If the Starks took it upon themselves to use a wedge to pry the couple apart, then they might be successful, she’d seen it before. So instead of speaking, Ivy moved around the corner of the table and slid her hands up his chest and brought his mouth down to hers.
‘Be back by bedtime,’ she murmured and touched his lips with her fingertips.
‘Start without me,’ Dax said. ‘Creeping up on these guys in the dark is sometimes the best approach.’
So he was telling her that he wouldn’t be back all night? If the men were going to do their enforcing under the cloak of night then there was no need for Dax to leave at lunchtime, which meant there was something else on the cards for this afternoon – be it business or pleasure. Ivy wasn’t sure that she wanted to know what they had planned, but that wouldn’t stop her from asking Dax when he got home.
Maintaining her smile when Dax smacked her ass, Serg grabbed the bag and books, and she remained stuck in the same spot while the men vacated the apartment. Lowering her attention, the lunch mess was still on the table waiting for her to clear it up. Except after Dax’s show, the last thing that she felt like doing was playing the dutiful housewife.
If he was sliding back into his old life then revisiting hers had become more urgent. Leaving the lunch plates untouched, she went into the bedroom and finished her packing. If Dax had no intention of coming back tonight, then Ivy had no intention of sitting here waiting for him.
Grabbing her purse, she checked for her passport and her credit cards. Dax had made sure she was covered which included getting her a cell phone, so if he wanted to chase her then he was welcome to. But if she could get to the airport fast, he might never notice that she was gone.
Chapter Five
Serg had happened upon him at the lunch place, one of Dax’s favourite restaurants, and Dax hadn’t been naïve enough to believe that the meeting was a coincidence. It had been a setup, Mauri had probably kept Serg on his tail since they’d arrived back in California, and Serg had made contact in the restaurant because Mauri had told him to, it was the only explanation for the serendipitous meeting.
Playing along when Serg had offered him a look at the books, Dax had declined Serg’s invitation to take a table and eat in the restaurant. He had told Ivy that he wouldn’t be out for long, if he’d just disappeared she might have worried or been pissed off at him for ditching her. So inviting Serg back to the apartment had made sense.
But taking Serg home hadn’t made Ivy happy, he could sense her spitting fire throughout the meal in their apartment, and he knew that she was going to kick his ass when he got home. When she’d tried to walk away from the dining table, he couldn’t allow it, he just couldn’t let her leave. She was his life, and whatever his business ventures were going to be in the future, she was going to be a part of them.
He had nothing to hide from her and wanted it to stay that way. If they did choose to stay here and work with the Starks again then Ivy was going to be a big part of that; she would never want to be a trophy wife, as most of the Stark women had been. She was going to sign off on everything, and if she didn’t then it wouldn’t happen; for him, it was as simple as that.
Holding onto her wrist during the lunch was for his benefit, she kept him anchored. It was a strange sensation to need something as much as he needed contact with her throughout that meal. Being in Serg’s company, talking business with him, was something that Dax had considered a part of his past. Having to deal with it all again was disconcerting, because he was reminded of just how good he had been at what he did.
However, that woman, his wife, there at his side, in his grip, she was his future, and she made it ok; she made everything ok. He could play the game as long as he had her at his side. Letting Serg and the Starks believe that he was still a force to be reckoned with was essential to their survival here.
Showing them weakness, or letting them think that he was subordinate to Ivy, would put her in a precarious position. Dax wouldn’t allow them to use her against him. They had to believe that he still had control of her, or they could hurt her to get to him. He himself knew the truth – he would never act in a way that would upset his wife.
As they went around to all of the work sites that afternoon, he and Serg acted as if nothing was different, it was as though he was just getting an update after being away with Trystan on another of his ridiculous party binges. When the rounds were done, he and Serg went to the bar. The guys there gave Dax quite the welcome home and hadn’t seemed too surprised to see him.
After dark, they started to visit the known locations of the men who needed to be scared into submission. They had already completed the first three visits when he glanced at the clock on the car dashboard and read that it was after midnight. Knowing that they still had half a dozen of these to do and that it could take hours to track down a specific person, he realised that Ivy was going to hand him his balls when he got home.
Elevating his hips, he took his cell phone from his back pocket and punched in the apartment phone number then held the device to his ear.
‘Checking in with the wife?’ Serg asked from his position in the driver’s seat.
‘Yeah,’ Dax said, but the phone was just ringing, no one was picking up. When the answering machine clicked in, he hung up with no intention of leaving a message.
‘No one home?’
‘She’s probably in bed,’ he said, but that wasn’t their deal.
Ivy waited up for him when he was working late, at least that had been the deal when he worked in Risqué. He worked the night shift doing security at the strip club, and he often wasn’t home until three in the morning. Ivy always picked up when he called her, no matter what the hour was.
‘You did tell her to start without you,’ Serg said with a smile that Dax wanted to wipe off his colleague’s face. ‘Maybe she’s busy.’
If Ivy were pleasuring herself, then she would definitely have answered the phone just to rub his face in what he was missing. She would probably have used her breathy narration of her actions as an incentive to bring him home. Either she was far more pissed off than he’d taken account of, or she wasn’t home at all.
That alarming idea made him sit up straighter to dial the number of the cell phone he’d given her. The chill on his skin was a testament to the adrenaline making his jaw tense. If she wasn’t in the fucking apartment he was going to go straight to wherever the hell she was and have it out with her right there; he’d drag her back to the apartment by her hair if he had to.
Being out on the streets of LA wasn’t safe at this time of night and a woman like her, with her figure and face, would be in more danger. He couldn’t believe that she would think of going out without him there by her side. She wasn’t from LA, she’d never lived here, so she didn’t know anyone. Nor did she know the different areas of the city, she could wander into trouble without realising the area’s potential for it.
‘Hello?’ she said when she picked up the phone.
The noise echoing in the background of the line brought his chin up, because it was evident that she wasn’t home. From the music and chatter, he would assume that she was in a nightclub. How dumb could she be? He wanted to yell at her, to drum into her how crazy it was for her to be out without him in what could be a threatening environment.
‘Where are you?’ he growled.
‘Where are you?’ she asked him right back.
Glancing at Serg, who was fixated on the windshield, Dax turned to his side window. ‘Give me the goddamn address, I’m coming to get you.’
‘You’re not home,’ she said. ‘You would have called me from the landline if you were. You’re still out with him, aren’t you?’