Push her. Watch her unravel. Repeat.
But last night I mentioned my shellfish allergy for half a second. The EpiPen fell out of my bag, and I tossed out two words between arguments, then moved on because it wasn’t a conversation—it was a footnote.
Not a detail you expect anyone to catch, much less hold onto.
She caught it.
More than that. She filed it away in that overcrowded brain of hers, and the second the threat landed, she handled it. No fuss, no credit, no leverage.
I don’t…I don’t know what to do with that.
I run on instinct. I read rooms, I read momentum, I know within thirty seconds which way a situation is moving, and I move fast. That’s always been my whole thing. Stay ahead of it.
But then she went and treated me like I was worth protecting.
I can not figure out Ivy Ellison.
Sienna clicks to her final slide. “After lunch, we’ll head to the beach as a group. Wear shoes you won’t miss.”
I make a decision. Clean and quick, the way I make all of them.
No more games. No more prodding at her edges to rile her up. The promotion’s real, the pressure’s on, and whatever’s happening under that pulse of hers is too much for me to keep pretending I’ve got the upper hand.
I can’t control this.
I can’t play it cool.
Not anymore.
Ivy turns toward me.Holyhell,she’ssmiling. Not the tight, professional version, this one’s soft. Almost shy. Like she didn’t mean to let me see it, but now she’s letting it stay.
“Want to walk down together?” she suggests. “We should align before the next event.”
The opening is right there, taunting me, daring me, begging me to take it. I let my gaze linger on her for exactly one second, caught in the pull of a goddamn gravity field. It would be so easy to say yes. To walk beside her. To let her in.
No.
I’m on my feet, already halfway to the door.
“I’m good. I’ll meet you there.”
I’m in the hallway before she can say another word. Before I change my mind.
Whatever this is… it’s finished.
Chapter Ten
Ivy
The Pacific looks like it’s trying to sell me something.
Blue on blue, sunlight doing that annoying diamond-scatter thing across the surface, waves rolling in with the lazy, cinematic ease that belongs in a cruise line commercial. This is the view meant to make a person feel peaceful, present, and one with the universe.
I am a rotisserie chicken.
It’s ninety-five degrees, the sun is trying to cook me alive, but I’ve kept my headset fused to my skull. It’s my outward proof that I’m still, technically, holding it together. So I keep moving. Stopping means feeling and feeling? Absolutely not on today’s agenda.
Monitors: on. iPad: good to go. Cue sheets: set.Ugh.Cole’s backpack is a glaring distraction under the table.
