The Accidental Engagement, page 18
“You are not the idiot. He is. Or else he’s a damn good actor.”
Ivy shrugged. She didn’t know what to believe anymore.
Holly persisted, “You’ve always been a good judge of character. And you’re the last person in the world who would fall for some guy just because you’ve got the hots for him.”
Ivy sniffed. “I guess.”
“Well, I know it for a fact.” She faced Ivy with folded arms and a grim stare. “I am giving you approximately five more minutes to wallow in your little pity party and then I am dragging you out of bed and into the sunshine. Got it?”
Ivy knew better than to argue with her sister when she got that look. She nodded meekly. “Got it.”
Ten minutes later, Ivy dug out weeds in her parents’ garden. It was one of many chores her mother had lined up as punishment for the lies.
It actually felt good to be doing manual labor. Getting her hands dirty and working up a sweat at least managed to distract her from memories of Daniel and the decisions she couldn’t avoid much longer. Sooner or later she would have to decide what to do next. She couldn’t live with her parents forever but the thought of returning to New York was more than she could handle. She focused on the dirt and weeds in front of her and for a brief moment, everything else fell to the wayside.
Her time in Italy almost seemed like a bad dream when her hands were firmly planted in her family’s land. She tried not to dwell on the fact that the land would almost certainly have to be sold off now that she’d failed her parents—now that she’d failed everyone. Her parents were too proud to accept charity from Jack, even if he was nice enough to offer. And if she couldn’t go back to her old job, she would have to move back in with them and be an even bigger burden. Good Lord, she’d made a mess of every area of her life. That’s what happens when you make a deal with the devil.
Ivy jabbed at the dirt with a spade. At this rate she would probably kill as many flowers as weeds. More guilt gnawed at her as she now ruined her mother’s garden as well as her life. She sat back and wiped a hand across her sweaty brow.
What she needed was a plan. A strategy. That was what Daniel would do, wasn’t it? It’s probably what he’s doing right now, she thought. Her lips compressed and her eyes narrowed into a glare as she clawed at the earth with her bare hands. Daniel and his strategies, she fumed. She could just see him plotting away in his room at the villa. He was his generation’s Machiavelli.
But no, he had gotten what he’d wanted, she reminded herself. The merger was signed—no thanks to her. So everyone got what they wanted—Daniel, Jack, Brunelli—she was the only one who had walked away empty-handed. So maybe Daniel wasn’t the idiot here. Maybe she was the one who needed to have her brain checked.
“Ivy!” Her mom was calling from the back porch. When Ivy glanced up her mother waved the house phone above her head. “Phone for you, dear.”
Daniel. Her heart leapt in her chest. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was making an attempt to be a little brighter these days. Of course it wasn’t Daniel. Why on earth would he call her? He’d gotten what he’d wanted and now she was neatly out of his life, without a payout and without a job. He could move on to his next victim scot-free.
Ivy made her way to the house slowly. Her heart was still racing. Despite all the logic that her brain was spewing there was a little part of her—okay, a big part of her—that was praying fervently that it was Daniel on the line. Ivy groaned aloud. She really was an idiot. And a glutton for punishment to boot. Her mother gave her an encouraging smile when she handed her the phone.
“Hello?”
“Ivy, thank God. I’ve been trying to track you down all morning.”
“Hey Jack.”
“Why isn’t your cell on?”
She shrugged, momentarily forgetting he couldn’t see her. “I don’t know. I guess the battery died.” Some distant part of her brain was aware that her voice was unusually lethargic and was trying to snap her out of whatever depressed funk she’d slipped into but her heart and body were not up to the challenge. She let herself slide down against the kitchen wall and cradled the phone against her cheek.
“What do you want, Jack?”
“How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re a lousy liar.”
“Well, I guess that’s why Brunelli never bought us as a couple, huh?”
“Nah, it wasn’t our acting that gave us away. It was you and Danny.”
Ivy’s chin snapped up at the mention of his name. There was a short silence as Ivy debated whether or not she should ask about him. No. She didn’t want to hear about him. She’d clearly developed some sort of strange obsession with the man. Cold turkey was best.
“So what’s up, Jack?”
“I wanted to let you know...” Jack trailed off and cleared his throat. Ivy was intrigued; she didn’t think she’d ever heard Jack at a loss for words.
“What is it?”
“I want you to know that you’ll always have a job with EverTech. Brunelli and I—we talked it over and you’ve been so valuable, such a team player. I just wanted you to know that.”
Ivy swallowed a thick lump at the unexpected kindness. “Thanks Jack, I appreciate it, I really do.”
“But?”
“But I can’t go to work for Daniel. I just can’t.”
“Ivy, he won’t be part of the day-to-day operations. He’s already moving on to his next investment—”
“Please, Jack....”
There was a heavy silence. “Yeah, okay. I get it.”
Ivy studied the dirt beneath her fingernails as she pondered what to say to this man who had become such a great friend in such a short period of time.
“Listen, Ivy, Brunelli and I want you to have the money you were promised.” She tried to cut him off but he barreled ahead. “You earned every penny. Without you, this deal would never have happened. Besides, it’s not for you, right? It’s for your family. Don’t make your family pay—”
“For my mistakes?” she finished. She knew he had a point but pride warred with practicality.
“I didn’t say that.”
She heaved a sigh. “I’ll think about it, okay?”
“I guess that’s all I can ask for. And Ivy, about Daniel...maybe you should—”
She cut him off, her heart hammering at the mention of his name. “I don’t want to talk about him, Jack. I mean it.”
She heard a familiar voice in the background and Jack stifled a laugh.
“Was that Brunelli?” she asked. “What did he say?”
“He said you’re welcome to use his villa for your wedding whenever you want.”
Ivy rolled her eyes. Those two certainly had a droll sense of humor. “Tell him thanks a lot. Maybe I’ll take him up on that in a decade or so.”
* * * *
Daniel drove through the winding back roads of Ivy’s hometown in a state of panic. For the first time in his life he hadn’t been able to come up with a plan. He needed to win over the woman he’d pushed away—the love of his life—and he had no idea how he was going to go about it.
What he needed was a grand gesture—something to prove that he was the man for her. That he deserved her. But that was the problem. He didn’t deserve her. They both knew it. He didn’t deserve her trust or her love.
Muttering a curse under his breath, he contemplated turning the car around and heading back to the airport for the millionth time since he set out that morning. Glancing down at the address written on an envelope, he cursed again. He felt like he’d been driving around in circles for hours.
Maybe that was for the best. This was buying him some time to figure out what he would say. He had spent the past twenty-four hours doing nothing else with no success, but hell, maybe twenty more minutes of driving in circles would do the trick.
The Sinclair home was a modest ranch house with white clapboard siding, dark green shutters, and an immaculate lawn. He stared at it intently for about five minutes before he became aware of the attention he’d unintentionally brought to himself.
Daniel smiled at the young neighbor boy, who was gawking at him—or rather, at his Jaguar. He suspected sports cars were not the norm in this middle-class neighborhood.
He climbed out of the car and a voice stopped him. “Are you lost?” It was an older man with silver hair who was watering the hedge between the Sinclair house and what Daniel assumed was the man’s home.
“No, sir, I don’t believe I am. I’m looking for the Sinclairs.” An elderly woman popped out of the neighbors’ house and she ignored Daniel to address the man with the hose. “Who is it? Another one of those reporters?”
“I don’t know, he didn’t say.” They were talking about him as if he wasn’t there and Daniel was well aware of the young boy who was still staring at him, now with an open mouth.
A minivan slowed to a stop behind him. “Everything all right here, Mrs. Ferndale?”
Daniel tried not to let his exasperation show. “We’re fine.” He gave the man his best look of innocence, which only caused the bald, red-faced driver to squint at him with suspicion. “I was talking to Mrs. Ferndale.”
“Right.” He tried to maintain the polite smile but knew he was failing when all of the questioning faces around him turned to scowls. Daniel was half convinced he was about to be run out of town when he was saved by an older woman who cracked open the screen door of the Sinclair house. “What’s going on out here?”
The woman was an older and taller version of Ivy with dark auburn curls that were pulled up into a ponytail. The woman held a broom in one hand and was shielding her eyes against the sun’s glare with the other.
She pointed the broom handle at him in a not so welcoming manner. “Are you one of those damned reporters?”
Daniel shook his head. “Worse, I’m afraid. I’m that damned Daniel Gladwell.”
By the look on her face, Daniel figured he had been right to assume that his name was the new curse word around the Sinclair house. “How do you do, ma’am?”
* * * *
“Ivy! Ivy, you’d better get in here.”
She wiped away a bead of sweat that was trickling down the side of her nose.
“Ivy.” It was her dad calling for her this time. He’d probably come up with another laundry list of chores for her to tackle. She had a feeling he was taking far too much pleasure in her punishment.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” She was still muttering to herself when she walked into the kitchen.
She froze in the doorway. Daniel. Like an oasis in the desert, he looked too good to be true standing in the kitchen of her parents’ simple home. Ivy’s heart threatened to leap out of her chest as her body began to tremble. Relief and joy rushed over her at the sight of him but they were quickly replaced with boiling hot rage.
“What are you doing here?” It came out so screechy that even her parents flinched at the sound.
Daniel looked quite calm. It was that cool exterior she knew so well. The sight of that perfectly poised charm made her that much angrier and she had visions of physical violence. That awful smile begged for a good punch.
“Don’t smile at me like that,” she said. She was horrified by how wobbly her voice sounded. That did the trick though. The smirk faded.
There was the real man. There was the man who had broken her heart.
Ivy didn’t know whether she was going to scream or cry or leap into his arms. Before either of them found out, their little tableau was interrupted when Holly came barging into the kitchen, took in the scene before her and let out a little shriek of horror.
But it wasn’t Daniel she was staring at, it was Ivy. She whirled around to face her parents. “Really? You are really going to let her stand there looking like that?”
Ivy looked around in confusion and that was when she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the kitchen table. She gasped aloud at the sight before her. There were streaks of mud and dirt all over her face and neck and her hair was a jumbled mess of curls atop her head with stray locks sticking out in every different direction.
Ivy saw Daniel’s lips twitching as he struggled not to laugh. That was it. That was the last straw. She swatted her sister’s hand out of her face before she could wipe her down with a washcloth.
Pointing a finger at Daniel, she glared at him with all of her might. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare laugh right now.”
Daniel raised his hands in mock surrender. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She dropped her finger and took a step back. She refused to glance in the mirror lest she lose the anger that was holding her together.
“Ivy, please let me—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she snapped. She clenched her hands into fists to stop their shaking.
He was silent for so long she didn’t think he’d speak. All she could hear were his last words to her, the last conversation they had. “Why are you here, Daniel?” she repeated. “Do you need me to lie to the press for you? Come up with some excuse for why the wedding never happened?”
He flinched. “Ivy, I told you that we have choices—”
“And you made yours,” she said. She hated how weak her voice sounded, how incredibly sad.
“I chose wrong,” he said.
Ivy’s chest tightened painfully. She heard Holly’s intake of breath but other than that, their audience was watching in wide-eyed silence.
His eyes held hers for several long moments and in them she saw every emotion. For the first time since they’d met, he was completely unguarded. She saw fear, and heartbreak…and love.
Her breath caught in her throat as hope warred with fear. She could not take another blow to her heart.
“I asked you a question. What are you doing here?”
“I came here to ask your parents’ permission.”
Her eyes widened to the point where she felt them bugging out of her skull. “Permission for what?”
“To marry you.”
Ivy stopped breathing. “What did you say?”
All eyes were on him but he only had eyes for her. She thought she might drown in the love she saw there—the pure, genuine, raw, unconditional love. Her heart ached with joy but she was struggling to hold on to her anger.
“You hurt me.” The words came out haltingly, pulled from the depths of her pain.
He took a step closer and drew her into his arms. “Can you ever forgive me?”
She looked down at her hands that were trapped between them, keeping them apart. He used one finger to tip her chin so she was looking into his eyes and could see the honesty and emotions that no charming smile could hide.
“You told me once—you said, true love meant forgiveness and that everyone deserved a second chance.”
She nodded a bit, tears threatening to spill. “Sometimes that’s easier said than done.”
He leaned down to drop a gentle kiss on the tip of her dirty nose. His words were so quiet she could feel her family moving in to try to hear him. “I solemnly vow that ‘til my dying day, I will do everything in my power to make you happy.”
“Why?” It came out as a whisper. She had to hear the words.
He pulled her closer and looked her straight in the eyes. “Because I love you, Ivy Sinclair. I love you more than life itself.”
She heard her mother sigh and Holly start to whimper. Even her father sounded like he was sniffling, but Ivy was beaming. “I knew it! I knew you loved me. I knew I wasn’t wrong about you.”
Daniel laughed and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He planted a quick kiss on her lips. “And?” he prodded. “Now it’s your turn.”
She rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh. “See how you’re always ordering me around? When we get married, you’ve really got to work on that.”
“Ivy,” her name came out as a growl and he scooped her up into his arms so she was trapped against him. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. She never wanted to let go.
“I love you, too, Daniel.”
She barely heard her family tiptoe out of the kitchen as Daniel’s lips closed over hers and she found her new home.
Epilogue
Almost nine months later…
Ivy was curled up against Daniel on the veranda, tucked away in the corner for a moment of peace and quiet in the midst of all the revelry.
“Your grandfather looks happy.”
“He is happy. His grandson has finally stopped acting like an idiot.”
Ivy grinned. She never got tired of hearing him admit how wrong he’d been.
From where they were perched, they could see all of their family and friends laughing and dancing under the twinkling lights strung across the veranda. The hills of Tuscany were silhouetted against the twilight sky.
“Take a look at your parents,” Daniel said. “Looks like they’re fitting right in with the Italians. Who knew your mother could dance like that?”
“Who knew my husband could move like that?” Ivy teased.
He lightly kissed the top of her head “I can’t believe the Brunellis made all of this happen so quickly.”
Ivy nodded in agreement. The industrious Brunellis had come through with a last-minute wedding plan that would have put Martha Stewart to shame. She and Daniel had planned on having a lengthy engagement so they could fake her breakup with Jack and let the media circus die down a bit. But even Daniel’s careful planning didn’t take into account the fact that Ivy would get pregnant.
“Are you ready to head back out to the dance floor?” Daniel asked.
Ivy patted her rounded belly. Lucia had custom-tailored the gown to include room for two. It was still the wedding dress of her dreams just…bigger. “I think me and baby need a little more time to rest, if you don’t mind.”
Daniel settled back in his seat and moved her so she was perfectly fitted against his side. “There’s no place I’d rather be, my love.”
