Page 42 of Start With A Slap

At a quarter past six,Ivy returned to a hotel room packed with rows of designer dresses, shoes and accessories, along with a note attached to about a hundred yellow tulips that read,Choice is yours this time. Be ready by 8.

Her hotel room phone rang.

“Ivy,” Jason said. “Glad I finally caught you.”

“Jason! Hi!”

“Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah!” Sitting on the bed, she forced her mind off of her own personal Le Bon Marché and onto her husband. “Everything’s great!”

“Did you get my texts? I tried calling you, too…”

“Yeah, I got two from you this morning…” She checked her phone.Return text undelivered.“Oh, no, I forgot to call the carrier!” But Ivy never forgot anything… except, perhaps, if her subconscious whispered,Maybe don’t set up international calling… it’s just a weekend…

“You never forget anything,” he said with a chuckle. “That and the charger? You’re slippin’ babe.”

She’d almost left without the charger, too. “ThatI have, thanks to you—I’m looking at it right now. With an adapter and everything.” She sighed. “Sorry, babe. I’ll get it sorted out.” And she would. After dinner tonight.

“No worries. How was the flight?”

“Um, weird. Private jet... possibly the biggest culture shock of my life.”

There was a pause. “How’s he treating you?”

She stared at the dresses. “Actually, I haven’t seen him all day. I start quote-unquote ‘work’ tomorrow. But, he was fine on the plane. He taught me how to play chess.”

“Oh. Okay.” He seemed not to know what to do with that. “Well, I just wanted to check in, and —Sean, Kara. Good to see you. I’ll be right there.”

Ivy straightened. “Kara? You’re working with Kara Bennett on this? Did she move to Harkness?”

“No.” He lowered his voice. “VeroCorp got poached by Ellison Cole.” Kara had a knack for poaching accounts—Ivy should have anticipated the possibility, but she hadn’t. “Babe, you know I can’t choose which counsel they send over.”

“Does she know you’re married now?” She heard his helpless exhale, and realized she sounded like a jealous harpy when hello, no leg to stand on. “I’m sorry. I’m... jet lagged. And it’s Kara, you know, you wrote a song about her and she makes you crazy and I?—”

“I loveyou. Okay? Just you.”

That was reassuring. And, same here, by the way; let’s not forget that... “I love you too.”

Even so, the specter of Kara loomed over her long after the phone call ended. Jason insisted they were past-tense and that he was perfectly able to resist her wiles, but Kara was a piranha. A tall, gorgeous piranha in a tailored designer suit.

Sort of like Sever, only he wasn’t as tall as his charisma made him seem.

“I’ll resist mine if you resist yours,” she said, and chose the gown with the most coverage.

During the sixthcourse of Le Cinq’s tasting menu, Sever asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all, this is incredible,” she said, a symphony of flavors bursting on her tongue.

“I mean with you.”

“Me? What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“I can see it all over your face. Is it Jason?”

How did he do that? “…No.”

“Something’s got you worrying, and I won’t have you worrying when you’re with me.”

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