Page 27 of Fractured Loyalties
Something in her voice makes me fall silent. The hallway feels smaller, as if the walls are closing in, and I find myself struggling to react with sharp words. Maybe it’s her tone. Perhaps it’s because, as much as I hate her for being a home-wrecking witch, she’s the only motherly figure I’ve ever had remain in my life.
And I fucking hate that I don’t understand her. She’s the biggest secret of all in this place.
Irena straightens up, flicking an imaginary speck off her dress. “Dinner will be brought to your rooms tonight. Robert is handling a business call. I think we shouldn’t all sit at the table together.” She pauses, looking upward and holding my gaze. “I expect you to make yourself scarce until the party. If I see you in the main wing after ten, you’ll regret it.”
She turns then and glides off down the corridor, leaving nothing but the echo of her contempt behind.
I rake my fingers through my hair after she finally disappears, and the rage begins to simmer beneath the surface again. I want to destroy something. I want to find who made Ivy smile, and wipe them off the fucking planet.
I want to tear Ivy out of her bed and teach her what real obsession looks like.
But because I play the goddamned long game, I go back to my room, lock the door, and pace. Every step is a beat of hate, and every breath takes me a little deeper into the grave I’m digging for all of us.
Irena says I’m supposed to stay away from Ivy.Fuck that. I’ll do the opposite.
I’ll make her need me so much it hurts. I’ll make her beg for it. And if anyone gets in my way, I’ll gut them with a smile.
That’sa Woods family tradition, I can respect.
You get in the way, you disappear.
Eleven
IVY
If it weren’tfor Kade, I wouldn’t even have known there was a party here tonight.
Well, other than the pure chaos that’s happening in the West Wing.
Still, as I sit on my bed and stare at the clock, ticking closer and closer to seven, I start to wonder if I really am supposed to just rot away in my room and not show my face. It would make sense. I’m the unwanted addition to the family.
I toss my phone to the side, now ignoring messages from Kade.
I probably shouldn’t go.That’s the freaking answer to this dilemma. I should hide away in my room, like the good, invisible child my mother wants me to be.
Everyone wins that way.
My sulk session is interrupted by one sharp knock, and my door creaks open. I whip my head around, half-expecting to see Roman, who’s been strikingly absent in the past twenty-four hours, coming to torture me about my lack of invitation, but nope.
It’s my mother.
She glides into my room, as if she’s always belonged in my space. She’s not in her usual attire, and Ialmostdon’t even recognize her. She is wearing a silk slip and slippers, and her face is scrubbed so raw it looks… vulnerable. She holds a dress bag in one hand and a small blue box in the other.
“Ivy,” she says, but not sharply. She waits for me to perch on the end of the bed before she unzips the bag with a gentle, almost hesitant motion. I have no idea what she’s doing, but I expect something horrific to come out of that bag. I brace for impact, preparing a humble acceptance speech.
And then… she pulls out a dress that is…stunning. It’s simple black velvet, sleeveless, high at the neck, and scandalous at the back.
“It was mine, but now it’s yours,” she says, laying it on my knees. “I had them take in the waist for you.”
I run my fingers over the fabric, expecting a trick as I meet her eyes.
“Um… I… Is this… a joke?”
Her lips twitch upward. “Consider it an olive branch.” She sits beside me, smoothing a wrinkle from the dress. For a second, I could almost believe that she loves me.
She sets the blue box on my lap. Inside is a single string of black pearls.
“Your grandmother’s,” Irena says, so quietly I almost miss it. “She would have wanted you to wear them. In fact, she probably would rather have skipped me altogether and just given them to you, herself.”
