Page 29 of Start With A Slap

“Jason,” Sever summoned. His voice, strong and commanding, yet jovial, somehow filled the entire apartment. Even Huey raised his head from his dog bed. “Come have a smoke with me on the balcony.”

They untangled, and she mouthed to him, “It’s almost over.” He winked, and left her there.

She caught her reflection in the full-length mirror and sat on the bed, silently asking the girl looking back at her,Why am I letting him get to me? Why do I keep taking the bait? Why am I playing his stupid échiquier de la vie?

Ivy wasn’t a demure pushover; she was a stubborn control freak. No one could take her power away, not even the omnipotent Sever Mark... but there was something inside her that tingled at the prospect.

The girl in the mirror was squeezing her breasts, and Ivy realized that she’d been feeling herself up as she thought about him. She dropped her hands to her sides and said to Mirror Girl, “No more booze for you tonight.”

Speaking of, what were they talking about out there? Was he behaving himself? Was he being an asshole? Was he telling Jason that his daughter-in-law has a spot that only he knows how to touch?

When she finally approached the balcony door to investigate, Sever slid it open and entered the loft, chuckling with his son.

Before she could ask, Sever slung an arm around Jason and told her, “He’s loaning you out again.”

“He’s huh?”

“Well, I was telling Jason how much everyone enjoyed your candor at the benefit?—”

“Yeah, Ivy, you didn’t tell me about the Kennedy Rockefeller lady. Nice one.”

“I didn’t?”

“—and he suggested I take you to this little conference I’m going to,” Sever said.

“He did?”

Jason explained, “Well, I’m gonna be stuck in the office next weekend for the Alvarez hearing; I figured you’d have a better time telling off a few fat cats in a hotel ballroom.”

A better time? With Sever? In a hotel?

“But it’s up to you, babe.”

With a benign smile, Sever said in French, “Say yes,ma tigresse,or I’ll tell him everything.”

Ivy was shocked into speechlessness.

“Walk me to the elevator, petal,” he said in English, tickling her spot. “I’ll fill you in.”

As soon as they set foot in the hallway, she scowled at Sever and whispered hotly, “This is what you came here for tonight? To get Jason to agree to a second date?”

“Not just to agree, I got him tosuggestit. Bloody genius, I am.”

“Yeah. Kudos for having no soul.” He walked on, and she followed so he wouldn’t broadcast their conversation to the whole building.

“And really,” he said, “it’ll be our fourth date, not the second. Fifth, if you count the first time we met, and I think it’s safe to, considering I got the most mileage out of that one. Come to think of it, aren’t you liberated American girls supposed to give it up on the third?”

“So that whole ‘needing to see me’ pitch with the clubbing and dragging, that was a flat-out lie.”

He stopped walking. “Does that upset you?”

It did. Why? It was the false sincerity. It tricked her into thinking he could be vulnerable. Why that mattered to her at that moment was a mystery. “What upsets me is that... If I hadn’t gone to see you that day, none of this would have happened.”

Reading her mind again, he ducked his head toward hers. “I meant every word, Ivy.”

Why did that make her breath catch, her eyelids flutter? “Why would I care?”

“I think you know exactly when I’m lying,” he said softly, cutting straight to her needy little center, “and I don’t think I ever have to you.”

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