Page 145 of The Plus One Pact

And when we're done, he calls his lawyer, and tells him to file the papers for our business right away.

This is what he's really been waiting for.

Proof I can run a business. He’s even willing to put up my half if Mom doesn’t hand out my inheritance early.

Ivy outed me.

And it got me everything I ever wanted.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Ivy

Thankfully, the first available flight is out of John Wayne airport. It's only a ten-minute drive, a quick security line, a short wait at the gate. Then almost six agonizing hours in a middle seat.

I spend every single minute trying to think of some way to put the genie back in the bottle. How can I erase this knowledge from the world? Make it so my friends, family, and colleagues don't see me as a divorcee who travels the world to sleep with random men in sunlit cities?

How do I make it so Romeo's family doesn't know what he does?

The details from the episode haunt me. The ones I thought were mine to share. The ones I thought were mine and mine alone.

The lie combined with the truth to start—

I have to confess something, dear listener. My sex life has been in a slump. I know, it's hard to imagine Doctor O in a phase without bliss, but I'm here. And that's when I decided to take my own advice and go to a professional. A different sort of professional this time.

I liked him the second I saw him. Because he had beautiful dark eyes and dark hair. Because he had this accent I couldn't quite place, an accent that made me feel I was somewhere else.

The parts I didn't share.

How good it felt to be somewhere else, because my apartment was a representation of my sad, single life. Because it still says, “look at you, Ivy Vaughn, failure at marriage, no good at the job you trained to do, not even holding your podcast together.”

But I think that was him, mostly. His charm. That's a hard thing to talk about because it's hard to quantify. I don't have any advice on building charm. I only know he had it and it made me feel easy. At ease.

No, it made me feel easy, too.

I fell into him. The way he wanted me too. He was playing a game with me, and I knew the rules. And, for once, I let someone else lead. I let someone else play.

And the next.

I know, it's risky to go back to someone, to try to find real sex when I'm paying for it. But maybe that's what makes it real. Knowing I get to demand things on my terms. How often can women say that? How often do we walk into the bedroom expecting things to be what we want? And if we do, how often do we find a willing partner?

But I found myself wanting to stay a little longer after. To hear a little more about his life. I found myself wondering what he kept on his shelf. If he had really read Eat, Pray, Love. If he'd read some memoir I wrote one day. If I'd ever write a memoir one day. If I'd really let him into my head.

I found myself wanting to share all that pillow talk.

For the first time, since I fell out of love.

Was it because I got to do things my way? Or did we really connect?

Our series on sex with an escort went even more viral. We didn’t just double our listenership. We’ve reached a hundred times the people we normally do.

That’s everything I’ve wanted for the last few years.

I should be over the moon.

Instead, I’m tired and empty. Instead, my shoulders are heavy and my heart hurts.

I wanted to do this with Romeo. But not like this.How do I make this right?