“Remember the night we met?” Levi’s voice comes from a lounge chair to my right.
“Yeah.” I pull my ear buds out and turn to him.
“You were so pissed at me for saving you,” he grins.
“Keep telling yourself that,” I roll my eyes. This is his favorite way to tease me.
His smile drops. “Grace isn’t my girlfriend.” He has the decency to look sheepish.
“You don’t owe me any explanations.”
“I want to give them to you anyway.” He yawns and rubs the back of his neck.
“It’s fine.” It’s not fine, but I want to get some more laps in. “You should go back to bed; you must be exhausted.”
“Yeah,” he says with another embarrassed grin. “Do you want to grab dinner tonight to catch up? Maybe talk through things?”
“Sure.”
“Great, I’ll grab you around six.” He stands and stretches. His sweatpants hanging obscenely low across his hips. It takes all my will power not to stare and drool at his washboard abs and hot as fuck Adonis belt. I didn’t even know guys our age could be built like that.
“See ya later.” I pop my ear buds back in and push off the wall. I feel his eyes on me for a few more minutes until I catch a glimpse of him walking inside when I take a breath.
I wonder what he wants to talk through. I would rather we just pretend the events of his fifteenth birthday never happened. We can just pick back up as friends and find a way to support each other platonically.
I’m not interested in hearing about his sexual exploits. I’m definitely not interested in discussing my lack of dating life the past few years.
I grab my phone to see how long I was down here, and I’m right at an hour. Perfect time to stop. I pull my goggles and swim cap off, and I’m tempted to just float around for a few minutes, but I get out and dry off instead. I stretch out on the same lounge chair Levi was on earlier and watch the sun rise through the trees that surround the property. The grounds are perfectly manicured, right down the diagonal mow lines crossing the yard. White rose bushes and hydrangeas surround the pool. The pool house looks like a miniature version of the main house, all white and modern.
The French doors from the kitchen open up, and when I see who is walking toward me, I have to stifle a groan. My mom prowls toward me in a silk robe cinched at the waist that accentuates her ridiculously curvy figure and shows all her cleavage. She hasn’t seen me in five months, so you would think I’d be given a warm welcome. Instead, she wears the special scowl she saves for me when no one is around.
I search her face for any signs of love or affection. All I see are her dead brown eyes, overly botoxed face, and fake lips. I have to wonder if her hair is graying like my dad’s yet or if she just gets it colored frequently enough no one would ever know. She’s so vain she’d probably put it in her will to have it dyed in the coffin.
“Ivy,” she says my name disdainfully. Her eyes travel the length of my body with a look of disgust. An acid bath would feel better than her disapproving gaze. “I see you are still swimming.”
“Hello to you, too, mother. Lovely to see you.” I lay the sarcasm on thickly. “Thanks for being here when I arrived yesterday. It was so nice of you to give me a tour, so I didn’t meet your new husband all on my own and suffer through the awkward first encounter.”
“Grow up. You have been on your own at boarding school for years, you hardly need me to hold your hand.” She sits down in the chair next to mine, crossing her legs primly. “I had to get you enrolled at Founders Preparatory Academy. These kids are all filthy rich and will most likely be inheriting million- and billion-dollar companies. You need to use the next two years to network.”
By network, she means find a rich boyfriend. I don’t even try to hide my eye roll.
“Ivy, I know you want to make your father proud and you think the only way to do so is by following in his footsteps, but swimming is ruining your body. No boy is going to want—”
“Good morning, Frank,” I chirp, interrupting the hurtful words she’s about to spew.
“Morning.” He leans down and plants a grossly intense kiss on my mother’s lips.
I barely school my face in time for them to pull apart.
He sits down on the end of my lounge chair. “I see you are making good use of the pool already.”
“Yeah,” I nod, “it’ll be good to have for conditioning.”
“Conditioning?” He raises a brow in question.
“For swimming,” I say hesitantly. Obviously, my mom has told him nothing about me.
“Ah, should have guessed. Following in Parker’s footsteps then?”
“Trying, they are big shoes to fill.”
“That they are,” he looks at Mom briefly. “Founders has a good swim team, but if you need extra coaching let me know. I can find someone to come here when it’s warm and work out a deal for after-hours use of the school’s pool when it cools down.”
“Thank you,” I say sincerely. That’s an exceptionally kind offer for having just met me and clearly knowing nothing about me.
“I have this for you as well.” He pulls a credit card out of his wallet and hands it to me.
“What’s this for?” I ask.
“To buy things,” he grins at my confusion. “Clothes, food, incidentals, going out with friends. There’s a limit on any purchases over three thousand, I’ll get a call for those so just give me heads up if you know you’ll be spending over that in one store.”
“Um, thank you. That’s very generous.” I should reassure him that I would never spend that much in one place, but the only thing Mom and I have in common is our love of shopping. I can easily drop that much in some of my favorite stores in Manhattan.
“I know how your mom loves to shop,” he smirks at her. “She said you two love hitting up stores together.”
Nice, she’ll share my shopping addiction but not my passion for swimming.
“Shall we get ready for brunch, darling?” Mom stands and reaches for Frank’s hand. “The Volkovs and Potters will be there.”
“Of course,” Frank stands. “Levi should be up soon, Ivy, have you met yet?”
“We did,” I nod.
“Great, why don’t we do a family dinner tonight?” Frank’s face lights up as he suggests it. Mom’s face looks about as enthusiastic as I feel about the idea but much like I could never say no to Levi, I’m having trouble shooting down Frank’s smile.
“Yeah,” I force a smile, “sounds good.”
I hear a knock on my door right at six. I’m still putting on some makeup, so I yell for Levi to come in. He fills my bathroom doorway a few seconds later. I allow myself one glance to appreciate him. He’s wearing a gray polo that stretches across his broad shoulders and is just short of too tight with black golf shorts. He’s wearing Nike flip-flops and an athletic watch with a pair of sliver aviators tucked into the collar of his shirt. His hair is short on the sides and long on top, styled off to the side. He looks good.
Too damn good.
I look back to my reflection and finish putting on my mascara and swipe on some lip gloss while he watches me silently.
“Frank and Mom want to take us out for a family dinner,” I say as I pick up my favorite body splash. Isaac’s high school girlfriend gifted me a bottle of it on my tenth birthday, and I’ve used it ever since. It’s one of the only things that masks the chlorine smell that never seems to leave my skin.
Levi’s eyes flare when he smells it, and he walks toward me. “I didn’t know that.” He leans down and runs his nose along my neck, inhaling deeply. He grips my waist in his hands and squeezes gently. “I’m not happy to hear that.”
“Well, I’m not too excited about spending time with my mom either, but your dad was excited so,” I trail off as I step out of his embrace. I step far around him to grab my purse from the closet.
“We still need to talk.” He says as he walks toward the door.
“Mmm-hmm,” I say
noncommittally. He’s blocking the door now. “We’ll be late if we don’t get down there,” I smile up at him. I probably look deranged. I just need to get out of here. He’s taking up all the oxygen in my room and clouding my judgment.
He opens the door and gestures for me to go first.
“Did Dad say where we’re going?”
“No, he was too busy checking out my mom,” I say dryly. “How long were they together before she got her hooks into him?” I’m not going to put on an act around Levi, he could probably see through it anyway.
“About a year? I’m not her biggest fan, so I try to avoid her when possible,” his hand lands on my shoulder. “She never mentioned you by name, so I had no idea you were her daughter. I didn’t even know you were moving in until last week.”
“I’m not surprised,” I scoff. “I didn’t even know she was married until two weeks ago. I didn’t realize I’d be moving here until last week. She and I aren’t close. I’m already looking forward to my first weekend at my dad’s house.”
He pouts and a flash of hurt crosses his features. “When will that be?”
“In two weeks.” I squeeze his forearm. “My wanting to get away has nothing to do with you or even your dad and everything to do with her toxicity.”
He nods but doesn’t say anything. I follow him to the garage. It’s full of high-end luxury cars.
“You guys are obscenely wealthy, aren’t you?” I say as I trail my fingers over the hood of a Ferrari.
“My family owns Marsh Bank and Finance so, yeah, lots of money.” He looks around the garage. “I bet he’ll take the Rover,” he says as he plucks a set of keys from an electronically locked cabinet. He rattles off the code, so I know it in case I need to use a car.
“What can I drive?” Half these cars are too nice to even look at.
“My G Wagon, the Range Rover, the Tesla, either of the Mercedes.”
“Yes, feel free to use any of those,” Frank says as he and Mom join us. “We can also buy you something if you would rather have your own vehicle.”
“Oh, I have one. It’s at Dad’s house in Connecticut. I’m going to drive it home after my weekend visit with him in a couple weeks. Thank you, though.”
Levi opens the back door for me, and I slide in while Frank does the same for Mom. Frank tells us we’re going to the French bistro in Founder’s Ridge. He and Levi talk about football for a few minutes of the drive. Then he brings the conversation around to school.
“Ivy, do you know where you want to apply to for college?” Frank’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror.
“Yale or Princeton probably. They’ve both offered scholarships.”
“You already have scholarship offers before your junior year of high school even starts?” He sounds surprised. It shouldn’t annoy me that he has no clue how good I am, but it does. Did he even know I existed before they were married?
“Dad, Ives is a beast in the pool,” Levi says as he moves his hand beside mine on the seat between us. His pinky curls over mine.
“How would you know that?” Mom sounds annoyed by Levi’s praise.
“We met five years ago at Foster’s,” Levi answers.
“That’s crazy.” Frank’s face looks surprised, but my mom turns away so I can’t see her reaction. She’s probably scowling or something. “Wait, are you the girl he wrote letters to?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” my cheeks heat. “Until he ghosted me at the start of high school.” I pull my hand away from Levi’s, ignoring the glimpse of hurt I see in his eyes.
Luckily, we pull up to the valet, so the potential awkwardness of the moment passes. I fall in behind Frank and Mom and Levi walks behind me. We’re seated at a table on the shaded patio.
Levi maneuvers the conversation to avoid any more questions that could create tension. Dinner goes relatively smoothly aside from Mom making underhanded comments about what I ordered and how I should dress for school. She’s careful not to come at me full force like she would if we were alone, but the comments cut regardless.
Levi follows me into my room when we get back.
“We need to talk,” he says closing the door behind him.
4
LEVI
We stare each other down for a minute. Feelings of hurt and distrust swirl between us, filling the room with a heavy vibe. She really thinks I ghosted her. I can see it all over her gorgeous face. Her gray eyes that used to sparkle when they were trained on me are dull and unimpressed now. Her glossy, pink lips are turned down at the corner. She straightened her hair today, and she’s pulled it over one shoulder. I prefer her natural curls.
“You going to start talking or just stare at me?” Ivy pops her hip out and crosses her arms.
“I like staring at you,” I take a few steps toward her. I was hoping for a smile or maybe even a giggle, but she’s giving me nothing. “I swear I sent you a letter as soon as I got home from camp that summer. Why didn’t we ever trade numbers?”
“We didn’t have phones at Foster’s, and I was only allowed to have my cell phone on weekends at boarding school. Trading emails would have been a better idea. Ultimately that doesn’t matter now.” She walks into her closet, and I follow. “My address never changed. It doesn’t make any sense that your letters would have stopped.” She takes her earrings out and puts them on a weird tree-looking thing.
“I wish I had a way to prove it.” She doesn’t say anything, just gives some side eye. “Seriously,” I wrap my hand around her bicep, “that last night was special.”
She snorts derisively.
I drop my hand from her arm, annoyed that she is so closed off to this conversation. “You know, how do I know you didn’t ghost me?”
Her eyes narrow and harden. She seems to be silently debating something with herself. Then she takes off and walks into the bedroom toward her desk. She yanks open the bottom drawer and pulls out a box that she carries to the bed. She unceremoniously dumps the contents onto her bed.
I walk over to the bed and see all the letters I ever wrote her, prior to that last summer.
“Fuck you, Levi.” She gestures to all the letters. “I kept every single one. I probably should have burned them all when I realized I didn’t matter to you anymore, but I guess I’m too sentimental.”
I kept all mine, too. I actually separated them into two categories; ones that still smell like her and ones that lost the scent. How’s that for fucking sentimental? I’m not going to share that bit of information with her though, maybe if she wasn’t being so obstinate.
“I saved your letters, too,” I say as I finger through the envelopes. “Why didn’t you write to me?”
“I did.”
I look up at her. She looks like she’s telling the truth. She’s a terrible liar, and while it’s been two years, I can’t see that being something that has changed.
“How many times?” I ask.
“Once.”
“Just once?” I wrote at least ten letters. I was so hurt and confused.
“Yeah. I figured you regretted,” she pauses, “things.”
“You mean having sex with you?”
Her eyes grow big, and she shushes me. “Don’t say it out loud. What if our parents were walking by?”
“Their room is on the other side of the house. They never come this way. Plus, they’re probably fucking. It’s the only thing they have in common.” I don’t want to say anything negative about Ivy’s Mom, but I really can’t stand her. Jennifer is a piece of shit, and I’ve spent the past year avoiding her whenever she’s around.
“Ewww. I could have lived not having heard that about them.” She scrunches up her nose adorably. It makes me want to kiss it.
I sit down on her bed and reach out to grab her waist. I pull her to me, my hands wrapping almost all the way around her waist. She’s wearing one of those shirts that shows her belly, and I’m distracted by how smooth her skin is beneath my palms. My thumbs move in small circles causing goosebumps to erupt over her
tight abs. When our eyes meet, the atmosphere of the room heats. She pulls her lower lip in to bite it slowly, not like the girls at school who try too hard. Her bite is unintentional and so hot I don’t even notice that I’ve dragged her between my thighs.
Her hand moves to the nape of my neck, and she runs her fingers through my hair. I swallow nervously. I’ve thought about this off and on so many times the past two years. After a few months of sulking around waiting for a reply to my letters, I started having sex with other girls, but none of them have ever compared to Ivy. I’m not stupid enough to think that our first time was some sort of magical experience for her; it was over embarrassingly fast, but it was Ivy. She’s the gold standard, what I judge every girl off, and they’ve all paled in comparison.
I pull her all the way to me. Our lips meet, and I swear to God it’s better than I remember. She tastes like strawberry lemonade and smells like every good summer memory I’ve ever had. I’m about to deepen the kiss when her phone starts ringing. I dig my fingers into her waist to keep her close, but she covers my hands with hers and pushes them away.
“It’s my dad,” she says putting distance between us. She glances up at me before answering. “We can’t do this. We shouldn’t.”
Bullshit.
That felt right. She’s meant for me. I feel it in every single piece of me. I can play the long game, though, and bring her around. I stand up to leave and let my hand trail over her exposed belly. I pause as I pass her and kiss the skin where her neck meets her shoulder. I’m immensely satisfied when I see her physical response to my touch, a trail of goosebumps down her arm and an almost inaudible gasp.
The next morning, I’m sitting in the kitchen eating breakfast while our chef, Babs, is busy doing meal prep for Dad. He goes to our Manhattan offices Monday through Thursday and likes to eat healthy. He was an athlete through college and staying in good condition is a top priority for him. He’s pushing fifty and has a six-pack that rivals my own. He’s also insanely competitive, so he and I challenge each other all the time when we work out together.
Relentless (Titans of Founder's Ridge Book 2) Page 3