Page 22 of The Marriage Agreement
“A party” Damien adds. He slips a hand around my arm and I clamp down the immediate reaction to jump. Not from revulsion of his touch, no, but from the uncomfortable tumble of my stomach. “A friend of mine threw a birthday party. Remember Hunter,” he says to Carey. “We got to talking and remembered how much we were into each other a few years back and carried things from there.”
“Still doesn’t explain why you had to get married so quickly.”
“I don’t know what to say. One minute we were in a hotel room declaring love for each other, then we were in a chapel getting married. It made sense. And after the fog of alcohol and other things,” he leaves the implication of sex hanging in the air as he stares down at me lovingly, “It still makes sense.”
Carey frowns, staring at me. I can feel the unspoken words in that look. If he doesn’t know you have a son, then how are you married to him? His shoulders slump and he goes to the table at the end of the room to grab some drinks for himself and his wife.
“So it’s a whirlwind affair. How romantic,” Thalia says. At least she buys it. My mother is still skeptical, but enjoying what is happening between Damien and me, nonetheless. At least Nolan hasn’t arrived and I’m praying he doesn’t and gets hold up with work.
“Where are the others? I ask Mom, trying to change the subject.”
“Levi, Seb, and Ty all said they’ll be arriving together. And Raine, well you know how he is. He would rather die in Europe than remember his father.”
The cutting remark makes Carey chuckle. “Please,” his voice is full of derision, “why would Raine drop everything to witness a farce? No offense to your recent nuptials, Ivy, but we all know your mom planned this ‘anniversary brunch’ so she could find a way of getting us in one room and lord over us.
“Carey!” Mom puts on a shocked face that convinces no one.
“Are you saying this brunch has nothing to do with you wanting to know about your daughter’s marriage? The same daughter you didn’t care about until she married a billionaire. Let me ask you something. What happened to Dad’s Monet?” Carey points at a wall in the drawing room where a giant Monet used to be the centerpiece. Now a contemporary three-piece by a no-name artist has replaced it.
My mother gasps and snorts. She glances at me, looking for a defender, but I know not to get in front of Carey while he’s on a rant. My brother, usually charming, can transform into a ruthless monster if he sees you as an enemy. And he hates my mother most of all. “It’s in the storage,” she says, sounding as incredulous as she can.
“Oh really? It’s not at all similar to the Monet Christie’s auctioned a few weeks ago and sold?”
“Honey. Monet made many paintings.”
The air in the room goes cold. Thalia is visibly agitated. Damien is looking on in interest and Carey… he looks like he can burn my mother with his eyes. “Jacqueline, I am the mystery buyer who bought back that painting you b--”
Carey doesn’t finish his sentence and is instead cut off by Thalia, who asks, “Ivy, so how’s Lake?”
No. No. No. Thalia’s attempt to change the subject to a more light-hearted one is a mistake. I feel Damien’s hand tighten around my waist. I try to plead with my eyes to Thalia to not say anything else, but she seems to read it as encouragement. “He must love the idea of a new dad.”
Damien’s grip on my waist turns to steel before withdrawing me from it like I am a piece of hot coal. He has an unreadable expression on his face when he says, “Lake is your son?”
Chapter 8
Damien
She has a son. Lake is her son. A lot of things make sense. The phone calls. The constant worry when we were in Vegas. The hiding of stuff. Was she hiding stuff or her son? Her incessant determination and the need for her inheritance also make sense if you consider she has a child. Poison Ivy sure had a lot of thorns hiding under her flower.
Ivy took my hand immediately after the revelation and dragged me to the room we are currently in. A library, I guess from the sparse but intricately decorated books on the asymmetrical gray shelves that perfectly accent the white room. A library of someone who doesn’t read. I look around, walking backward, and my calf foot hits a black settee as Ivy closes the black oak door.
She turns to face me. I’m momentarily stunned by her beauty, as though this is my first time seeing her. She’s wearing a knee-length floral white and blue dress that hugs her curves perfectly. My chest tightens as it usually does whenever she and I are in a room alone. Blood rushes to my groin as erotic suggestions swirl at the back of my mind. I push them further back. Back and deeper into the recesses of my mind, and concentrate on why she brought me here.
She gazes at me with weary eyes. Her hands tremble slightly as she straightens her dress.
“So Lake is your son and not your boyfriend.” She’s so jittery that if I don’t start the conversation, we’ll be in here the whole day.
She nods.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think it was necessary.”
She’s too irresistible. She has spewed obvious lies and is hiding more than she’s saying, and yet I want to believe her. I cast my gaze away from her and stroll around the room, browsing around trying to work out what she’s saying without being distracted. One book,Great Expectations, attracts me. I toy with it as I say, “A child sounds like necessary information to tell your husband, don’t you think?”
“For a couple of months. You’re only my husband for a short time. And Besides. Would you have cared? It’s not as if our relationship is real or permanent.”
I play with the leather-bound book, wondering if the knowledge of her having a child changes things. She’s right, it doesn’t. She’s a tool to get to my objective. Destruction of her family’s company. Whatever baggage she’s carrying doesn’t matter. And it’s not as if I’ve never been with a woman who has a child before.
