The Executive, page 18
I pulled her closer, wishing I could pull her inside me. All I wanted was to protect her. “Every moment I’m near you, it takes every ounce of strength to not pull you into my arms. You have no idea how hard that was in the beginning.”
“Don’t hold back.”
“Never again.” I ghosted my lips against hers before pressing hard.
Thousands of miles from home on a bed with a view overlooking the most beautiful city I had ever seen, I held my perfect woman in my arms. A vision I couldn’t live without. I cupped her breathtaking face and pulled her closer, settling between her thighs to make love until we couldn’t move.
Ivy was perfection, a goddess in mortal form. She was everything I’d ever wanted and would ever want. All of those wants were morphing into necessity.
I couldn’t do it. Giving her up was no longer possible. There had to be a way, and I was going to find it.
I would fight heaven and hell to keep her beside me.
It hit me then.
Fuck.
I’m in love with Ivy.
Ivy
Leaving Rome was sad. I never knew that I could be so happy, that I could feel as loved as Lincoln made me feel. My heart had wings and was soaring high in the sky.
It was a euphoric high. The type that made me feel invincible with him by my side, because nobody felt safer or more right. Lincoln was absolutely amazing. It was something I already knew, but the days away where we could truly spend as just Ivy and Lincoln were a dream.
From romantic dinners to holding hands while we went sightseeing to nights lavishing my body with attention, he was proving himself to be the god I’d imagined.
“You are too delicious,” Lincoln said as he stepped up behind me.
Coming back to work was hard, especially since I’d had to go home the night before. It was the first night in weeks that we’d spent apart, and solely due to the trip and the need to unpack and get fresh clothing. The moment his hands touched me, the heat in the room doubled. How were we ever supposed to work again when we were totally and completely consumed with each other?
“Don’t let my boyfriend hear you say that,” I said.
A low growl vibrated in his chest as he pulled me against him, his lips finding mine.
Kissing him was like coming home—warm and inviting. Every single time. Away from him seemed cold and lonely, but in his arms was where I was meant to be.
We were brought together by so many factors, and I had no doubt the fates were one of those. From the time he’d lost London, his soul had cried out for me. It guided me to Seattle, and the path that led me to him.
I loved Lincoln with every fiber of my being. Somehow, that didn’t scare me. Not anymore, because it felt so right.
“Hi,” I said when he pulled back just enough for a breath.
His lip twitched up, his hands circling around my back. “Hi.”
“Can we go back?” I asked against his lips.
“Yes.”
“Now?”
He chuckled. “No, not now, but soon.”
“How soon is soon?”
“We could go on a European tour,” he said, his tone more serious than I was expecting.
I let out a sigh as I stepped out of his arms and did the difficult task of making space. “I wish.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” Lincoln asked as he took hold of my arm and pulled me back into him.
A laugh left me as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “We have that work thing, remember? Meetings and such.”
“Fuck them.”
“Fuck them?”
His eyes flickered between mine as he hands massaged against my back as they worked their way down. “All I want to do is everything we should have done in my bed last night.”
“You could have come to my place.”
His hands flexed against my ass. “I want to come in your place.”
I shook my head. “You’re terrible.”
“You make me this way.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek.
“So, I’m to blame?”
“Very much so.”
“And why is that?” I asked, loving the playful side of him.
“Because you are too addictive for your own good. You make me a monster for you.”
“I like it when you’re a monster.”
“Why is that?”
I pulled my lips between my teeth as I drew my hands up into his hair. “Because that want you exude is so intoxicating, I can’t concentrate on anything but you.”
“Good.” He slammed his lips against mine, not holding back in the least as he attempted to devour me, and I loved every second of it.
How did I get so lucky? I wanted his touch to never end, and for him to never let me go.
“I see you are a slut after all, huh Ivy?” a very familiar voice called out.
Both of us snapped our heads toward the voice, the heat suddenly doused in ice water at the view of the man before us.
Dante didn’t resemble the man I’d last seen. His hair and clothes were unkempt, his pallor resembling a man who’d been drinking himself to death for days. He looked unsteady and no longer the cocky, smooth-talking womanizer I knew him to be.
What had happened to him?
Lincoln
Dread settled into my stomach the second I heard his voice, cold and weighted like a hundred-ton stone. One look, and I knew why he was there. He looked like a zombie, a dead man walking in the truest sense and I knew it was the end, but I had trouble accepting it.
I said I was going to find a way, but my time was suddenly gone. A small handful of hours had passed since I became determined to keep her, but my minutes had dissolved, my seconds erased.
No. I can’t.
I wasn’t ready to let Ivy go. I never wanted to let her go. Ever.
But I had no choice. Not anymore. Keeping her as close to me as possible was the opposite of what was good for her, because I failed.
My grip tightened on her waist, soaking in one last feel of her in my arms before I pushed her away and turned on the vile man who had somehow entered the executive floor.
“Watch what you fucking say to her, Dante,” I growled.
His glare turned to me, and I got a look at just how unhinged he’d become. His eyes were wild, and it was obvious he was hanging on by a thread.
“Or what? Gonna turn me in for some other stupid infraction?”
I wasn’t prepared. I knew it was coming sometime, but why didn’t Marcus warn me? “Embezzlement isn’t stupid, and your shareholders should know. It’s only one of the laws you’ve broken.”
He stepped toward Ivy, whose eyes went wide. “You did this, didn’t you? You ungrateful bitch!”
I moved between them, jaw locked as I shot daggers at him with my eyes. “One more word, and I won’t hesitate to lay you out.”
“You couldn’t beat me at twenty, what makes you think you’ll beat me now?”
“Incentive.” Every fiber of my being begged for him to take me up on it, to have some release for years of pain.
“I’m calling security,” Ivy said from behind me. Her hand left my back as she retreated to her desk.
“You fucked me over,” Dante spat as he watched her closely.
“You fucked yourself over. This is all a product of your actions, nobody else.” I looked back to Ivy, who was staring back as she spoke into the receiver.
“That again? It’s been years, Lincoln, and it wasn’t my fault,” he said.
My whole body went rigid, and I slowly turned back toward him. “What did you say?”
“I said it wasn’t my fault. I had nothing to do with it.”
I couldn’t stop myself. I reached out, grabbed onto his shirt, and spun him, slamming him against the wall.
“You had everything to do with it. Everything.”
He managed to push me off, and I didn’t see his fist coming at me until I was looking somewhere else, pain radiating through my face.
“Like I said, Lincoln, you couldn’t beat me—”
I didn’t let him finish, and took my turn to slam my fist into his face. For years I’d punched a boxing dummy imagining it was him, and the crunch of his flesh beneath my blow was so much more cathartic.
As soon as he was upright, he lunged at me but missed. My tightly balled fist connected with his stomach at the same time his other hand whipped back around, landing squarely on my jaw. The hit I delivered had him bent over, holding his stomach. Just as he was straightening, I toppled him with one last strike.
Writhing on the ground was too good for him. He needed to be buried beneath it.
In the back of my mind a familiar voice called out to me, but I was too focused on the man in front of me to comprehend. For years I’d imagined the day I brought him down, delivered some amount of justice for what he did to me.
“Lincoln!” Ivy called out. It was strong enough and for a second, I glanced over to the woman I loved. Her beautiful eyes were full of worry, and I breathed in their love one last time.
It was a beat too long, allowing Dante to rise and charge at me. His shoulder dug into my chest as he slammed me against the wall. The breath flew from my lungs, and I braced for the next hit while I aimed my own.
But they didn’t come. Strong hands grabbed and pulled us apart. Security had arrived, and they brought friends.
The Seattle PD had arrived as well.
I was breathing hard as I watched them cuff him. Pain began to soak in as the adrenaline left me. More places hurt than blows I remembered receiving, but then again, I was focused on landing my own.
The officers took statements, all the while the pain migrated and settled in my heart. As soon as the officer stepped away, my heart cracked.
Fuck. It’s here. It’s time.
I hated Dante even more in that moment. Yes, it was my plan, but he was why it was initiated and now it was costing me Ivy.
I was going to keep her safe, keep her out of this, no matter what, but I never prepared my heart.
Ivy.
My love.
Please forgive me one day for what I am about to do.
Her worried blue eyes found mine before she rushed over. I wanted to thrash him all over again for making me do it, but it was the only way.
“Lincoln, your face,” Ivy said as she reached up.
I grabbed hold of her hands before she could touch me, and stepped back. If she touched me, really touched me, I wouldn’t be able to. “Get out.”
Her brow furrowed as she looked at me in confusion. “What?”
The whole situation made me angry, and I channeled that rage. I’d found happiness for the first time in years, and I was going to destroy it of my own volition.
“I told you I was going to hurt you. I warned you, but like any other lost puppy, you hung onto me, onto every word, so listen to me now.” I stared deep into her eyes that were so confused, pulling up all of my hatred I could in order to get the job done. “I used you, Ivy. I used your affection, your soft heart, your gullibility. And now, I don’t need you anymore. I got what I wanted.”
“Lincoln, I don’t understand.”
I let out a dark laugh. “Of course you don’t. You weren’t a queen. You were nothing but a pawn in my game. I got what I needed from you, information on Dante, and now I don’t need you. You’re fired,” I sneered. “Grab your things. There’s the door. Use it now before I call security to remove you.”
Tears filled her eyes as absolute confusion and hurt filled her expression.
“Lincoln—”
“Get. Out!” I yelled.
That made her jump, and she scurried away, glancing back at me. So much turmoil.
I stayed strong, kept the anger on the surface while my heart was breaking.
“And you called me a cold-hearted son of a bitch. Look what you just did,” Dante spat as the officers picked him up from the floor.
“Don’t ever compare yourself to me again.” I forced myself not to look at her as she paused at the glass door, and used only my periphery. “Have fun rotting in jail.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t over, Lincoln. I’ll fucking get you.”
I leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Karma is a bitch.”
I should have enjoyed watching them cart him away, but the tsunami of pain was rushing forward. While my queen’s information may have provided the check make on the black king, I toppled my own kingdom in the process.
As soon as he was out the door, I waged a new war, this time on anything in my office. Nothing was safe from my warpath as I tossed chairs, toppled tables, and broke every piece of anything before me.
When the dust settled and I sat in exhaustion in the wake of my devastation, I had to ask myself one question.
Was it worth it?
Ivy
Walking in the door of my apartment, I was in a daze. I didn’t even know how I got home. I made the drive on autopilot, and I was shocked that my car seemed to be intact, but that was more than I could say for myself.
A haze of confusion and sorrow had washed over me, clouding everything. Didn’t we just get back from a fairy tale trip to Rome? Didn’t we just tell one another how deep our feelings had become?
Never had I felt so strongly about another person other than Iris.
I was like a mindless zombie, still too stunned to comprehend what had happened. One minute I was stupid in love having just returned from the most romantic trip imaginable, and the next…
Everything was over. The man I thought I knew threw me out without a second glance.
What happened? I was lost, unable to make heads or tails out of what had taken place in his office.
Dante was there being the bastard he was, Lincoln defended me, but then suddenly the world went sideways.
He dismissed me. Harshly. Permanently.
The man I loved told me how he used me to get to Dante, that I was nothing but a pawn.
I sat staring at the blank television, my reflection staring back at me with the stunned pain I felt in her eyes. The idea to pinch myself to see if it was all a dream was strong, but the pain in my chest and the difficulty breathing was more powerful than any pinch.
I had no idea how much time had passed when the ringing of my phone dragging me out of my frozen state.
“Hello?”
“Ivy, there you are,” Alex said with a sigh of relief. “I’ve been calling your desk phone but you weren’t answering. What’s going on?”
“I…I don’t really know.”
“There were cops, and now the feds are here. Dante Kilgore was taken out in handcuffs. One second you were here, and the next you’re not, and all this shit is going on. What happened?”
What did happen? What happened to my loving boyfriend?
“I have no clue. I just know I got fired.” There was no intonation in my voice. Flat, as devoid of emotion as I was.
“Fired? That’s crazy! Why would you get fired?”
“That’s what I want to know.”
“But you’re his girlfriend,” she said, her tone rising as it faded.
“Not anymore. He said he used me and said he was done, and that was it.” My heart cracked. It had to be a lie, a play. That thought was the only thing that kept me from completely falling apart.
“Oh, my God. That’s awful! What’s your address? I’m coming over.”
“Thank you, Alex, but I think I just want to be alone right now.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Okay,” I said to placate her. “I’ll text you my address.”
“Please call me if you need anything. I don’t care what time it is and how trivial you think it is, call me.”
“Thank you,” I said as I pulled the phone away and ended the call. I really was grateful for her friendship, but I wasn’t up for visitors and a million questions for which I had no answers.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone but Lincoln, and I didn’t want to believe what he said. So, I waited.
I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, nor did I move. I just sat there on my couch waiting for some word from him, but the phone never rang, and when light filtered over the horizon, I knew he wasn’t coming.
The sun rising wasn’t the start of a new day, but the end of the most beautiful thing I’d experienced in my life. It was the first day without Lincoln in my life. The first day without love.
The sun lifted, and all the pain I’d held back flooded in. It felt like I was drowning. Waves crashing over me, pummeling me, keeping me from the surface.
I let him in, fell head over heels for him, and let him use me. When he was done, he was done with me.
Tears flowed like rivers down my cheeks, and my bottom lip trembled. The phone rang, and a shot of hope sprang through my chest, I answered without even processing the name.
“Hello?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Iris?” I asked in a whisper as my heart crumpled further. She felt it, too.
“Something’s wrong. What’s wrong?” The worry in her voice bled through the line.
“It’s over,” was all I could manage to process into words.
“What is?”
“Love.” With that, the sob broke through and tears erupted as my heart gave one last crack before shattering into bitter shards.
Lincoln
A month later
I stared down at my phone, at the eleven missed calls. Nine were from my new temporary assistant. The other two weren’t Ivy. Her number hadn’t come up on my phone since that day. No calls, no texts, and it had been the hardest thing in my life to not contact her.
With my final words, I made sure she wouldn’t want anything to do with me. She didn’t know, didn’t understand, that everything I did, every word I spewed at her, was all for her protection.
I still couldn’t decide if it was better or worse having Dante ten feet away staring at us. Probably for the better as I used my anger for him and unleashed it on her. It was the only way, and I made sure he saw every nasty, vile word I spewed at her. That he believed every lie just as she did.
