Page 30 of Bedding his Innocent Mistress

“Well, check for a card. Maybe he’s written something lewd and sexy and you’ve got it wrong about being swept off your feet. Maybe he’s just your average thinks-with-his-you-know-what guy after all…”

“Yeah, maybe,” Ivy said, stalking to the bunch and running her eyes over them distastefully. Flowers were bad. Flowers were something she definitely wasn’t ready for. They sure were beautiful, though.

A small envelope was sticking up from the very centre. She lifted it out, snatching it from its cradle, slipping her finger in the back.

“Well?” Lisette asked impatiently.

The card was a plain white, obviously stock paper from a florist.

Happy anniversary.

“Happy Anniversary?” Lisette repeated. “Anniversary of what?”

“I don’t know. A month since we first … Oh my God.” Ivy pushed away from the flowers as though they’d burned her. “What’s the date?”

“October eleventh. Why?”

“They must be from … Steve. That’s our anniversary. Today, I mean.”

Silence prickled angrily between them.

“That jerk,” Lisette erupted, finally, her anger on a par with if Steve had taken out a full page ad and printed a naked photo of Ivy.

“What the hell is he thinking? You don’t send flowers to your ex, do you?” Ivy wailed, nausea rising inside of her at this very physical reminder of just what day she’d woken up into.

“Hell, no! Not unless your psychotic. He’s engaged, for Chrissake. I wonder what his fiancé would say if she knew?”

Ivy stared at the flowers in total misery.

“Right,” Lisette seemed to spring into action. “Stay there. I’m coming to pick you up. You tell that assistant of yours that you need an afternoon to yourself.”

Ivy shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve got a meeting at four.”

“Skip it.”

“I can’t,” Ivy groaned. But the thought of seeing Lisette, one of the few people who truly had been there for Ivy through thick and through thin, was light at the end of the tunnel. “Afterwards?”

“Meet at our usual as soon as you can. I’ll grab a table. Don’t be late.”

“Oh, I won’t be,” Ivy promised, disconnecting the call.

At four o’clock, after an impossibly hectic afternoon, Ivy stepped into the meeting room. She had intended to deposit the bunch on Tahlia’s desk, but she literally hadn’t had a moment.

And now, she had one thing to get through before she could see Lisette and drown her sorrows in a big bowl of cocktails.

She pushed into the meeting room, ready to go through the weekly distribution figures. She was prepared for that.

But she wasn’t prepared for Rafe to be there, too.

She stared at him, bewildered, wondering absent-mindedly if the day had any more surprises for her.

“Pretend I’m not here,” he addressed the group. “I’m simply getting a feel for operations.”

Easier said than done.

Ivy pushed on, her mind numb, her heart hurting in a way it hadn’t for weeks. She rushed through the presentation, grateful when she reached the end. She closed without looking at Rafe, packed her folder, then scooted towards the door before anyone else.

Rafe caught her just outside her office.

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