Ivy came back to herself fast, hung up, and stared at Nathaniel in shock.
“Why are you back here?”
For a moment she genuinely thought she was still at the hospital.
Then the room came into focus the Wolfe estate.
Of course he’d be here.
It was his house.
“Sorry.
I wasn’t fully awake yet.” Ivy offered the apology honestly, studying his face like a woman bracing for round two of the night that had already gone sideways once.
She had nothing left in her to fight him, let alone run.
“Nathaniel, don’t be angry.
It’s not good for your blood pressure.” She kept her tone slow and even, trying to talk him back down.
“Honestly, ever since you brought Chloe home to stay over, it’s felt inappropriate for me to keep living here at all.”
Nathaniel didn’t buy a word of it.
He leaned down, caught her chin between his fingers, voice dripping with sarcasm.
“So now Chloe’s the excuse you hide behind for everything?”
“My mother’s surgery is coming up.
I want to be close to the care facility so I can actually be there for her.
Staying here doesn’t make sense anymore.” His grip on her chin ached, but pulling away would only make it worse.
“The call that was an old classmate.
He’s helping me find a place, and he charges for it, the cheapskate.
If he mentioned moving in together, he’s just angling for rent money.
It’s not what it sounded like.”
Something about the honesty and exhaustion in her eyes hit him harder than he expected, cracking straight through whatever composure and pride he’d been holding onto, and the possessive anger that had gripped him moments ago drained out just as fast.
“I don’t actually care who you’re with.” Nathaniel released her, cold, his gaze raking over her without any pretense of restraint, like he wanted to strip every defense away at once.
“Just remember the month isn’t up yet.
Don’t go stirring up trouble with anyone else in the meantime.”
He walked out without another word, expression unreadable.
Ivy let out a slow breath, though a fresh layer of cold sweat had already broken across her forehead.
This house genuinely isn’t safe for me anymore.
Nathaniel’s moods had become impossible to predict lately, even she couldn’t guess what he’d do next half the time.
She called Jasper back and let him have it.
“Be a decent human being for once, Jasper.
Learn how to talk to people.
Who wants to move in with a landlord this heartless?”
Jasper had clearly caught the tail end of a man’s voice on the call and knew exactly what he’d walked into wisely, he didn’t bring it up.
“It’s just the unit near the care facility, right?
Great view, decent neighbors, reliable management.
Move in whenever.
First and last month’s rent as deposit.
And don’t forget my commission.”
Ivy wasn’t remotely surprised.
“I’m moving tomorrow.
Bring the paperwork and come help me carry boxes if you want your fee.”
Jasper did the math out loud.
“Then it’s market rate for the moving help too.
I don’t work for free, you know.”
“Get lost.” She hung up, feeling lighter already, until her eyes landed on the water glass by the bed and the scattered fever reducers across the blanket and floor.
Was that Nathaniel earlier?
Feeding me water, trying to get medicine into me?
He should have been buried in meetings at this hour.
Had he actually come back specifically to check on her?
Understanding what went on in his head was getting harder by the day.
After another full day and night of rest, sweating out the worst of it, Ivy’s fever finally broke, and she started feeling human again.
She filed for a week off work, citing the injury.
HR approved it instantly, mentioning that Nathaniel himself had already authorized the leave a woman’s face, apparently, wasn’t something that should be left to scar.
The subtext wasn’t subtle: a scarred face put her even further behind Chloe in whatever race everyone assumed she was running.
Ivy took the news with something closer to relief than insult.
What’s almost funny is that both my face and Chloe’s whole personality only got either of us anywhere because of Wren.
One stand-in leaves, another one steps in to fill the gap.
She’d made peace with her place in all of this a long time ago.
There was nothing left here worth competing for.
While packing, it hit her just how thoroughly three years of marriage had layered itself into this house.
The closet was still full of both their clothes.
The bathroom still held two sets of everything.
Every corner carried some leftover trace of a life that had, technically, been shared.
Seeing it laid out like that, she finally understood what had been driving Nathaniel’s strange behavior lately.
Simple possessiveness.
She’d been his in name and routine for three years.
Even a pet left the house and got missed, let alone a person who’d run his entire life alongside him for that long.
He just wasn’t used to the absence yet.
The faster she was gone for good, the faster that feeling would fade, and he’d forget she’d ever been part of any of it.
Once she’d finished packing, Ivy was about to call Jasper to hurry him along when Marcus showed up first with a small team, there to pack up Nathaniel’s things instead.
“Mrs.
Wolfe, Nathaniel’s taking Chloe to a jewelry exhibition in Europe for the week.
He asked that you hold down things here while he’s away.” Marcus pointedly ignored the row of packed suitcases sitting behind her.
“There may be visitors coming by the family estate soon.
He’d like you to help host, if it comes to that.”
Ivy nearly ground her teeth to dust.
Her real identity had always stayed hidden from the wider Wolfe family, but the elder Wolfes had never fully warmed to the Sinclairs regardless.
Since the wedding, she and Nathaniel had mostly kept their distance from the family estate outside of the occasional holiday gathering.
She’d never gone looking for friction, and in turn, the household there had left her alone.
So why would anyone suddenly be dropping by?
This has Nathaniel’s fingerprints all over it.
It felt deliberate, and with Marcus invoking the terms of their agreement, she had no real grounds to refuse.
Still, staying in a house she’d spent three years quietly numbing herself to didn’t sit right anymore.
After weighing it, Ivy decided to go ahead and move part of her things into the new place as planned.
The unit really was as nice as advertised, quiet, well-kept, and only a ten-minute walk from the care facility.
Convenient, and more importantly, hers.
Jasper’s car couldn’t get past the estate’s private gate, and Ivy had no interest in broadcasting her connection to the Wolfe name to a random moving crew, so she gave him a vague address outside the property line and wheeled her own bags out to meet him.
Catching sight of the gauze still taped across her face, Jasper’s eyebrows shot up.
“Please tell me that’s not from someone putting hands on you.
You’re living in a neighborhood like this, did you marry into money, or is some older guy keeping you?
Was that him on the phone yesterday, getting the wrong idea about us?”
Ivy shot him a flat look.
“And if it were?
Are you offering to cover my medical bills and emotional damages?”
“Gorgeous day for a move, honestly couldn’t have picked better weather.
Let’s get this luggage loaded.” Jasper shook his head, chestnut hair flopping like he had absolutely no concept of professionalism.
Genuinely good-looking, completely useless in every other respect.
Ivy kept a firm grip on her wallet the entire time, paid him exactly what was owed, and sent him packing the second the job was done.
Peace, finally.
The new place had already been cleaned top to bottom by a service Jasper had arranged fully move-in ready, not a single thing left for her to handle.
Credit where it was due, at least he’d gotten that part right.
She’d barely had a few quiet minutes to herself when the production department called.
“Director, this shipment from Ridgewood Factory came in with a significant amount of substandard raw material.
Since they’ve been a long-term supplier, procurement didn’t run the usual quality checks before signing off on the order.
Now the factory and our purchasing team are pointing fingers at each other, and it’s escalating fast.”