Word spread fast.
Within days, everyone at Wolfe Jewels knew or thought they knew that Ivy had sold out the design department.
Some mocked her outright, others muttered behind her back.
She let it all slide off her and kept trying to get Gerald Barrow on the phone, staking out his office and his home in turn, without a single sighting.
Out of options, Ivy waited outside Amy’s building until midnight, arms full of gifts, until the woman finally stumbled home, thoroughly drunk.
Ivy rushed over to steady her.
“Amy, what happened?
Mr.
Barrow never let you drink on business trips before.
Something’s wrong.”
It only took a few words for Amy to land the blow that actually hurt.
“There’s no point trying to smooth things over with me anymore, Director Hart.
Mr.
Barrow’s health took a turn, he’s abroad recovering.
The new product line’s been handed off to the heir apparent.
I’m just a secretary.
There’s nothing I can do for you.”
New leadership, clean sweep.
Amy, once trusted, once close to the top had clearly been pushed to the margins overnight, and it showed in the hollow look on her face.
“You joined Barrow Group right out of school, and he thought the world of you.
This won’t last.” Ivy wasn’t in the business of kicking someone while they were down.
She walked Amy and her bags home, brewed her something for the hangover, and got up to leave once she was settled.
“The heir and Desmond Wolfe got close studying abroad together.” Amy spoke up suddenly.
“The Wolfe family miscalculated badly this time.
There’s no path back in for you.
Let it go, Ivy.”
Ivy just smiled, no argument in her.
“Get some sleep, Amy.
Don’t dwell on it.”
Amy watched her go that same slight frame carrying itself like it hadn’t lost anything, stubborn in a way that reminded Amy of who she used to be, before the world sanded her down to nothing.
She still had some fight left in her, though.
Amy flung the door open and shouted after her.
“Elysium!
Room 2333!
The heir practically lives there!”
Ivy stopped in her tracks.
Elysium was the most notorious pleasure club in Ashford Falls glittering lights, easy money, indulgence without limits.
She’d never once set foot inside.
Amy looked her over.
“You’ve built a reputation as untouchable and refined.
That’s not exactly what catches a playboy’s eye.
Think you can actually pull off a nightclub girl?”
Ivy caught the challenge in her expression and smiled back.
“Thank you for the idea.”
The composed, artistic persona she’d worn for three years belonged to Wren.
Underneath it, she’d always been something rougher, a girl who’d grown up scrappy in the countryside.
She didn’t need the mask anymore, not for this.
If anything, she was almost looking forward to stepping somewhere entirely new.
The next day, Ivy locked herself in her study and reworked her entire portfolio from scratch, finishing a new collection of designs by the time the sun went down.
Thornwood had already launched their line.
Her only real move now was to design something sharp enough to make the mysterious heir forget he’d ever looked at their work.
Ten o’clock.
Elysium.
Beautiful people everywhere, music pounding through the floor, wealth and want colliding in every corner of the room.
The air itself felt charged.
The lighting shifted.
Ivy walked in wearing a red sequined halter dress that clung to every curve, delicate butterfly appliqués scattered across her collarbone, an easy, indifferent smile on her face that made her somehow more magnetic than if she’d tried.
Heads turned the second she crossed the threshold, along with a chorus of low whistles she ignored completely.
She headed straight for the VIP section on the third floor and was stopped cold at the entrance.
“Ma’am, your membership card, please.”
Elysium ran on a strict hierarchy, money bought access, but only to a point.
Casual guests got the first floor and nothing more.
Climbing higher meant tiered memberships, and even the lowest VIP tier on the third floor started somewhere in the hundreds of millions.
Ivy hadn’t accounted for a locked door.
The moment it shut behind her, while she was still working out how to talk her way back in, an arm slid around her shoulders.
“She’s with me.” Desmond Wolfe looked her over, something lazy and hungry in his eyes.
“Sneaking around by yourself, sweetheart?
That’s not like you.”
Him again.
She had scores to settle with this man, old and new, but with staff watching her every move, she swallowed her disgust and let her expression go blank, like she’d simply lost her way.
“Stay close.
Wouldn’t want you getting lost twice tonight.” He pulled her in tighter and steered her toward the more exclusive section beyond, smiling the whole way.
The second the door shut behind them, Ivy wrenched his hands off her.
“Desmond.
Whatever you’re trying to accomplish by targeting me, it does nothing to Nathaniel.
Find a better use of your time.”
“Not even a ‘brother’ anymore?
It’s been what, a few days, and suddenly you’ve got some fire in you.
Where’d the obedient little rabbit go?” He didn’t bother denying he’d set her up, his smile carrying something sharper underneath it.
“Nathaniel’s already replaced you.
Are you really going to just let yourself get thrown out like garbage?”
He reached out and lifted a strand of her hair, breathing it in.
“Ivy.
If you were willing, the two of us would make a very good pair.”
Revulsion crossed her face, and just like before, she snapped her leg up in a sharp kick.
Desmond dodged, bending low with a smirk.
“Same move twice”
He didn’t get to finish.
Ivy used his bent posture against him, driving her elbow hard into his back.
“I don’t repeat myself.”
She turned and walked away without a backward glance.
She had no patience left to spend on him finding Sebastian Barrow mattered more.
Desmond straightened slowly, teeth clenched against the pain.
“Ivy.
You’re not getting away from me that easily.”
Across the room, near the corner.
Chloe watched the two of them disappear together, arms linked, then turned to Nathaniel, whose expression had gone stone-cold, with a look of manufactured shock.
“Nathaniel she’s actually with Thornwood’s CEO.
That explains why she was so eager to divorce you and quit.
But using company assets to impress her new man?
That’s a line even she shouldn’t cross.”
Marcus, mid-sip of tea, opened his mouth to push back, but withered under the weight of Nathaniel’s silence and managed only a quiet murmur instead.
“Sir Mrs.
Wolfe is very likely just here trying to find Sebastian Barrow, same as you.”
Privately, he suspected the truth was simpler than anyone wanted to admit Nathaniel, cold as he was acting, had come to Elysium tonight for the same reason Ivy had: to corner Sebastian Barrow before Thornwood could lock him in.
Instead, they’d walked in and found her wrapped around Desmond Wolfe, his brother, his rival, the one enemy that mattered in both business and blood.
Nathaniel’s mouth curled into something bitter.
“You always seem to have an excuse ready for her.”
Marcus felt the temperature in the room drop and thought better of defending her further.
Reading his boss’s expression, he offered instead, “Should I take you home, sir?”
Chloe, already stinging from watching Nathaniel lower himself to clean up after Wren yet again, latched onto his arm the moment the offer came up.
“Nathaniel, I’m a little tired.
Let’s just go home, I’ll cook you dinner, something warm…”
Nathaniel shifted just enough to slide out of her grip.
“I’m not losing the Barrow account to Thornwood.
Go home without me if you’re tired.”
Chloe’s face fell.
“I’d rather stay with you.”
He gave no answer, just turned and walked deeper into the club, eyes scanning the crowd for one particular figure without quite admitting to himself that he was looking.
The thought of other men getting an eyeful of her skin, that figure, all of it on display for a room full of strangers, settled into something ugly in his chest.
Was she dressed like that to talk business tonight?
Or to catch someone’s attention?