Page 55 of Bedding his Innocent Mistress

“Doing what all wrong?”

“I just… I really need to see you. To speak to you.”

“Well, you’ve got about two minutes,” Ivy snapped. “So say what you came to say.”

“It’s not that easy.”

Ivy was angry. No, she was furious. The sight of this man she had loved, once-upon-a-time, made her want to throw a brick at a wall. On the threshold to the house they’d bought together, holding hands the first time they’d seen it, planning where they’d put what room, filling the house with furniture, art and hopes for their future, looking out at a world that had stopped making sense a long time ago.

“Mind if I come in? It’s kind of freezing out here.” He stepped through the door before she could answer. “And speaking of which, you should grab a coat because you’ll catch a bad cold if you go out like that.”

Ivy frowned. He was probably right, though slipping from her house to the limo and then to the ballroom, she really wouldn’t be ‘outside’ for much of the night at all. Besides, there was Rafe, and the manners that always had him offer his coat if she were cold, wrapping her in his concern and masculine fragrance.

“I’ve got a car coming in a minute or two.”

“Where are you going?” He asked, strolling into the lounge area with a proprietorial air that infuriated Ivy. She wished, now, that she’d made more effort to alter the décor, to expunge Steve from her life completely. What was his new house like? No doubt his fiancé had helped him decorate it – a house filled with their furniture and hopes.

“A charity thing,” she said with a wave of her hand in the air, to signal the unimportance of her plans. “What are you doing here?”

“Your dad says you’re seeing someone.”

She frowned. “How does my dad know…”

“Lizzy,” he said with a smile that spoke of shared understanding. He knew so much about her – they’d been a part of one another’s lives for so long.

“She told her mum,” Ivy said with a roll of her eyes.

“And her mum told your mum,” he said with a grin, but then sobered. “You’re going out with him tonight?”

“God, Steve. So what if I am?” She tried not to let it anger her that her parents spoke to her ex more than they did her – even when they discovered that she was dating someone.

“No need to shout. I’m just making conversation.”

Ivy huffed a breath out from between her teeth. “You have no right to make conversation with me.”

“I miss you,” he said simply.

“Oh, for God’s sake. I missed you, too. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me when you left? You walked out of my life and started a new one and now that I’m doing the same, you don’t get to turn up here and expect me to have time to talk to you. To even want to see you!”

“I made a mistake.”

The words were quiet but they slammed around the room with the force of a cyclone. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

A sharp knock sounded at the door but Ivy didn’t move. She was frozen to the spot, her eyes held captive by the visage of her past right in the middle of her life. Suddenly, the dress, the hair, the efforts she’d made and the feeling that she was sexy and attractive all felt utterly ridiculous.

“I want you back, Ivy.”

She lifted a hand to her lips, staring at him as though he was speaking a foreign language.

“No,” she whispered, but tears filled her eyes. “No, damn you.”

“I’m still in love with you.”

“Stop it!” She lifted a hand to cover her lips. “Just, stop.”

But he didn’t. He crossed the room, coming to stand right in front of her, so close she could smell his familiar cologne – she’d bought it for him a birthday or two ago – and he put a hand on her waist. “Baby, we need to talk about this.”

She sobbed, because she wanted to tell him ‘no’, she wanted to tell him to get lost, but in the middle of their lounge room, behind the sofa they’d bought together, with all their dreams in tatters, she heard herself say: “Tomorrow. Meet me at our café.”

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