Page 70 of Start With A Slap

The guest room door slammed shut in his face.

Not easily defeated, Sever went to his room and dialed a number.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“Yeah. Book every flight from Paris to L.A. over the next two days. Everything under, oh, three grand. Connecting ports included. Do it quickly, cancel them in an hour.”

“I don’t understand?—”

“Just do it.”

CHAPTER 21

Weakness

Turbulence had never been so symbolic.

It was blatant, really, in the way the plane kept fighting and yielding to the changing winds. It would lurch forward, then glide up. Lurch forward, glide up. Resist, relent. Resist, relent.

Ivy sympathized with the plane. The wind was far too persistent and much too good in bed.

And if the plane gave in completely, let the wind whisk it away and blast it to smithereens? She wouldn’t be mad at it. At least she could skip the whole suffer-the-consequences portion of the program. Unless, of course, Hell was real and there was a warm, toasty torture device reserved just for her... right next to Sever Mark. And his mom.

Maybe she should become a Catholic, just in case. One confession, a few Hail Marys, guaranteed afterlife insurance.

Bless me, father, for I have sinned. I let a man who is not my husband do unspeakable things to me for twelve hours straight. Well not straight, we slept at least four, and there was a shower and breakfast and some chit-chat, but I guess it’s all the same to you, isn’t it? Sex was had, of the majorly bad variety. Bad as in wrong, that is, not bad as inbad — obviously, or it wouldn’t have lasted twelve hours, right? I mean, God, that last orgasm was almost a religious experience...!

Ahem.

Bless me, father, for I have sinned. I just had a blasphemous thought, for one. Which reminds me, is it true that thinking about adultery is just as much a sin as committing it? Isn’t that kind of imprudent? I mean, doesn’t that give everyone a free pass to do it, so long as they’re already thinking about it? I’m sorry, this isn’t working for me.

It didn’t help that she could hear Sever grunting in the next room, venting his frustrations on defenseless exercise equipment — frustrations that were likely courtesy of her not speaking to him for the last three hours.

She’d had no choice but to take his jet — all available seats to L.A. cost upwards of three grand.A car’s waiting for you downstairs,he’d said as if he’d expected her to meet him at the airport all along.Nothing else has changed,she made sure he knew, and that was the last thing she’d said to him—besidesExcuse mewhen they boarded the plane and she marched past him to find the bedroom. She was exhausted, overwhelmed, and terrified. She needed space, and rest.

Good, lock me out again,he’d said.At this rate your virtue’s sure to grow back before we land.

“If only,” she said, touching the screen of her phone, open to her last message to Jason:

Hey baby! Just got your texts and vms now! So sorry I worried you. Left my charger at the hotel and stayed at your dad’s after a party. Wish I could call you now but my brand new cold came with a side of laryngitis. Mmm, misery. We should be landing 4pm LA time. See you at home. I miss you. xoxoxoxo

He didn’t reply. At least, not for the first hour while she still had reception. She couldn’t blame him: Jason had ajobthat required him to recognize the steaming aroma of bullshit; it was only a matter of time before he figured it out.

The worst part, she knew, would be seeing it through his eyes. His disappointed, disgusted, heartbroken eyes.

She pulled the bedsheet to her chin.

How had this happened? How had she landed smack in the middle of a love triangle with a man and hisfather? Just three short months ago, she was more than content. She’d felt so lucky, so sure she’d found her perfect match, so positive they’d last forever. Then her dad died, and as she stood at his funeral surrounded by strangers, the thought struck her: Jason had to get to know his father before it was too late. Wishing someone had done the same for her, she made it her mission to fix their broken relationship.

Now she’d broken everything else too.

Did her father ever feel this gutted when he was cheating on her mother? Probably not. He was a deny-until-you-fry kind of guy. “I haven’t done anything, Di,”he’d said.“You’re being paranoid. She’s just a coworker.”

Ivy tried it on for size, feeling skeevier by the second: “I haven’t done anything, Jason. You’re being paranoid. He’s just my father-in?—”

“GRAAAAAHH!”

Sever and his angry weightlifting sounds. She rolled her eyes and tried the TV again. Still static. She didn’t know how to get anything on it, and she wasn’t about to ask.

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