‘She won’t want to leave,’ Trystan said. ‘She came here with me, and she’ll stay here until I’m finished with her.’
‘Until you’re finished with her?’ Ivy said, remaining behind Dax. ‘Do you think that we’ll just walk away and let you hurt her? You’re forgetting who you’re dealing with. We know what you’re like. I won’t let you pass her around to your friends after you get her high.’
‘You can’t stop it,’ Trystan said, trying to regain the upper hand, but the arrogance he’d maintained when he came in was waning. ‘She’ll want to stay right here. I can show her a good time.’
‘A good time? For as long as it suits you,’ Ivy said. ‘We came here to get her away from you, and that’s what we’re going to do.’
Trystan wouldn’t take on Dax, so Ivy left her shielded position to stand at Dax’s side. The tension radiating between the men was so charged that she told herself to hurry in retrieving Rosie. A brawl wouldn’t end well for Trystan, and she didn’t know how they’d clear up the mess that would be left if Dax started on Trystan.
Proving her previous point, Ivy walked forward and passed Trystan with her head held high, and he did nothing to stop her. Ivy went to the bedroom but paused before entering to look back at the men. Dax and Trystan were frozen in their stare off again, if so much as a hair twitched they were going to snap and start working out some of that conflict burning between them in typical male fashion.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Pushing into the bedroom, Ivy closed the door behind her to make sure that Trystan wouldn’t be able to sneak up on her without at least some warning.
The huge room had a full wall of windows displaying the glitz of this artificial city in full widescreen. But it wasn’t the vista that interested her, Ivy was focused on the centrepiece of the bedroom.
Crossing to the white and gold sheets, which gathered in waves on the bed, Ivy began to pull them aside to uncover her sister’s naked body.
Slumbering with her face pressed into a voluminous pillow, Rosie was out cold. Being in a slumber this deep made Ivy believe that her sister must have been high last night. ‘Damn it,’ Ivy said, giving Rosie a shake. ‘Come on, Rosie, wake up.’
The room was a mess, and she scanned around to see if any of the scattered items might belong to Rosie. Clothes were strewn across the floor, so Ivy left the bed and began to sweep up Rosie’s garments. The mess wasn’t Ivy’s to tidy, but it was a reminder of just how inconsiderate Trystan Stark was.
Empty champagne bottles clattered around, hitting each other every time Ivy lifted something to check for Rosie’s clothes. Ivy found her sister’s underwear, but couldn’t find a dress or skirt to go over the top of it.
‘Rosie!’ Ivy called out, catching sight of the white powder scattered on the dresser nearest the bed. So cocaine had been on the menu last night, as had lobster and something with a red sauce that was smeared into the carpet beside the fallen room service tray.
A flash of green near the bed drew Ivy across the room, and she fell to her knees to try and pull out the fabric, which was tangled in an electrical cable under the bed. ‘God damn it, Rosie!’ Ivy said, still fighting the cord for the dress. ‘Get up, get out of bed!’
A mumbling reply came from the bed, so she was reassured Rosie had heard her. But she had to wrestle with the dress for another minute before it came free. Exhaling, Ivy came out from under the bed and fell back to sit on her feet. Bra, panties, and the dress, it was a start. She would look for Rosie’s shoes while Rosie was getting dressed.
For that, Ivy would need her sister to be fully awake, so that she could comprehend what was going on. Using the bed for support, Ivy climbed onto the mattress, coming at her sister from the other side she had initially sat on.
Shaking the slumbering form again, Ivy pulled Rosie onto her back. Her sister groped around for the sheet, so Ivy pulled it away from her reach. ‘No, Rosie, you are not going back to sleep. You have to wake up, we’re leaving.’
Rosie’s eyes opened the smallest amount. ‘You’re not Trystan.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In the other room with Dax,’ Ivy said. ‘You have to get dressed.’
Putting Rosie’s arms into her bra, Ivy slipped it up to her shoulders, but Rosie rolled onto her front again. ‘Go away, Ivy, we’re having fun.’
‘Doesn’t look like fun to me. You trashed this place and if Trystan ducks out and leaves you with the bill, how do you plan to pay for the room and all of this mess?’
Ivy didn’t think that Trystan would do that, he had the funds to pay for whatever he wanted, and he liked to fritter that money away any chance he got. But making the accusation was enough to make Rosie flip onto her back.
‘He wouldn’t do that,’ she said.
Ivy smiled, pleased that Rosie’s eyes were open now though her face was smeared with makeup. ‘Get your clothes on and then we can go out and check that the men are still here.’
Rosie sat up, and Ivy handed over the clothes she’d gathered from around the room. Leaving the bed, Ivy went to the bathroom and moistened the fluffy white face cloth she picked up from the vanity.
‘You should never have run off like that,’ Ivy called, wringing the water out of the face cloth.
‘Don’t start lecturing me,’ Rosie grumbled.
Ivy came into the bedroom to see that Rosie was in her bra and panties, but the dress was proving to be more of an ordeal.
‘I’m not lecturing you,’ Ivy said, sitting on the bed beside Rosie. Using the face cloth, she rubbed away the traces of last night’s makeup marring her skin.
Rosie put up no fight and flopped down to lie flat, she closed her eyes and let Ivy wash her face. Glad as she was that Rosie was accepting her help, Ivy recognised how tired her sister was. All the indicators suggested a come down, which led Ivy to believe that cocaine wasn’t the only drug they used last night.
‘You know, you should be careful,’ Ivy said, holding Rosie’s face as she washed it.
‘Trystan isn’t as bad as you think,’ Rosie mumbled.
‘He is,’ Ivy said. ‘But I’m talking about your recovery. You didn’t use drugs at all when we were at the beach house. You shouldn’t use them just because Trystan asks you to.’
‘He didn’t ask me, he offered them and I’m sorry, Ivy, but I like to have a good time.’
‘This is more than that. You can have a good time without running away with random men who you don’t know and using drugs again.’
‘He’s a good guy, and he’s not a loser, he has money and—‘
‘Just because he has money doesn’t mean that he cares about you. He’s using you.’
‘Using me?’ Rosie said, opening her eyes. ‘Using me for what? Sex? I don’t think so. We had sex at his father’s big fancy house, and Trystan still called me the next day.’
So after what had happened in the mansion bedroom, when Dax knocked Trystan out, Trystan had woken up and then gone on a mission to seduce Rosie. It shouldn’t surprise Ivy that he would be as callous as that, but she didn’t like to see her sister reduced to a piece on a game board.
‘He wants to have sex with you because he knows it will hurt me. He’s trying to lash out at me and Dax. We have history that—‘
Rosie swiped Ivy’s hand away and sat up. ‘You think that a rich, sophisticated guy would only be interested in me because he wants you? Are you jealous?’
‘No,’ Ivy said.
‘Do you want Trystan for yourself?’
‘Trystan attacked me,’ Ivy said. ‘The night he and I met, it was right here, in this suite. He was drunk and high, he was having a party with a bunch of friends and I was working here, I was the private attendant.’
‘In this place?’
‘Yes,’ Ivy said. ‘He tried to get me to drink and take drugs, I refused. Then he… he pinned me down and tried to force me.’