands off of me. And, we’ve been doing it on every available surface—without a care of who else is around. Hank doesn’t look or linger or look tempted. He just looks pissed every time he catches us.

I’m an idiot. A greedy, selfish idiot. I already have two hot-as-sin men keeping my mind off everything. Why do I need a third? Why can’t I let him go?

I rub my eyes with the palms of my hands. I could deny, deny, deny but it's pointless—the damage is done. He's seen the real me now, not the carefully constructed version I present to the world, and I can't stuff that reality back into its box.

He’d asked why I was upset. When he pushed, I caved and told him it was a bad dream. But bad doesn’t even begin to coverit. It was my life, played back in vivid detail. Every fake smile, every posed photo, every moment I pretended to be someone I'm not for the cameras. For my family. For the brand that is Ivy Blake.

In this dream, I was at a party—one of those Hollywood gatherings where everyone is watching everyone else, calculating their next move like pieces on a chessboard. I wore a dress that cost more than most people's monthly rent, hair and makeup done to perfection.

I was laughing at something someone said, a laugh so practiced I can do it in my sleep. And then, like in all the worst dreams, I looked down and realized I wasn't wearing a designer dress at all—I was completely naked, my skin transparent so everyone could see through to my organs, my heart, my bones. But no one noticed. No one cared. They just kept talking to me, expecting me to be the Ivy they knew, while I slowly disappeared.

It was tame compared to some of the real-life nightmares I’ve had to endure. The most recent being the one Caleb put me through. I can’t believe I’d thought he was going to propose the night I found out he was cheating on me. A New Year’s Eve proposal would have been so romantic—and public enough that it would have made all the talking heads happy. I’d thought….it doesn’t matter what I thought, because it wasn’t real. Nothing about my life was real.

These men feel real.

I'm not used to people wanting nothing from me. Not my image, not my connections, not my money. Just me, whatever that means. Well, and my body. But I don’t mind that so much right now.

It was supposed to be temporary. Just until the media frenzy died down about my ex and the big NYE scandal. But I don't think I want to go back. Ever.

But there’s no rush to decide.No rush. What a concept.

My entire life has been a rush—rushing to the next event, the next photo op, the next crisis. The idea of taking my time and figuring things out slowly, is both terrifying and exhilarating.

I might not stay here. It may be comfortable now, but I know this is just a temporary stopover. But I don't think I can go back to being that person anymore.

For the first time since I arrived at this cabin in the mountains, I feel hope unfurling in my chest. Not the desperate kind that clings to fantasies, but the quiet kind that plants roots in reality. I have the opportunity to reinvent myself here. Maybe I can figure out who Ivy Blake really is, beneath all the layers of pretense.

Or maybe—and this thought is the most terrifying of all—I'll discover there really is nothing there at all.

Whatever tomorrow brings, whatever I decide to do about my life back in the city, I know one thing for certain: I'm not the same woman who arrived here a few weeks ago.

I slip out of Hank’s bed, careful not to wake him, and tiptoe my way into the kitchen. My body is still heavy with exhaustion, but there’s no way I’m crawling back under those covers.

No, what I need is coffee. I pause at the counter, staring down my nemesis. So help me, I am going to learn how to use this coffee machine on my own.

Morning light spills through the kitchen window, making the dust dance like tiny stars. Soft streaks of lavender and rose melt into the first traces of the day. The world outside is quiet, peaceful, stunningly beautiful.

I’m going to start looking for land. If I can’t find a cabin that suits me, maybe I can build one.

The coffee machine wins again. It emits angry sounding hisses and rattles and produces a sludge that can only beconfused for coffee by someone without taste buds. But I don’t care. It madesomething.And I’m going to drink it.

I'm nursing my second cup of “coffee”—this one watered down with extra cream—when Wyatt and Holt shuffle in, both looking sleep-rumpled and too attractive for this early hour.

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