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Chapter 1
The daisies. They're strewn everywhere. They look like a scene from a highway crash when vehicles are thrown about from the sheer force of the impact. Some are bent, others are broken. I have to pick up the daisies.
I slam the laptop shut and drop to my knees in silence. I don't flinch when a piece of the broken vase wedges into my knee. The crimson line that mars the water on the floor breaks its flawlessness. There's no pain. I can't feel anything. My chest is tight. It's as if my heart has wrapped itself up inside a cocoon.
"Ivy, stop." Jax's voice is faint. It sounds muffled. I can't hear.
I pick up one of the daisies and hold it between my fingers. It falls over. The life has suddenly been heaved from it. It can't be saved.
"You're bleeding. Get up." He's closer now. He's standing over me. I can't look. "Say something." He's reaching for my hand. My voice isn't there. I can't pull it from me.
"I'm going to get a towel for your leg." There's a crunch of glass as he pads over the vase crushing the fragments of it, mutilating the remaining daisies.
I push myself up off the floor, the daisy still dangling from my fingers. I reach for my phone on the desk. My eyes fasten on the flash drive. I pull it from the side of the laptop and clench it firmly in my fist.
"Let me see your leg." He's there at the door again, a white towel hanging from his hand.
I walk past him. My leg is wet. I look down and there's blood. I have bandages at my apartment. I need to go home.
"You're cut. I have to fix it." He's pulling on my shoulder. I don't turn. I keep walking.
"I can explain what you saw." There's desperation in his tone. Not like the tenderness that was there when he was talking to Brooke. Mark was right. There was a Brooke. Liz was right. They did work together to take the company. Nathan knew. They all knew.
"I'm going home," I whisper. I think I whisper. My voice is barely audible. It's echoing in my ears.
"You can't. You're not going anywhere," he says.
"Home," I repeat. I move through the door of the bedroom. I pull my suitcase open and throw the flash drive in. I flinch when I realize he's on his knees, dabbing the towel against my leg. I drop the daisy to the floor when I pull my leg back harshly.
The suitcase slams shut. His hand rests on top of it. "You need to sit down. You're bleeding. You're upset," he says hoarsely. "It's not how it looks."
I pull my chin up. My eyelids are heavy. I look past him to the bedroom wall. "Home, now." I tug the words from somewhere deep within me. I slip my feet into my shoes that had fallen next to the bed when he gave me so much pleasure earlier. So much pleasure then and so much pain now.
"Please stay," he pleads. "You don't understand."
I pull the handle of the suitcase. His hand falls away. "I understand," I mutter as I jerk the zipper shut.
His hand glides through the air. He's going to touch me. I pull back and the suitcase falls to the floor with a dense thud. He stops.
His shoulders slump forward. "No, you can't understand. I have to explain."
"I understand," I mumble as I turn to walk out of the room, the suitcase's wheels haphazardly skidding along the hardwood floor. "Brooke and you. I understand. You…"
"Brooke means nothing to me," he cries. "Just stop and listen. There's more on that flash drive. Come back to my office." He's begging now.
"No." I feel defeated. I don't have the energy to care. "She belongs to you. Only you," I murmur.
