‘I want to get going,’ Rosie said to Ivy.
‘We’ll wait for Dax,’ Ivy said. With Serg showing up to cart Trystan off, they didn’t have to worry about travelling separately. Ivy had the car keys, but wouldn’t use them until she had her husband at her side.
‘I’m going to check on Trystan,’ Serg said and left them to go into the bedroom.
‘He’s a giant,’ Rosie muttered, watching Serg go. ‘Do you think he’s giant everywhere?’
Drawing her eyes to her curious sister, Ivy laughed. ‘Have you not learned your lesson about strange men? And they don’t come much stranger than him.’
‘Stranger than who?’ Dax came back to them, putting his phone in his pocket. Ivy raised the keys and dropped them into his hand.
‘Who was on the phone?’ Ivy asked.
‘Mauri,’ Dax said. ‘He wants us back at the mansion too.’
‘He snapped his fingers and thinks that we’ll jump? What did you tell him?’
‘That we were in Vegas and Serg had shown up to take Trystan home. We have to go back to California anyway, so I told him we’d stop at the mansion.’
‘We don’t have to go back, why do we have to go back?’ Ivy asked.
‘Because he says he has your things from Kay’s place and until we find out who is behind the bounty and put a stop to it, you’re in danger. I want this over before we go back home. Do you want to put our friends in danger?’
Appealing to her about their friends’ safety was purely for her benefit. Dax would sacrifice anyone, all of their friends and acquaintances, before he would let anyone harm a hair on her head.
‘Ok,’ she said, taking his hand and turning to Rosie. ‘We’ll give you some money, enough to get you wherever you want to go. I guess you’re free now.’
‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘I want to come back with you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I want to know that you’ll be safe,’ Rosie said. ‘You came all the way out here to protect me when it could have cost you your life. Please, Ivy, let me see how this plays out.’
‘Ok,’ Ivy exhaled and glanced at Dax. ‘Let’s go back to California.’
Dax now had responsibility for two women, but it didn’t seem to perturb him. Ivy knew that he’d rather have her and Rosie to worry about than deal with his mother again. So at Mauri’s command, they headed out of the suite and down to the car in the GoldSpring parking lot.
It had been their intention to go back to the beach house anyway. It was impolite to use Mauri for his safe haven and then refuse to look him in the eye. Ivy tightened her grip on Dax’s hand at the thought of going back there, not because she was fearful of her safety, but because she feared what Mauri would ask of him this time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Every time we drive up to this place I feel sick,’ Ivy admitted, watching the Stark mansion expand in her view as they drove closer. Rosie leaned between the two front seats from her position in the back to see the house that Ivy was sneering at.
‘I don’t know why. You’ve never been harmed here, have you?’ Dax asked.
‘Never been harmed here?’ Ivy said. Her head snapped to the side, taking the mansion out of her view and bringing her husband front and centre. ‘Are you crazy? The first time you brought me here, you spanked me in the driveway in full view of the house.’
‘You tried to run from me, and it worked, didn’t it? You’ve never run away from me again.’
‘Except those seven weeks you spent chasing me across the country, are we forgetting about that?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, bringing the car to a stop parallel to the front portico. ‘We are.’ He turned off the engine and gave her the car keys again.
‘Why do I need them this time?’ she asked but put them into her purse.
‘I don’t know what Mauri wants, and you’ll feel better if you have an escape route.’
‘I’ll feel better or you will?’ Ivy asked him.
Twisting, he blocked Rosie out by resting his elbow on the shoulder of Ivy’s chair, which forced Rosie to return to her slouched position in the backseat. The back of his fingers met Ivy’s temple and he stroked his thumb down her eye socket to her cheekbone. ‘You really don’t want to go in there?’
‘I hate what they do to you,’ Ivy said. ‘I don’t want you going in there. I don’t want either of us to be here. I would rather be at home, thousands of miles from here, with this in our past.’
‘We can’t run away now. If we do, then the trouble will follow us.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t make me any happier about this.’
‘We hear what Mauri has to say and then we split,’ Dax said.
‘So we can keep the spankings private?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, leaning over the centre console to kiss her. ‘You ready?’
‘To play the little woman again, yeah, ready as I’m ever going to be.’ He kissed her again, then fled the car, and Ivy turned to address Rosie. ‘Keep your mouth shut in there. Mauri prefers to be the one doing the talking.’
‘I know it,’ Rosie said. ‘He gave Carina and me money just to keep quiet on the night of the party.’
Bribery obviously worked, because the two women had been silent even as Ivy had been threatened. Her door opened, and she flipped around to see Dax waiting for her.
‘Hurry up,’ Dax said. ‘Stop yapping.’
‘I am not yapping,’ she said, getting out of the car in time with Rosie.
Dax snatched Ivy’s hand, so she snatched Rosie’s, she wasn’t going to leave her sister here alone. Trystan would be home by now, and Ivy doubted that he was pleased about what had gone down in Vegas.
Security didn’t blink when Dax brought these two women into the mansion, so Ivy supposed their arrival had been anticipated. This was Mauri’s home turf, and he’d had time to prepare for his guests. Despite the fact he’d never raised a hand to her himself, Ivy knew what Mauri was capable of, she didn’t trust him and she never would.
The route Dax took them on through the house wasn’t one Ivy had been on before. She had been downstairs at the party and in a couple of bedrooms, as well as in Mauri’s office. This time they went up to the third floor and along a deep red carpet to a set of double doors with gold inlay and matching handles. Dax knocked and then stepped away.
‘Where are we?’ Ivy asked.
‘This is Mauri’s private suite of rooms,’ Dax said. ‘Usually he doesn’t see people up here. When I was growing up, this part of the house was off-limits unless you were personally escorted. Since we’ve been back in LA this time Mauri has seen me in here several times.’
‘He’s keeping to his room,’ Ivy said. It was so easy to forget that Mauri was dying and didn’t have the strength that he’d wielded once upon a time. Regardless, Ivy didn’t plan to underestimate him.
‘I think he’s getting weaker, he looked tired the last time I saw him here,’ Dax said.
Her husband wasn’t a guy who gave away a lot of insider information about his thoughts and feelings. But she could tell by his averted gaze that losing the man he’d considered a father for many years was taxing. Bringing her body into his side, she rested her head on his shoulder. Comfort wasn’t an easy thing to give while they were in enemy territory, but she offered it nonetheless.
The door that Dax had knocked on opened and Serg came into the hall. ‘Go on in,’ Serg said.
‘Tryst give you any trouble?’ Dax asked him.
‘Yeah, but it’s what he’s good at, right?’ Serg said.
‘Is he in there?’ Ivy asked before Serg could leave.
‘They’re talking in the bedroom.’ The giant blocked out the females to get back to business with Dax. ‘I’ll follow up on that thing we were investigating.’
‘Thanks,’ Dax said and then Serg walked off.
‘What thing?’ Ivy asked.
‘Later.’
This was all Dax said because he was already leading her and Rosie into the drawing room, which was currently empty. An unlit fireplace was the focus of the room and the large portrait above it appeared to be of Mauri, nothing like a narcissist to decorate a room. It seemed more likely that Mauri was Trystan’s father as they both shared that trait.