Chapter 4 - Shadows of the Past
The private jet was bigger than my old apartment.
It had leather seats that folded into beds, a full bar, a bathroom with a shower, and even a small bedroom in the back with a king-sized bed. Ethan told me he used it at least once a week—flying to New York for meetings, to Los Angeles to visit his production company, to Asia to check on his manufacturing plants. It was just another part of his life that I was still getting used to.
We left Chicago at seven a.m. on Saturday, the sun just rising over Lake Michigan as we climbed into the sky. Ethan slept for most of the flight, stretched out on one of the couches with a blanket draped over him, looking younger and more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him. I sat by the window, watching the clouds roll by below, going over my notes from the dinner meeting the night before and trying not to think about the almost-kiss in the restaurant.
It didn’t mean anything, I told myself for the hundredth time. He was just caught up in the moment. He was angry at Victoria. He feels responsible for me because of what happened with Ryan. That’s all.
But my heart didn’t believe me. Every time I closed my eyes, I could feel his hands on my face, his breath on my lips, the way his voice had dropped an octave when he’d told me I was worth a thousand Victoria Sterlings. It was the kind of thing girls like me only read about in romance novels. The kind of thing that never happened in real life. Especially not to maids with medical debt and ex-boyfriends who wanted to kill them.
We landed at Teterboro Airport just after nine, and a car was waiting for us on the tarmac to take us into the city. Ethan had meetings all day—first with a group of investors in Midtown, then with the head of a major tech company he was thinking of acquiring, then with his New York lawyers to go over the final details of a merger that had been in the works for six months. I was right beside him the whole time, taking notes, scheduling follow-up calls, handing him files, making sure he ate a sandwich between meetings because I knew he’d forget if I didn’t remind him.
By seven that evening, he was exhausted. I could see it in the way his shoulders slumped, in the dark circles under his eyes, in the way he rubbed his temples like he had a migraine. We were supposed to go to another dinner party that night—one hosted by a famous Broadway producer who wanted Ethan to invest in his new show—but when we got back to the penthouse Ethan kept in the city, he threw his briefcase on the couch and collapsed into an armchair.
“Cancel it,” he said, closing his eyes.
“Cancel what?” I asked, hanging up my coat in the closet by the door.
“The dinner. The party. All of it. Tell them I came down with a sudden case of the flu. Tell them anything. I’m not going anywhere tonight. I’m too old for this shit.”
I laughed, pulling out my phone to make the calls. “You’re thirty-two, Ethan. That’s not old. That’s barely middle-aged.”
“Feels old,” he muttered. “Feels like I’ve been doing this forever. Meetings. Deals. People smiling at me to my face while they stab me in the back. Sometimes I wonder why I don’t just sell it all. Move to a beach somewhere. Drink margaritas all day. Never wear a suit again.”
I finished the last call and turned to look at him. The penthouse was on the top floor of a building in Tribeca, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the entire city. The lights of Manhattan were twinkling below us like a sea of diamonds, and in the distance, I could see the Statue of Liberty holding her torch high against the darkening sky.
“Why don’t you?” I asked softly. “Sell it all, I mean. You have more money than you could ever spend in ten lifetimes. You could do anything you wanted.”
Ethan opened his eyes and looked at me. There was a sadness in them I’d never seen before.
“Because it’s not mine to sell,” he said quietly. “Not really. My grandfather built this company from nothing. Started it in a garage in 1952, making machine parts for the auto industry. My father grew it. Turned it into a global empire. Then they died, and it all fell to me. Twenty-two years old, fresh out of college, no idea what I was doing, with thousands of people depending on me for their paychecks. I couldn’t just walk away. That would’ve been a betrayal. To them. To everyone who works for me.”
He paused, running a hand through his hair.
“Besides,” he added with a small smile. “Who would hire me if I quit? I don’t have any real skills. I just know how to yell at people and sign checks.”
I walked over to him and sat down on the arm of his chair, before I could think better of it.
“That’s not true,” I said. “You’re brilliant. You see things other people miss. You care about the people who work for you—you stayed up until two in the morning last week going over the benefits package for the factory workers in Detroit because you wanted to make sure their kids had good health insurance. You’re kind. And loyal. And funny, when you’re not being a grumpy old man.”
He reached up and covered my hand with his, lacing our fingers together.
“Careful, Miss Carter,” he murmured. “You’ll make me blush. And billionaires don’t blush. It’s bad for business.”
I laughed, but the sound died in my throat when he tugged on my hand, pulling me down until I was sitting on his lap. My heart stopped. I could feel the heat of his body through his dress shirt, the steady beat of his heart against my back, his arm wrapped firm around my waist holding me close.
“Ethan,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”
“Something I should’ve done a long time ago,” he said, his voice rough against my ear.
He turned my face to his, and this time there was no hesitation. No pulling away. No excuses.
He kissed me.
It was better than I’d imagined. Soft at first, tentative, like he was afraid I’d push him away. When I didn’t—when I kissed him back, winding my arms around his neck and tangling my fingers in his hair—he deepened it, his hand tangling in my hair, his other arm tightening around my waist, pulling me as close to him as physically possible. He tasted like coffee and mint and him, and for a moment, the whole world fell away. There was no New York skyline, no billion-dollar company, no Victoria Sterling, no Ryan. There was only this. Only him. Only us.
A loud knock on the door shattered the moment.
Ethan pulled away, his chest heaving, his eyes dark and hungry. We stared at each other for a second, both of us breathless, both of us knowing things had changed forever.
“Stay here,” he said, standing up and setting me gently on my feet. He straightened his tie, ran a hand through his messy hair, and walked to the door. “Who is it?”
“Marcus, sir.” It was the head of security, the man who’d walked Ryan to his car that night. His voice was tight, urgent. “We have a problem. You need to see this.”
Ethan opened the door, and Marcus stepped inside, holding a manila envelope in his hand. His face was grim.
“What is it?” Ethan asked, his business voice snapping back into place instantly.
“Someone left this taped to the front door of the penthouse building ten minutes ago,” Marcus said, handing him the envelope. “The doorman said a man in a hoodie dropped it off. Took off before he could get a good look at him. We ran the envelope for prints, but there’s nothing. Whoever did this wore gloves.”
Ethan opened the envelope and pulled out the contents.
It was a single photograph.
I walked over to see what it was, and my blood turned to ice in my veins.
It was a photo of me. Taken the day before, outside the boutique on Michigan Avenue. I was standing on the sidewalk, holding my garment bags, laughing at something the saleswoman had said. I looked happy. Carefree.
But someone had drawn on it.
In thick black marker, a cross had been scrawled over my face. And across the bottom, in jagged, angry letters, were three words:
YOU’RE NOT SAFE.
The room spun.
Ryan.
It had to be. Ethan had told him to stay away, but I’d known from the start that a man like Ryan wouldn’t just walk away. He was the kind of man who held grudges. Who’d rather destroy himself than let someone else win. Who’d spent his whole life getting what he wanted by hurting people, and he wasn’t going to let a billionaire stop him.
Ethan’s hand crumpled the photo into a ball. His face was white with rage.
“Marcus,” he said, his voice so low it was almost a growl. “I want every security detail we have in New York on this. Double the guards at the penthouse. I want Ivy escorted everywhere she goes—even to the bathroom. I want the Chicago police contacted. I want a restraining order filed against Ryan Miller first thing Monday morning. And I want every man who ever worked with him on my payroll questioned. Now.”
Marcus nodded and was out the door in a second.
Ethan turned to me. The anger was still there, but beneath it, I saw fear. Real fear. For me.
“Hey,” he said, crossing the room in two strides and taking my face in his hands. His thumbs brushed away the tears I hadn’t realized were falling. “Hey, look at me. You are safe. I promise you. He’s not going to get within a hundred miles of you. Not while I’m alive. Do you understand me?”
I nodded, but I couldn’t speak. My throat was too tight.
“He won’t win, Ivy,” Ethan said, pulling me into his arms and holding me tight against his chest. I could hear the rapid thud of his heart beneath my ear. “I won’t let him. This ends here. One way or another, it ends.”
But as I stood there in his arms, looking at the crumpled photo on the floor, I knew he was wrong.
May you like
This wasn’t the end.
It was only the beginning.
