After witnessing Dax’s turmoil when Mauri failed to accept their relationship, she worried that Dax would crash if he was disappointed again. During their early days, Dax had been convinced that Mauri would embrace their marriage once he knew how much they cared for, and loved, each other. It hadn’t worked out that way at all.
When she requested that they stay in Vegas for the week instead of rushing back to LA, Dax had yielded. It gave them time to relax and enjoy themselves without the watchful eye of the Stark network.
But on the Saturday of Maurice Stark’s party, they flew back to California with Ivy’s possessions in tow. Having her clothes and knick-knacks back was great, but what she really wanted was the bag Mauri had promised would be at the party tonight.
They hadn’t been back at the apartment for very long. Dax had gone straight into the shower, leaving her to deal with the unpacking and laundry. Now in the bedroom closet sorting through their apparel, she heard him come out of their bathroom and move into the bedroom, so she called out to him.
‘Are you ever going to tell me what happened?’ she shouted just loud enough for her voice to carry through the open closet door.
When he came into the doorway, he was already clothed though his hair was still damp. ‘Tell you about what?’ he asked, clipping the metal strap of his watch closed.
‘What happened between you and Mauri at that midnight meeting?’
‘That was months ago,’ Dax said. ‘The meeting when I told them to go to hell then spent seven weeks trying to find you?’
‘Yes,’ she said, folding a clean tee-shirt into a drawer, she closed it then set her sights on him. ‘You saw Mauri alone then you came back here to tell me that he had commanded us to go to a meeting at midnight at his mansion. I told you that Mauri would want you to hand me over to Trystan, so you let me leave here, to escape from them. But you went to the meeting by yourself, and it was something that happened at that meeting which made you walk away from them. You followed me across the country after that. Why did you come after me?’
‘I figured out that I loved you.’
‘You already knew that you loved me,’ she said, hooking her hands onto a shelf behind her. ‘You had already married me.’
‘Yeah, but I hadn’t lost you yet. I only married you so that he couldn’t.’ At least at the time, that was what Dax told himself, Ivy would never have married him if she hadn’t been sure that he reciprocated her feelings.
Dax turned to leave, but she sprang forward to hold him back. ‘You went to that midnight meeting, you told me that you did.’
‘Yeah,’ he said.
‘What happened?’
‘I told them to go to hell, told them that I wanted to be with you and that I didn’t care about them anymore.’
‘What did they say to you?’ she asked. His countenance betrayed that there was something he didn’t want to share, he got irritated, and his attention went everywhere except to her. ‘Please, tell me, it will sound better coming from you, whatever it is, I’d rather know. Was it about me? Were they disrespectful? Do you think that you’re protecting me?’
‘I am protecting you,’ he said. ‘You know everything that you need to know.’
Removing her hand from his arm, Dax continued out into the bedroom, and she trailed after him. ‘Just like that,’ she said. ‘You expect me to just accept that?’
‘I expect you to keep your mouth shut. I don’t answer to you.’
‘Oh, so you’re going to get defensive and start snapping at me? Yeah, that really tells me that nothing happened. Dax, we’re going over there tonight, and I don’t know what’s going to happen when we get there.’
‘It’s a party,’ Dax said, taking his phone and his wallet from the nightstand to stuff them into his jeans pockets. ‘There will be music and dancing and food, it’s a fucking party.’
‘This might be easy for you, but I am going back to a place that… the last time I was there they were fitting me for a wedding dress, remember? I was locked in a room and told that I was expected to be part of the family, to be Trystan’s wife. Has all of that slipped your mind?’
‘You’re not in danger when I’m around,’ he said.
‘Really? Because I seem to remember you telling me that you’d take care of everything and we ended up hightailing it out of there on your motorcycle, hoping that no one would catch us. You took me to Vegas and married me because you were too scared to stand up to Mauri.’
‘Except I’ve done it now,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘I’m going out.’
‘What about the party?’
‘It’s not for a few hours. I’m going to the bar to talk to Serg. I’ll pick you up at nine.’
‘Nine,’ she muttered because he was already storming out, slamming the front door behind him in the process.
Going back to the Stark mansion did set her on edge. This wasn’t easy for either of them, but being married to a man as masculine as Dax meant he wasn’t the type to sit and talk about his feelings. She didn’t need his reassurances, what Ivy needed were the facts. Something had happened at that midnight meeting, and it was something he’d always hidden from her.
Dax was a straightforward guy under normal circumstances. When he wanted something, he took it or found a way to get it. Ivy had been living the easy life with him back east, they went to work, came home, enjoyed each other, and then did it all over again the next day.
When it came to his upbringing, or their day-to-day lives, Dax had no trouble sharing with her. What had happened at the midnight meeting was the only thing he refused to talk to her about.
The meeting must have been difficult for him, Dax went into the mansion to explain her conspicuous absence and he must have assumed that Mauri would accept his explanations. Except Mauri was a master manipulator, he’d managed once to convince Dax that the relationship was a sham and that Ivy had used Dax to ensure her own safety.
Regardless of that, Dax had let her walk away alone, so he hadn’t gone to the midnight meeting expecting to cut ties with the Starks. If he had, then they could have arranged to meet up somewhere safe after it instead of going their separate ways.
Something went on that night and she was completely in the dark as to what it was.
Right on time, Dax came back to the apartment at nine o’clock, and although she smelled liquor on him, Ivy didn’t begrudge him needing the courage. He took a shower and she was ready by the time he emerged, dressed, from the bathroom.
Seeing him in a suit made her smile. ‘What are you smiling at?’ he asked as she put in his cufflinks for him.
‘You’re not usually so put together,’ she said. ‘Seeing you like this reminds me of Vegas.’
‘When we got married I was wearing jeans.’
‘Not then; the night we met,’ she said, finding his eyes. ‘You were dressed up that night, sitting in the corner of that couch, you kept looking at me.’
‘You were the one who couldn’t take your eyes off me, babygirl,’ he said, resting his fingers around her hips.
‘You weren’t like any of them,’ she murmured, stroking down his arms. ‘They were all drunk idiots, but you… I could tell that you didn’t want to be there. That your purpose wasn’t to get drunk and laid like Trystan’s.’
‘I used to babysit him all the time, parties like that were a normal affair for him.’
‘And how many other hotel employees did he violate?’
His intense gaze exuded a pain when she asked that question. ‘I was in deep. You were right when you said I was desensitised to what they had me doing. Trystan’s a jerk, and I promise you that you’ll never be in that position again. I won’t let any man harm you, I promise you, babygirl.’
‘I know,’ she said, levering up to kiss him then wiping the gloss residue from his lips.
At nine fifteen, a limo, sent by Mauri, pulled up outside their apartment. It remained parked outside until they went down about twenty minutes later. Neither said much in the back of the car, Dax poured her a flute of champagne, but he didn’t have anything to drink himself. He probably assumed she’d need some courage too, but she didn’t really want any alcohol, still, she sipped it throughout the trip.