Fox (Stone Cold Fox Trilogy Book 3)

by Max Monroe

At least until she was back in fighting form.

  “All right. What’s the important part?”

  “The movie! Mariah says it’s in editing. They’re going through with it.”

  I gentled my voice and kept her devastation in mind. I’d never thought they would shelve the project for fucking anything, but she’d obviously thought they would. “I suspected they would, baby.”

  “Why? Camilla was… That fucking psycho was a producer. They’re still giving him credit!”

  Logic and reason weren’t exactly the best weapons in a talk with someone in the middle of a vent, but they were all I had to use. That, and my love. “Legally, they probably have to.”

  “Why on earth wouldn’t they drop this thing? My sister died! You want to talk about legal? Where’s the legal entanglement with that?”

  “Baby,” I started gently, advancing slowly to her place on the couch and dropping to my knees to take her face in my hands. “The studio has a lot of money wrapped up in this project. Contracts to fulfill.”

  “Who would even want to see it after all this?” Her voice shook with the evidence of vivid mental details. “Knowing what he fucking did to her?”

  “A lot of people.” The truth was, people were morbidly curious. Death and the events around it always attracted attention. If they didn’t, the project never would have gotten to filming in the first place. “Truthfully, the studio likely knows the attention will bring in even more money.”

  Racked with disbelief and unwilling to accept it, Ivy jumped from the couch, her voice rising right along with her body. I moved enough to let her go but hovered close as she moved to the side of the couch and bent low to her bag, all the while yelling, “We have to do something! We can’t let them do this!”

  She dug her phone from her purse and started calling numbers. She glared as she waited, dropping the bag back to the floor and tripping on the strap as she started to pace. I jumped forward and freed her foot, and she kept walking like nothing had happened.

  “Mariah!” she yelled into the phone when the ringing reached its culmination. She was a flurry of motion as she circled the room manically.

  “Yeah, sorry for yelling at you before. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  A brief pause I wasn’t convinced actually allowed for any talking on the other end observed, she dove right back in.

  “Listen, I need you to get me a meeting.”

  She shook her head and snorted, but what she didn’t do was cry.

  She’d found purpose, apparently, in stopping the film from making it all the way to theaters.

  I just hoped the fall wouldn’t be too bad when the reality of almost certain disappointment set in.

  “Yep,” she confirmed. “Stan Feilding. Head of the studio. Just as soon as you can get it.”

  April 23rd, 2016

  Baylor nodded as I stood up and braced myself to walk into Stan Feilding’s, the head of Trigate Films’ studio, office.

  His receptionist looked a little tired and a lot beaten by huge expectations, and I wondered how I’d fare in the room with the man who’d obviously spent most of his working hours making her look that way. Normally, I was a knowledgeable woman with vivid thought and clear expectations, but these days, my head seemed to be more of a mess than anything else.

  Regret ached in my chest at having ordered Levi to let me go this alone, and it wasn’t the first time. Since the funeral, I hadn’t really let him go much of anywhere with me. We didn’t do much outside of the hotel, but when I did, I’d been determined to go it alone.

  I was so focused on being a professional—attending the meeting as an actress and a force to be taken seriously instead of a broken woman leaning on her boyfriend—that I’d forgotten the facts.

  I was a broken woman leaning on my boyfriend, and my reasoning for asking the studio to reconsider moving forward with the movie was rooted in such. Causes were always better tackled by bigger numbers, and facing anything with Levi was better than facing it alone.

  Somewhere along the way, I’d gotten lost in the floundering fight to be strong. But standing strong didn’t mean you couldn’t use the muscle of another person to do it.

  And Levi had muscles in spades.

  Still, I couldn’t change my decision now. Mariah had spent a week and a half trying to get this meeting, and now that I was here, I couldn’t just reschedule. I’d have nothing but the Levi in my head to hold me up and soothe me.

  “Ah,” Stan Feilding greeted as the door to his grandiose office swung open and his assistant ushered me inside. “Miss Ivy Stone. Come in, come in.”

  The space was large and intimidating, all black, red, and white décor. It was almost as though he’d taken a page directly from the How to Appear Powerful playbook.

  “Hi, Mr. Feilding,” I addressed him formally as I stepped cautiously into the room. My steps were slow but numerous as I closed the distance between us one foot at a time. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.”

  “Of course,” he bellowed. “I like to make time for the people working within the company. And from your messages, it seemed to be important.”

  From halfway into the space, I stepped forward tentatively, and he gestured to the chair in front of his desk with a hand. “Please, take a seat.”

  My feet quavered as I did as offered and sank into the rich, red leather of his modern furnishings. He followed suit, tucking in behind an obnoxiously stately desk and smoothing his tie down his chest. His pepper-gray hair was perfectly coiffed, and his suit was neatly pressed. He was quite obviously a man with importance and money.

  The thought struck me suddenly that what the two of us qualified as important might not be on the same list at all. “Yes. Important to me, anyway.”

  He smiled a friendly smile, so I went on.

  “My sister, Camilla—”

  He was nodding before I even finished the sentence, and the unexpected motion caught me so off guard I stopped speaking. He obviously knew of her passing, as anyone with a pulse probably did, but something about his immediate confirmation made it all seem that much more real.

  She was really, truly dead.

  Sudden weight hit my chest, and pressure closed around my throat like a vise as I struggled to keep myself calm.

  He filled the resulting void easily.

  “Yes. I was deeply troubled by the news of your sister and one of my employees’ role in all of it. I hope you know that the studio is willing to do whatever we can to make it right with you.”

  I was still recovering from the rush of reality, but his words brought air back to my lungs. They were positive. They were open. They were accommodating. My heart swelled slightly, inflated by sheer hope.

  “Thank you, Mr. Feilding,” I acknowledged. Having the head of a studio confront my need for a meeting with such human decency felt nice. Like maybe there was a little bit of right left in the world, after all. “I was really hoping you would say that.”

  Just one eyebrow arched, but his posture shifted more noticeably. In on his elbows, he leaned to the desk, but still somehow managed to make himself look taller.

  “And what is it we can do for you, Ivy?”

  I knew my request was a large one, but I had nothing to gain by stalling. “Not move forward with the project,” I said simply. “With Boyce’s involvement and the directly subsequent events—”

  “Ivy, honey,” he interrupted condescendingly. His tone was sharp, and his face was completely different from before. His eyes weren’t open and honest, and he wasn’t humored by the ambitious nature of my wants at all. “Not moving forward isn’t an option.”

  He didn’t mince words, but the hope inside me still wouldn’t die. I had to try. To see if maybe he’d somehow misunderstood me.

  “Mr. Feilding—”

  “It’s in production. It’s started the very expensive process of editing, and sound is already in development. We can’t go back at this point, and I don’t think you really want to,” he said, taking it a
step further by not only telling me his opinion, but pushing his off on me as a possibility. “Give yourself time to heal. You’ll be ready by the time it comes out.”

  I frowned hard. His insinuation was insulting, to say the least. I was not a hysterical woman on a frivolous mission.

  I was not a wounded heart dumped by some guy and hoping it would be better if I just erased the history on my browser.

  I was a grieving sister and a respected employee of his company, and he wasn’t actually giving me fucking anything. Despite what he’d made me believe at the beginning of the meeting. Despite what he’d surely tell the public happened if we got into a battle of truths.

  “You just said the studio would do anything—”

  “Not that, Miss Stone,” he said with a finality that crushed my spirit and wounded my soul. “Anything,” he qualified with a smile, “but that.”

  And just like that, everything I’d convinced myself I was going to change in myself went up in a puff of angry dust.

  The door slammed, but this time, I didn’t startle.

  Anytime Ivy went out without me these days, it seemed she came back angry and itching for a fight.

  Luckily, I was a bit of an expert in working out her aggression, and fighting was one of our most powerful love languages. To be honest, it’d been just about the only one she’d let me use lately to connect.

  She didn’t want my sweet words or soft offerings.

  She wanted the battle. The brawn. The drag-out fight until all she could do to relieve the stress was take it out on my body.

  Still, I hadn’t given up hope that one day her feelings would change. That one day she’d long for my sweet embraces and soft touches, and she’d use them to heal her anger rather than fuel it.

  I approached the door with open eyes and open arms, the way I started every encounter between us, and she smacked both down. “Don’t,” she said softly but curtly. “Just don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” I asked, using her own will against her. I would give her what she wanted but only for as long as she couldn’t live without it. If she ever lost the will to tell me what I was doing wrong, I’d decided that would be my cue to tell me I was doing it right.

  “Don’t give your impassioned speech about calming down or relaxing or thinking it through,” she told me easily, the steel in her voice all I needed to hear to take her seriously. Her throwing my words of the last week and a half right in my face wasn’t a surprise. She’d tolerated it to a certain extent, but the meeting obviously hadn’t gone her way, and she was done being a complacent listener.

  She didn’t want to be counseled or consoled. “I don’t want to hear any of it.”

  I was well versed in the feeling. That didn’t mean I couldn’t push her, though. Challenge her wants. Test how close she was to giving in. My eyes slightly widened, I inclined my head.

  “You want to fight?”

  “I don’t want to hear your bullshit soothing comments!” she shouted back, avoiding the question.

  Oh yeah. She wanted a fight, even if she wouldn’t ask for it. And if that was what she really needed, I was prepared to give her one.

  “My bullshit?” I taunted. “Your bullshit, Ivy. Day after day, you oscillate between self-righteousness and self-destruction. You refuse to face the reality of the situation, and for all I know, you’re going to be content to keep your head buried in the sand for the rest of your life. You want to see bullshit, look to yourself.”

  “I can’t believe you’d say that to me. My sister is dead!”

  “Yeah. She sacrificed herself for you. She gave her time and her patience to you when you needed it, she devoted her life to working for you. And then she loved you enough to protect you.”

  Ivy winced and then attacked. Her body slammed into mine and she raised a fist, but I caught her at the wrist.

  “A fine showing you’re making of that, huh?” I continued, pushing her to a dangerous edge, I knew. There was always a chance she’d leave me. That the facts I threw in her face would do the opposite of what was intended. That she’d build a wall I could never scale.

  But the thought of not trying—of letting her go on like this for the rest of her life—was unthinkable. It was now or never. It’d been three and a half weeks since Camilla died, and if she wasn’t willing to work with me now, I didn’t think she’d ever be.

  We were a team.

  It was together that we could conquer anything. She just needed to be reminded of that.

  “Stop,” she yelled, tears bursting the dam and cascading down her cheeks. “You don’t know anything!”

  “I do!” I yelled back. “I know.” Her face crumpled as the weight of my knowledge—my personal loss that she’d lived for months while making a film about it—settled over her. “I know how you’re feeling, and I know the mistakes you’re making in how you handle it. I know because I’ve been there.”

  “Levi, stop,” she whispered, tortured. But something changed, I knew, because the distance was gone in an instant, replaced by the smell of her all around me and her face in my chest. Her hurt sank into me, and my knees buckled as I held on to support her. She gave it over to me and cried, changing the structure of her words to finally let me in. To finally look to me to help. “Just make it stop.”

  “I can’t, baby,” I admitted, the truth of which rocked me. Not being able to stop the thing hurting the woman you loved was akin to being hit repeatedly by a truck. Every time the crushing weight moved, it found you again, and the end was so far away it wasn’t even in sight. But with her arms around me and her tears coating my shirt, I could sure as hell try to help carry the load. I could be there for her. I could love her. We could handle it together and create something that would honor the ones we’d lost. I told her the truth and she cried harder, but this time, they were tears of acceptance. “I can’t stop it. I can only hold you while it goes.”

  All lips and tongues, our mouths danced together as we sought comfort in one another and stumbled back toward the couch.

  Her hands were slower, less desperate than they had been in weeks, and the feel of her touch as it lingered was almost like something new.

  It was attentive and loving, and it spoke of a hope that the two of us would make it to the other side of this cloud.

  Our relationship had been a lot of turmoil, but this was a turning of the tide. The waves were smoother and the emotion raw.

  “I love you, Levi,” Ivy said, her sweet declaration so welcome I couldn’t even explain it.

  She’d told me she loved me since Camilla died, but she hadn’t done it with the intimacy that said she thought it meant something. The sincerity that thought it could survive.

  Piece by piece, I stripped her of her clothes and reveled in her smooth, creamy skin. She was a goddess, and her green eyes glowed in the center of her much lighter hair. I was still getting used to the change, but she seemed at peace with it. I didn’t care if she dyed her hair blue if it made it a little easier to get through the day.

  Hell, she could’ve kept it green for all I cared.

  I loved her. All of her.

  “I love you too,” I whispered, placing soft kisses down the bare line of her neck and settling at her chest. Her heart was beating a little faster than normal, but it was largely at ease. It didn’t race with aggression or pound with fear.

  It basked in the comfort of the two of us together.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she murmured as her hands sank into my hair, and I latched my mouth on to her nipple.

  Only at the height of her moan did I remove my mouth with a pop to answer her. “You healed me, baby. You brought me back from the brink.”

  She nodded, tears in her eyes. I undid my pants and pushed inside, bringing us together in the ultimate connection. It was everything I’d ever wanted, ever needed—she was those things.

  She sighed, soft and content as I set a slow pace and brought my lips to hers. Silent but present, she held on with th
e grip of her legs and an intense wrap of her arms until both of us were drowning in the pleasure of our climax.

  Only then did her mewl turn to words, and the set of them nearly broke my heart. “Can you heal me?”

  So timid, so honest.

  So mine.

  “Yes,” I vowed gruffly.

  I would fight to the ends of the earth to make sure Ivy Stone healed from her wounds, and I’d destroy anyone who got in my way.

  Quiet and reflective, we’d been lying on the couch, tangled in each other, for nearly half an hour when the next question finally made it past her lips. Her mind had clearly been running.

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  I didn’t know what she meant, but I answered with the only thing relevant.

  “You grieve. You do it how you need for as long as you need, and you lean on me.”

  “About the movie,” she emphasized, a sort of broken thankfulness taking out the sting as she gave me a squeeze. “I can’t believe they’re going through with it.”

  Unfortunately, I could.

  “The studio’s top priority is making money, baby. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but it hasn’t changed. No matter that you had better intentions, wanting to give the world a piece of Grace and a piece of the truth, money has been their motivator since the beginning.”

  “They have no moral compass.”

  “No,” I agreed with a nod. “They never did, and they never will.”

  “Still. I can’t just leave it at this, Levi. I just can’t. I have to keep trying. For meetings with anyone who will listen. I have to try until I’ve been rejected by everyone.”

  Her tenacity was engrossing, and my heart swelled as she reasoned the possibility of disappointment on her own.

  Chasing the studio with desperation to win was a disaster waiting to happen.

  Chasing it for closure was the best thing she could do.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “You do what you have to do, and know that I plan to do it with you. We’ll stay here for as long as you need.”