‘Word won’t be out here yet,’ she said, stroking her fingertips up and down his sternum. ‘It will be quicker if you let me come. You will draw attention to yourself if you take Rosie against her will. We can be in and out by tonight if we work together.’

‘You’re so sure that Rosie will come with you?’ Dax asked.

‘You can get us a room so that we have a key-card. If we take a car and park in the hotel parking lot, then we can take an elevator straight to their floor. Who will we come across in a hotel corridor? More than that, who would know to look for me there? No one in Vegas will have heard about the bounty yet. You said yourself that word takes time to get around.’

They were dealing with this drama caused by her sister and Trystan Stark, then they would have to go back to LA to deal with the bounty and with Maurice Stark. Ivy wondered when she’d have the time to talk to Dax about what Carina had told her. She would have to, but now didn’t seem like the time to bring up his mother and her history.

‘Fine. I’ll keep calling the hotel, and as soon as we know they’re there I’ll set up a meeting with Trystan.’

‘If they know that we’re coming, won’t they run away?’

Dax exhaled and raised his arm to put it over her head and around her shoulders, bringing her body onto his. ‘You’re missing the point. Trystan only went after Rosie because she was easy pickings and because he knew it would rile us. He’ll agree to a meeting. He’ll want to see us running after him and begging him for a favour. This is the kind of thing that Trystan does to amuse himself.’

‘He still hasn’t gotten over his grudge, has he?’

‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Dax said. ‘But don’t worry, we won’t have to deal with him ever again after this. I can talk to Mauri, he might send Trystan on a forced vacation of his own.’

Resting her head on his chest, Ivy enjoyed this moment that they had together; they were few and far between these days. She didn’t think that Mauri would be sending Trystan anywhere, not while he was sick and could go at any time. But she had to admit that the idea of Trystan taking a long walk certainly sounded like a good idea to her.

Ivy came out of the bedroom and closed the door. She had come to Saul’s place and brought Carina with her, yet she’d spent all afternoon in bed with her husband, and that wasn’t exactly polite of her. Making the effort to be social, she entered the living room and saw Carina was reading while Saul was seated on a second couch watching sports on TV. When Ivy came in, both of them stopped to make her their focus.

‘Where’s Dax?’ Carina asked, slipping a bookmark into her book.

‘Asleep,’ Ivy said. ‘I’ll wake him up soon.’

‘Glad everyone’s so comfortable,’ Saul muttered and switched off the TV.

‘Where’s Brittany? Do you want me to explain that—‘

‘That what?’ he asked. ‘That my ex-girlfriend showed up to track down her sister with her mother-in-law in tow? That my ex-girlfriend’s husband came to protect her against the bounty hunters but they ended up screwing in my second bedroom instead?’

Wincing against the obvious annoyance in Saul’s voice, she crossed to sit on the couch with him. ‘In his defence, Dax was still protecting me while we were having sex.’

‘And I can’t say a goddamn word that might upset you or scare you away ‘cause there’s a good chance your husband will kill me in my sleep if I do,’ Saul hissed.

‘Dax wouldn’t kill you while you slept, that’s like shooting a man in the back, it’s not sportsmanlike.’

‘I’m reassured,’ he said.

‘We appreciate this,’ Ivy said, reaching over to take one of his hands onto her knee. ‘And look on the bright side, you’re making a new friend. Having a guy like the Ravager on your side could prove to be advantageous.’

‘The Ravager?’ Carina asked, drawing their attention.

‘It’s the name Dax fights under,’ Ivy said.

‘He’s a pro on the underground fighting circuit. My ex-girlfriend married a man who knows a hundred ways to kill a man without making a sound.’

Carina didn’t exactly smile, but her eyes lit in amusement. Poor Saul was flabbergasted, but he could only accept his fate as it stood, because they needed him. ‘We’ll only be here a little while longer. Now that Dax is here, he’ll keep Trystan occupied while I talk to Rosie. I promise, we’ll be gone by tonight. Brittany will appreciate a man who treats women right, she wouldn’t like it much if you just tossed us out onto the street.’

‘I think she’d have liked that just fine,’ Saul said.

‘You didn’t even know her name this morning, it’s not as if I upset your great love.’

‘Maybe, we’ll never know now, will we?’ he asked then yawned, but it disappeared from his face when Dax walked in and made eye contact with her.

‘Time to go,’ Dax said.

‘Already?’ Ivy asked, leaping up off the couch and throwing Saul’s hand back to his lap. ‘How do you know that—‘

‘Trystan called, he wants to meet.’

‘You were right,’ Ivy sighed.

‘Right about what?’ Carina asked.

Dax didn’t acknowledge her, he wandered off in the direction of the kitchen, so Ivy answered. ‘Dax said that Trystan would want to show off, that he would want to invite us to the suite just to try and rile us.’

‘Brad is such a pleasant man,’ Carina said. ‘I can’t understand how Trystan turned out to be so obnoxious.’

‘He’s had a lot of practise,’ Ivy said, and Dax came back to the group.

‘Come on.’

‘What shall we do with Carina?’ Ivy asked, causing him to halt in the doorway.

‘She can stay here,’ Dax said as though Carina wasn’t in the room.

‘But if we’re taking Rosie home, we’re not going to come back here, are we?’

‘Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you brought her here where she doesn’t belong,’ Dax said.

‘It wasn’t like I had a lot of time to consider my options. I had to move fast.’

‘She’s taken care of herself for years, she’ll figure out how to get home.’

He disappeared from the room and the front door closed, signalling that he’d left the building.

‘What a sweetheart, no wonder you fell in love with him,’ Saul said, but Ivy ignored him.

‘Carina, you stay here. I’ll talk to Dax and—‘

‘He won’t let me in, will he?’ Carina asked.

‘Now isn’t the time to talk about this,’ Ivy said. ‘I need… time.’

She didn’t like to be rude to anyone, but this wasn’t the time to worry about Dax and Carina’s relationship. If she was honest with herself, Ivy still hadn’t figured out how she felt about Carina. She wasn’t yet sure if she wanted to use her influence over Dax to encourage him into a relationship that he didn’t want when Carina might be bad news.

Sure, she came across as quite sweet and innocent, but the woman had walked away from her child when he was still an infant in need of a mother. Carina hadn’t come back or followed up to see how Dax was. Anything could have happened to her son and what did happen to him wasn’t at all pleasant.

Realising that she hadn’t yet forgiven Carina for what she had done to Dax, Ivy left Saul’s house alone. Going into the thick heat of the desert, she crossed the drive to reach the car she’d driven here.

Dax was in a different vehicle parked behind hers. Though he was wearing his shades, he still managed to glower at her, and she glowered right back. Opening the trunk of her car, she unzipped the suitcase and pulled some bills from the wad of cash still nestled in her clothes. Ivy was heading back into the house when she heard Dax exit his car.

‘Give me the keys,’ he said, and she turned to toss him the car keys though she didn’t know why he needed them.

Pushing open the front door, she took the cash into the living room where she had left Saul and Carina. She gave each of them a thousand dollars.

‘You, for your trouble,’ Ivy said to Saul, then turned to Carina. ‘That should get you home, to wherever that is.’