Page 11 of Start With A Slap

He brought her hand to his chest. “But it’s for the children.” His heart beat against her skin. “And it’s all abstract expressionism that’s never seen the light of day. DeKooning, Frankenthaler… Mitchell…”

Forgetting herself, she visibly swooned. “JoanMitchell?”

“The very one.”

Jason said, “Joni Mitchell paints?”

“Different Mitchell,” she and Sever said in unison.

She couldn’t go… could she? Maybe this one time, to see the art?

“Then it’s settled,” Sever proclaimed jauntily. “Isn’t this nice, the three of us? I’m proud of you, son. Made a good choice.”

Jason looked utterly blindsided. She wondered if she did, too.

“Let’s open the bubbly and celebrate, shall we?” When everyone had a full glass, Sever tipped his toward Ivy and said, devilish eyes twinkling, “To new beginnings.”

CHAPTER 4

New Beginnings

Iwant to have an affair with you.

Ivy lay awake, her husband sleeping beside her while his father’s melodic baritone invaded her mind. From the street below their window, lines of colored light slid across the ceiling, blurring together at one corner and exploding before fading away. Ever since the first dream she’d had about Sever, those lights looked like bursting painted flowers.

—Aren’t you picturing it right now?

She closed her eyes and saw his face moving over hers as he pushed inside of her, wild and wanting, sheets tangled at their feet, his sweat-sheened body meeting hers with asmack?—

With a shudder, Ivy flung her sheets off so there would be no tangles. And no more picturing.

She was still trying to wrap her mind around the absurdity of Sever’s demands. Since dinner, she’d been in a state of shock. Jason barely spoke on the way home, then opened a beer and proceeded to chainsmoke on the balcony. She couldn’t tell if it was about his father or the touchy subject of kids, but he clearly didn’t want to talk about any of it.

Which was good, because neither did she.

Even when he started strumming soft and somber notes on his acoustic guitar, she didn’t go out there. A week ago, she would have sat beside him on the couch and listened and loved him and asked him to open up, ever so slightly, about what he was feeling. But now...

Her biggest question wasWhy me?Why did Sever wanther? Not because she didn’t know her worth, but because it made no sense. Sure, their chemistry was off the charts, but he was chemistry in a bottle. She couldn’t be the only one who bubbled his beaker.

It was all about the challenge for him, wasn’t it? That had to be it. He was tired of all of his usual pursuits, and what bigger challenge is there than seducing one’s happily married daughter-in-law?Ugh, he was so disgusting.

—all soaked and throbbing and

She got out of bed and padded to the kitchen.

“Affair” was such a sneaky word. It made the act of cheating sound elegant and romantic, as if it wasn’t devastating for all involved. Ivy knew better. She’d seen an “affair” rip her family apart.

As she filled a glass with water, she wondered what an affair meant to Sever Mark. A single conquest? A month of clandestine hookups? A one-way ticket to the Underworld as his dark bride? What exactly was his end game?

Whatever he was playing, he wouldn’t win. She would never do to Jason what her father had done to her mom. An attraction was involuntary. An affair was a conscious decision to throw a perfectly good life in the trash.

She knocked back a melatonin and gave her phone a glance. At 11:15pm, she’d received a text from “Unknown”.

Sending a car to your office 4:15pm Thurs. Don’t bring a thing but your dazzling smile.

She scoffed and slung the phone across the counter. Where did he get off, telling her what to do?

True, he’d insisted on buying her a dress for the benefit, and as she hadn’t worn anything formal since prom, she had to take him up on it. But his tone was just so... flippant, and self-satisfied andexasperating, and why did it make her squeeze her own nipple?

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