“Good afternoon,” she said. “How can I help you?”
Ivy gulped. Speak with confidence. Assert yourself. And make it happen.
“I’d like to see Travis Dunn, please.”
Unlike last time, when she’d made a fool of herself, she spoke as if it was a certainty that it would happen. She braced herself for laughter from the older woman, but none came. She got a sympathetic smile that seemed slightly patronizing, but at least it wasn’t outright mocking.
“And do you have an appointment with Mr. Dunn?”
Ivy could lie, but she knew that would be unbecoming of her and look bad to Travis. So she shook her head no.
“But tell him Ivy Zimmerman is here to see him. He’ll know who I am.”
“I see, OK, one moment please.”
To her surprise, the old lady picked up the phone and waited. Ivy looked back at the elevator she had taken before to ride up to Travis’ place and she thought of how such an encounter would go now.
Now that she had already lost her virginity—to him, no less—she would not feel such trepidation about taking her clothes off. In fact, she dared to say she might even initiate it. She could imagine Travis, his cold, cool demeanor removed, watching with glee as she gave him a strip tease show.
Then she would move over to him and make him be the stripper this time. Maybe she would even exert some control as he had over her in his room where he was called “Master.” Ivy didn’t know. She had so much to try. It delighted her to think of all the possibilities.
She would bend him over the table and ride him, taking in all of the city beneath them. With the privacy of their office, they would delight in what they could do to each other. They could be discreet and quiet, or loud and obnoxious. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they had each other. She could look into his eyes, say—
“I’m sorry, but he’s not available right now.”
The receptionist’s voice broke her out of her fantasy and planted her squarely back in reality.
“Can I take a message for you?”
Ivy sighed. She didn’t think it would do much good.
But what was the harm? One sticky note got used up and one email got sent? She had to try it. The worst that happened was Travis would ignore it.
“Yes. Just tell him…”
She thought of how to phrase the message without drawing the suspicion of the receptionist. She couldn’t think of anything, so she decided to toss that notion out the window.
“Tell him I miss him and I’m sorry how things ended and I hope to see him again.”
She braced herself for a judgmental look from the receptionist, but none came. Instead, the woman wrote it down, jotted a few numbers down, and smiled back.
“I’ll make sure he gets the message.”
Ivy thanked her and turned around. The move hadn’t worked as well as it had in the weeks before, but it had left something, at least.
Ivy’s phone buzzed as she reached the door. She looked at her phone. The number looked vaguely familiar—she couldn’t pinpoint it, but she knew she’d seen it at least once before somewhere. Given that, she decided to answer it.
“Hello,” Ivy said dryly, a bit weary of it being a telemarketer.
“Ivy Zimmerman?”
The voice also sounded familiar.
“Yes, who is this?” Ivy said.
“Ivy, this is Aubrey from Logic Designs, how are you this afternoon?”
They’re calling me? Does this mean…
“I’m good, and yourself?”
“Great, thank you. Well, Ivy, I just wanted to thank you for interviewing with us. You really stood out to us, and we’d like to offer you the job.”
Ivy put her phone down to scream with joy. She knew people walking by would look at her like a deranged girl, but she didn’t care. She had her dream job! It had finally happened!
No matter what happened with Travis, at least it seemed something good had happened.
“Oh, thank you!” Ivy said, unsure of what to say. “I will take it! I will! Thank you!”
Aubrey laughed.
“It’s our pleasure. So the general notes are the job starts on the second Monday from today. You can come meet us beforehand to do some paperwork to ensure you get paid in a timely manner. At that time we’ll discuss benefits and such. You’ll also get an email from me shortly. Does that sound good?”
It didn’t sound good. It sounded amazing. It sounded like Ivy finally had her life back and didn’t have to give it to anyone else.
“It sounds great!”
Ivy exchanged a few pleasantries with Audrey before hanging up, giving a holler of celebration.
“I guess you got the job.”
Ivy whirled, the smile seemingly glued on her face, to see Travis standing at the corner of his building, nursing a drink.
“Travis,” she gasped.
“Am I correct?”
Ivy nodded. She had no idea what to say. She hadn’t seen him since that incident, and now, she was as happy as she’d ever been since that day.
“Good,” Travis said. “I’m happy for you. Congrats.”
He smiled and then walked away. Ivy, confused and slightly in disbelief that he was actually there, remained silent for a few seconds before she found her voice.
“Travis!”
He stopped and turned, only a few steps from his office building.
“What’s going on? Why won’t you talk to me anymore?”
He sighed. He turned back, paused, and looked over his shoulder.
“I wouldn’t be any good for you, Ivy,” he said. “I’m sorry. What you said about Mia made me realize that I still have some issues to process and I’m not doing a very good job of handling them.”
“Travis, please,” Ivy said. “I know. I can help you work through them. I—”
But Travis shook his head, turning away from Ivy completely.
“I appreciate you doing that for me,” he said. “But if I’m with you, you’ll only regret it.”
Ivy could say nothing as Travis walked into his office, his head down, his stride long, as if in a hurry to get to the elevator. The receptionist halted him and said something that Ivy obviously couldn’t hear. She swore she saw Travis smiling, but he did not turn to her nor did he move toward her. He instead continued to the elevator, and he disappeared inside the private ride up to his private office.
Ivy sighed. She had her job, yes. She had a much better life, yes.
But…
Was it worth anything without someone worth spending it with?
Ivy walked with a pep in her step, cheerfulness in her heart, and excitement about her future. Her encounter with Travis had only served as a temporary moment of confusion, but once he had left and she had begun walking back to the coffee shop, she remembered a strong truth.
She wouldn’t have to do this anymore. She could go to her coworker, her boss, and everyone she knew and tell them that she would no longer be working at that shop. It was time for someone new to step into her feet—perhaps someone else struggling to make ends meet, but someone who would perhaps, eventually, pull themselves out of the muck and into a better job.
When she walked into the coffee shop, it hit her that she would soon never have some of the experiences that she took for granted. Making Dark Roast Grandes. Serving cute customers. Talking with Shelly about Martin and some of her customers.
Strange, she thought as she moved to the closet to put her uniform on. All of these revolve around Travis.
I suppose it’s just wistful thinking. He would have taken me back had he wanted to when he saw me just now. But I guess it also says something about how strong our relationship was that I still think of him fondly.
When she reached the closet, Shelly stood behind her.
“Someone had an awfully good lunch,” she said, wearing a smile. “What happened?”
Ivy saw no reason to lie. Though she didn’t exactly consider Shelly a friend—she had a tenden
cy to gossip too much and act like a girl five years younger—she was the coworker that she shared the most shifts with and spent the most time with. She gulped and looked at Shelly in the eyes.
“I’m not going to be here much longer,” Ivy said.
Shelly’s eyes went wide with horror.
“Oh my God, what happened?”
Ivy, upon realizing the faux pass she had made with her words, burst out laughing. It did little to relieve the stress that Shelly had, who looked like she was on the verge of tears. It was in some ways so typical of the way Shelly acted, but Ivy didn’t care. Shelly would feel relief in just a moment.
“I got a job, Shelly,” she said. “I got my dream job. Well, maybe not the absolute dream job, but it’s a job that’s pushing me forward and helping me reach my dream job. It’s a path to that place. I’m going to go work at Logic Designs.”
“Oh my God!” Shelly said, screaming.
She ran up and hugged Ivy as tightly as she could in full view of the customers, which, even though Ivy didn’t have perhaps past today to work, still left Ivy feeling slightly embarrassed. Customers turned to them with amused expressions, and Ivy just smiled and patted Shelly on the back.
“I’m so happy for you, you have no idea,” Shelly said.
Ivy tried not to roll her eyes, bemused. She had a pretty good idea of how happy Shelly was. After all, she was willing to hug her in the middle of her shift in full view of all the customers and Martin.
“You have your dream job and that hot guy,” Shelly said.
Ivy’s face dropped just a second.
“You don’t?”
“How did you know?” Shelly said.
“I mean, that dress girl, it wasn’t for us,” she said. “And no one of us have a surprise stalker. Or a hot man. So we knew it was for you, even if you didn’t want to say anything.”
“Fair enough,” Ivy said. “At the time, yes, it was a dress that was for me and it was for me to go on the date with the hot guy. But… things didn’t work out.”
“Seriously?!?” Shelly said, far louder than Ivy felt comfortable with. “But why? He was so cute! And so hot. And so…”
“That’s enough, girls,” Martin interrupted, appearing seemingly out of nowhere. That was another thing Ivy wouldn’t mind leaving—a manager who, while not terrible, didn’t exactly have her back or bother to look past the strictest interpretation of the rulebook. “Ivy, what’s going on here?”
Ivy looked around. By now, more than a few customers were routinely glancing up, wondering what drama was going on with the wait staff. Seeing no point in trying to hide it, Ivy, sighing, asked Martin to join her in a corner. Martin did, and when Ivy sat down, she could see that Martin already knew what she was going to say by the expression on his face.
“I’m going to take a job at Logic Designs,” Ivy said. “It’s a dream job of mine and I’m not about to let it go to waste.”
Martin sighed.
“Well, losing our best employee,” he said. “I guess this is why you’ve been late much more frequently the past couple of weeks?”
Ivy smiled and tried to hide her smile from being too obvious. The real reason had much more to do with her experience with Travis Dunn than anything else; her work with Logic Designs from beforehand had done very little to interfere with her job.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Well, as much as I hate it, I really can’t blame you,” he said. “Good luck, Ivy. Just don’t destroy my shop on your last few shifts.”
“I never would!” Ivy said, laughing.
She found herself much more at ease with Martin than she had expected. She never quite felt uneasy, but she had appearances to maintain around him from before. Now, though, she could just laugh as she wished.
“You’ll have an exit interview with me tomorrow,” Martin said. “I suppose you start your new job rather soon.”
Ivy nodded. She knew she didn’t have to put in two weeks notice, and she intended to enjoy some free time as soon as she could. She had been through a lot in the past couple of weeks, and she needed to have a few days where her mind could just relax, not feel stress, and enjoy some Netflix shows—especially since she figured her new job would require a lot more mental strain than this one.
“Well, finish strong,” Martin said, and he left it at that.
As Ivy went through and served out the rest of the shift, by the end, she knew that she would not go back to the coffee shop after today. She had enough money saved up to survive the time off, and now that she had gotten her taste of the real job, she didn’t want to go back to cleaning dishes, making coffee, or dealing with rude people. Instead, she could just sit at a computer and do a job all day.
At the end of her shift, with Martin long gone, their exit interview pushed up to 5 p.m., and Ivy closing out for the day, Shelly came back over. Ivy braced herself for a dramatic hug, but felt some measure of relief when she just gave a soft and sweet one, but not one that broke her spine.
“So you really broke it off with that guy?” she said. “Why?”
She still sounded like a younger girl, but she didn’t have quite the whiny voice or the needy begging of a teenager that she’d had earlier. Ivy, knowing that she wouldn’t see Shelly for a long time, if ever, decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“At first, it seemed like we wanted different things,” she said. “And then, we did want the same thing, but I said some stupid things. I asked him about his ex who passed away a while ago and he said I reminded him of her too much. So I pushed him away.”
“Aww, I’m sorry,” Shelly said, to which Ivy just shrugged. “Have you seen him since?”
Ivy smirked and gave a short chuckle.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” she said. “On my lunch break, when I got the call that I got the job, I ran into him.”
“And??”
Shelly’s dramatic voice had returned. Ivy could see where Shelly was going with this and decided to cut it off.
“He was friendly and congratulatory, but it really won’t go beyond that,” she said quickly. “He was nice and I appreciated it. But I just don’t see how it will go any further.”
“Really,” Shelly said, and now she sounded serious. “You pushed him away by asking some questions that maybe you shouldn’t have, sure. But if you saw him again and he seemed chipper and not sarcastic, that sounds to me like he’s a guy who’d be willing to take you back.”
“Nah,” Ivy said, but she hated realizing that she liked what Shelly had said. “We’ve been through so much in a short period of time, a lot of drama, really.”
“Yes, and he still wants you,” Shelly said.
Ivy now really hated that the words not only sounded appealing to her, they resonated with her in a way that she could not deny. There was some serious truth to what Shelly said.
“I’ve had boyfriends I said stupid things to, we all have.”
Yeah, I haven’t. Well, not before this.
“You forgive and you move forward. That’s what relationships are about.”
Ivy thought to say more, but she could not find any words that she hadn’t already said. And even if she had, she knew that it was fruitless anyways. The two of them led separate lives. Even though she’d graduated from barista to marketing associate, that still put her light years away from billionaire CEO and founder of the most successful company in the city. It just meant now she was perhaps a dozen light years from him instead of a dozen and one light years away from Travis.
She was closer only in raw numbers, not relatively speaking.
“Anyways, Ivy, good luck, OK?” Shelly said, embracing her once more. “Come visit the coffee shop some! Don’t be a stranger!”
Ivy smiled as she said her goodbyes and walked out of the shop for the last time. When she walked out, she paused and looked at the shop. It was nothing but a small local store in the middle of an outdoor strip mall, a decent place but nothing special. Still, it had given her a job and a pay
check.
Then she turned and looked at the downtown skyline. Somewhere in there was the Logic Designs building. She was now a downtown working class professional. It felt like Ivy had moved up in the rankings.
And then, of course, in the middle of it all, the Dunn Inc building rose above them all, towering like the beast that it was over all of the city.
Two separate lives, and yet two lives that seemed more intertwined and closer than when the day had started.
Maybe there was still a chance. Maybe Ivy would still have a shot with Travis, even after all that the two had been through.
Ivy smiled. She didn’t see a way to that shot, but she hoped to every deity and every wish there ever was that if she saw Travis again, they would move to what she knew each of them wanted.
Travis wore his sharpest suit that he could find as he waited for Richard Thomas at the top floor of the tallest hotel in the city, sporting one of the nicest steakhouses within a five-state radius. He adjusted his cuffs, fidgeted with his tie, and checked the mirror multiple times to make sure his face looked presentable, even though he had nothing more that he could do given his shaved head.
He smiled when he looked at himself in the mirror, trying to excite himself for the night ahead. It should have marked a joyous occasion for the new collaboration his company would have. The deal with Logic Designs alone would probably require him to hire a dozen more employees, and he always enjoyed toting that fact when he dealt with the mayor and other political figures.
Instead, though, the smile faded as soon as he turned away from the mirror. He could fake his smile when he saw himself, and he knew he could fake a smile when Richard and his wife appeared, but in reality, he still thought of her.
Except now, it wasn’t Mia who he had trouble identifying by name in his thoughts for fear it would create emotional distress.
It was… Yes, he had to say it.
Ivy Zimmerman.
Sometimes, he thought of how ridiculous it was. A billionaire pursuing a barista—he could have had literally any woman in the city! Lawyers, bankers, executives, athletes, they would have all thrown themselves at him just to have a single date with him, let alone a night in his special room.
His Royal Majesty : A Royal Wedding Romance Page 40