‘You’re gonna be like this?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘You walked out on me, tough guy. You can’t be pissed off that I did the same thing back to you.’
‘Give me the address and we’ll talk about this at home after I pick you up,’ he said.
Cooling his anger, his chest tightened with the sheer weight of his compulsion to snatch hold of his woman and shake some sense into her. He wanted to grab her and pin her to the nearest wall. Throughout their relationship, he’d been so busy trying to make sure that she was happy he hadn’t attempted to urge her into a submissive position. Though that was a joke, Ivy would never surrender her will to anyone, he knew because he and Bruno had tried it.
‘I’m in a club,’ she said.
‘I can tell.’
‘I can’t hear you properly.’
But she heard him just fine, the tinge of antagonism in her tone betrayed how she didn’t want to be talking, or rather answering, to him right now.
‘I’ll check every damn nightclub in LA if I have to,’ he said, forgetting for a moment that Serg was by his side.
‘Won’t help you much,’ she said.
‘Why’s that?’
‘I’m not in California anymore.’
He hadn’t expected her to say that. ‘What the fuck—‘
‘You deal with your shit, Dax. I’ll be back when I’ve dealt with mine.’ And she hung up the phone.
Lowering the phone from his ear, he blinked at the offending device. ‘Is there a problem?’ Serg asked Dax.
‘No,’ Dax said, stuffing the phone back into his pocket.
His new mood didn’t bode well for the next scumbag they were going to come across. He might enjoy beating the little shit to a pulp just for sport. He’d chased Ivy across the country once and if he had to do it again, then he would.
Tracking her down shouldn’t take him too long; if she’d taken the cell phone he gave her then she would have his credit cards too. In the information technology age, his wife wouldn’t get too far away from him.
Retrieving his phone again, he went online and logged into his credit card account to check the latest transactions. He and Serg were nearly at their destination, so there wasn’t much time for him to pin down Ivy’s location.
Vegas. There was a transaction for a hotel in Las Vegas. Gritting his teeth, he put the phone back in his pocket. Dax didn’t know why she was there or what business she had to take care of, but something had taken her back to her old stomping ground.
Because she was using his credit cards, which Ivy knew he could track, she wasn’t leaving him or ending their relationship. She made a habit of making herself easy to locate if she wanted him to trace her, she knew how to leave breadcrumbs for him. The day she chose not to leave those breadcrumbs was the day he would start to worry.
There was no hurry to get back to the apartment now that he knew she wasn’t there waiting for him. He would finish his shift with Serg and take out some of his frustrations on those who tried to disrespect the Starks. But the minute he got back home, dealing with Ivy would be his number one priority.
She wasn’t in a Vegas nightclub looking for a good time. No, she had checked into her hotel and gone on the hunt for the people she was here to deal with. Getting back to Vegas didn’t feel like coming home. Almost as soon as the plane landed, she wanted to leave again. There was no familiar apartment for her to go to, just another hotel.
Choosing to check into the hotel where she and Dax shared their wedding night, she knew this would be one of the first places that Dax would look for her if he wanted to look. She checked in and went to dinner, giving herself time to formulate a plan for what she wanted to achieve.
Vegas was a city that came alive at night. After dinner, she headed for her old neighbourhood and started to ask around for Trudi to see if she still worked the streets in the area. Ivy had expected people to clam up, or that she would never find where Trudi was at now, but she did.
Word was that Trudi was working for one of the call girl agencies that operated throughout the city. Office blocks were the premises that pimps used to deal from. Girls answered phones and promised johns that their requested piece of ass would come direct to their hotel room, or wherever else they requested the girls go to. Escorts came into the office, got the address then went off to do their thing. When they were done they came back to the office or called in to get a new address, sometimes they saw several men in one night.
Giving the agency a bullshit story, Ivy had managed to find out that Trudi had been requested to come to this nightclub to spend time with her customer. Ivy had no qualms about interrupting Trudi while she was working, chances were that was the only way that her ex-roommate would talk to her.
When Dax called, she’d hadn’t yet seen Trudi, but Ivy went out into the club hallway to talk to him in a quieter space. She stowed her phone away and found herself reluctant to go back into the crush of bodies to try and locate a woman who was no doubt squirreled away in a darkened corner with a john.
If surprising Trudi on a date wasn’t going to work out, then she had another choice, but she’d have to be in her hotel room for the second option to work.
Getting out of that nightclub was a relief, if she had to stomach one more guy assuming that they could put their hands on her or slobber all over her, she might have turned to Dax’s method of conflict resolution and brained one of them with the nearest solid object. Her hotel wasn’t too far from the club, so she went outside and started her walk back.
Dax was angry, his tone on the phone had been unmistakable, but it wasn’t like he’d given her much of a chance to open up to him about why she needed to be here. He was happy to be running around with Serg damaging people. As unhappy as he might be with her for taking off, she didn’t think he’d worry about their relationship. She was pissed about his landing Serg on her at lunch, but not pissed enough to leave him.
After her experience in that nightclub, she found herself missing him. No man would have touched her if Dax had been with her, none of them would have even approached her. On buying her drink and seating herself at the nightclub bar, she had scanned the room, hoping to find Trudi. It hadn’t taken a full minute before the first guy approached her.
After the third tried to hit on her, she got up and began to weave her way around, not remaining in the same place. It wasn’t like the male interest was even a testament to how attractive she was, it was Vegas, men came here wanting to get lucky – one way or another. And with enough liquor in them to drown an elephant, their confidence soared, and they’d hit on anything with a pair of breasts, believing themselves irresistible.
On getting back to the hotel, she was sorry not to have Dax in her room waiting for her. Fighting with him was so counterproductive; they had already faced such adversity and they’d always overcome it. They were going to be together, and nothing would prevent them from finding a future together.
When he had chosen the Starks over her before it didn’t end well; it ended up with them apart and him chasing her across the continent. Prioritising each other was the only way that they were going to survive as a couple.
Stripping out of her clothes, she took a shower and slid into her empty hotel room bed. Dax was her husband and even when he was a jerk, he still loved her. Pulling up the sheet, she turned off the lamp and brought her purse onto the bed to fish out her phone to write a text.
I’m safe, back at the hotel, tucked up in bed alone.
I love you, you arrogant jerk.
She wouldn’t hesitate to show him her wrath when they were back in the same room again. But while this was going on, she didn’t want him to lose himself to the Stark mentality again. Reminding him that they were together, and that he wasn’t that person anymore, might be the only way to ensure that they came out the other side of this together. Her phone made a noise, so she rolled over to grab it from the bedside.
You’re not going to be able to sit for a week by the time I’m through with you, Minx.