Page 108 of Mr. Romantic (Mister 2)

“Richard? You knew him?”

“He was my ex-boyfriend. The boring one.”

Nolan’s smile lights up my whole life and when he laughs, I laugh with him. Just before I start to cry.

“Hey,” he says, slipping into bed with me. His arm slides under my back, gently, so he doesn’t disturb my sling. “It’s OK. You’re OK. They removed the bullet and stitched your arm all up. You’re fine, Ivy. You’re gonna be fine.”

“He was going to rape me, Nolan. He was—”

“Shhh,” Nolan says. “Stop. It’s over. OK?” He looks me in the eyes and then kisses me softly on my lips. “All that stuff is over now.”

And then he lies back with me, rests his head on my pillow and places his hand over my heart.

“We’re gonna start fresh, Ivy Rockwell. So just relax. I’ve got this.”

Chapter Forty-Nine - Nolan

“So…” Match says. “Big doin’s, huh?”

“You’re next, asshole.”

“Nah, not me. I’m fine just the way I am. You and Perfect can keep your newly domesticated lives. I’m just fine with the way things are.”

“Never mind that shit,” Perfect says. “We have a problem.”

“A big problem,” Mysterious says as he cleans his gun on Perfect’s dining room table. “A very big fucking problem.”

Ivy and Ellie are out shopping. We’re here on official Mister business, but the girls don’t know that. Ivy’s arm is healing nicely. She might need another surgery or two to remove bone shards if they become a problem, but she’s OK. She’s good. We’re both good.

“Where the fuck is Corporate?” Match says. “He’s late. Why is he fucking late?”

“I told you he wasn’t gonna show. He’s got some big deal going on. Said he’ll read the Cliff’s Notes when he gets back.”

“Well, that’s fucked up,” Match says. “If you’re a target, then we’re all targets.”

“Where the fuck is Claudette?” Mysterious asks, never taking his eyes off the gun.

“I dunno,” I say, frustrated. “I’ve had people looking for her since she missed the funeral.”

My father died. Just two days after all that shit went down at the Martha’s Vineyard house. We hadn’t been close for years and even though it would make a nice story to say we patched things up in the end, we didn’t. He was in a coma by the time I got to the hospital in San Diego. I’ve been to more hospitals in the last two weeks than I have in my whole life.

But it didn’t matter that we didn’t get to talk. I know now. I know why my mother ended up divorcing him. I know why Claudette was never welcome at our house in Florida. I know why my father kept her with him.

I don’t know why she was cut out of the will and I was put back in. That is still part of the mystery. But it makes sense that she attached herself to my hip these past six months. Why she offered up some of her own money to get that resort started. She was cut out of the will and wanted back in. She was playing the good big sister part to make that happen. But she was doing more than that. She was setting me up. How she came up with Ivy to make that happen though? That is also still a mystery. But I know—I feel it in my gut—I know she set me up with Ivy. I know it was her who forged Ivy’s résumé. Sent that invitation. How many people know about the silver envelopes we use? Not many. People connected with the old case. They know. And Claudette certainly qualifies as one of them. I fucking know it was Claudette who put all the events of the past few weeks into motion.

But why?

She’s a devious fucking cunt, that’s why. And I have no doubt that her mother was the same kind of woman. I know my father wasn’t perfect, but he was not a psychopath.

Claudette is.

I was waiting for her to show her face at the funeral, and when she didn’t come, I knew. She’s on some kind of revenge vendetta. She won’t get one penny of my father’s money. Not one penny. But hey, if she wants to fight that shit, I’m ready. I’m waiting. I’m gonna take her down from the inside out.

She wasn’t at the MV house. In fact, there was not one shred of evidence that could link her back to Ivy’s ex-boring-boyfriend. But we all know it was her.

There are very few people who have access to schedule the jet. Claudette is one of them. The only one connected to me.

“I still don’t understand what Boring Richard had to do with this,” I say.