‘I don’t know what Mauri wants, and you’ll feel better if you have an escape route.’

‘I’ll feel better or you will?’ Ivy asked him.

Twisting, he blocked Rosie out by resting his elbow on the shoulder of Ivy’s chair, which forced Rosie to return to her slouched position in the backseat. The back of his fingers met Ivy’s temple and he stroked his thumb down her eye socket to her cheekbone. ‘You really don’t want to go in there?’

‘I hate what they do to you,’ Ivy said. ‘I don’t want you going in there. I don’t want either of us to be here. I would rather be at home, thousands of miles from here, with this in our past.’

‘We can’t run away now. If we do, then the trouble will follow us.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t make me any happier about this.’

‘We hear what Mauri has to say and then we split,’ Dax said.

‘So we can keep the spankings private?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, leaning over the centre console to kiss her. ‘You ready?’

‘To play the little woman again, yeah, ready as I’m ever going to be.’ He kissed her again, then fled the car, and Ivy turned to address Rosie. ‘Keep your mouth shut in there. Mauri prefers to be the one doing the talking.’

‘I know it,’ Rosie said. ‘He gave Carina and me money just to keep quiet on the night of the party.’

Bribery obviously worked, because the two women had been silent even as Ivy had been threatened. Her door opened, and she flipped around to see Dax waiting for her.

‘Hurry up,’ Dax said. ‘Stop yapping.’

‘I am not yapping,’ she said, getting out of the car in time with Rosie.

Dax snatched Ivy’s hand, so she snatched Rosie’s, she wasn’t going to leave her sister here alone. Trystan would be home by now, and Ivy doubted that he was pleased about what had gone down in Vegas.

Security didn’t blink when Dax brought these two women into the mansion, so Ivy supposed their arrival had been anticipated. This was Mauri’s home turf, and he’d had time to prepare for his guests. Despite the fact he’d never raised a hand to her himself, Ivy knew what Mauri was capable of, she didn’t trust him and she never would.

The route Dax took them on through the house wasn’t one Ivy had been on before. She had been downstairs at the party and in a couple of bedrooms, as well as in Mauri’s office. This time they went up to the third floor and along a deep red carpet to a set of double doors with gold inlay and matching handles. Dax knocked and then stepped away.

‘Where are we?’ Ivy asked.

‘This is Mauri’s private suite of rooms,’ Dax said. ‘Usually he doesn’t see people up here. When I was growing up, this part of the house was off-limits unless you were personally escorted. Since we’ve been back in LA this time Mauri has seen me in here several times.’

‘He’s keeping to his room,’ Ivy said. It was so easy to forget that Mauri was dying and didn’t have the strength that he’d wielded once upon a time. Regardless, Ivy didn’t plan to underestimate him.

‘I think he’s getting weaker, he looked tired the last time I saw him here,’ Dax said.

Her husband wasn’t a guy who gave away a lot of insider information about his thoughts and feelings. But she could tell by his averted gaze that losing the man he’d considered a father for many years was taxing. Bringing her body into his side, she rested her head on his shoulder. Comfort wasn’t an easy thing to give while they were in enemy territory, but she offered it nonetheless.

The door that Dax had knocked on opened and Serg came into the hall. ‘Go on in,’ Serg said.

‘Tryst give you any trouble?’ Dax asked him.

‘Yeah, but it’s what he’s good at, right?’ Serg said.

‘Is he in there?’ Ivy asked before Serg could leave.

‘They’re talking in the bedroom.’ The giant blocked out the females to get back to business with Dax. ‘I’ll follow up on that thing we were investigating.’

‘Thanks,’ Dax said and then Serg walked off.

‘What thing?’ Ivy asked.

‘Later.’

This was all Dax said because he was already leading her and Rosie into the drawing room, which was currently empty. An unlit fireplace was the focus of the room and the large portrait above it appeared to be of Mauri, nothing like a narcissist to decorate a room. It seemed more likely that Mauri was Trystan’s father as they both shared that trait.

Two armchairs to the left of the fireplace had a small table between them. There was a couch opposite the fireplace, and it was here that Dax took her and sat her down.

‘Stay here,’ Dax said and pushed Rosie’s shoulders so that she sat down as well.

‘Where are you going?’ Ivy asked, watching Dax cross past the two armchairs.

‘To the bedroom, I’ll be back.’

He knocked again on a different door this time but didn’t wait for a reply, he just went straight in and closed the door behind himself. Ivy and Rosie sat quietly until Rosie spoke.

‘Do you think that Trystan will be pissed off?’

Ivy couldn’t care less about Trystan’s mood. ‘Why do you ask?’ Ivy asked her sister.

‘I don’t want a guy like that annoyed at me, what if he comes after me?’

Ivy wanted to tell her sister that she should’ve thought of that before running away with Trystan, but she figured that she’d given Rosie enough grief about that choice already, at least for today.

‘Trystan isn’t a fan of hard work,’ Ivy said. ‘Without Dax and other minions around to do his work for him, he shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. Dax is on our side, we’ll be fine.’

But Ivy knew that Trystan could hold a grudge and that when he did the consequences could be grave. Scaring Rosie wouldn’t get them anywhere, but Ivy would be talking to her husband about Trystan’s reaction to what happened in Vegas.

Rosie, Dax, and Ivy hadn’t had time to disrespect Trystan in Vegas, Mauri had got there first by having his henchmen burst in to drag Trystan home. Trystan wouldn’t go after his father. For one thing, Mauri would squish him like a bug if he tried. Father provided son with the money to go gallivanting around to suit himself and Trystan wouldn’t risk losing that income.

‘Dax is on your side,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m not going to be following you guys around forever.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, taking her sister’s hand. ‘We’ll talk to Dax later and see what he says about it. He knows Trystan better than I do.’

Dax had been the one to warn Ivy about Trystan’s tendency to hold a grudge. He’d been working for Mauri back then, so at the time his words were more of a threat than advice meant to protect.

The door that Dax had exited by opened. Ivy sprang to her feet when Trystan came in with Mauri in his wake. Much to her relief, Dax wasn’t too far behind but he looked more pissed than ever.

‘Hello, ladies,’ Mauri said, nudging Trystan along to stand in front of the fireplace. The two of them stood together, father smiled while son kept his head bowed. ‘I apologise for what has transpired over the last day or two. Trystan has something to say to you both.’

It took him a minute and a grumble, but he raised his chin an inch to speak. ‘I apologise for my behaviour.’

‘And to Rosie?’ Mauri asked.

Throwing daggers through his eyes, Trystan glared at his father, but eventually exhaled to concede. ‘I shouldn’t have taken you to Vegas.’

‘I went willingly,’ Rosie said. ‘I thought that we were… that there was something between us.’

Trystan exhaled such a callous scoffing sound that Ivy glanced to Dax, ready to sic him on the disrespectful bastard. ‘You were easy, Rosie, that’s all I wanted. I spouted off a few cheesy lines, and you fell for them, talk about desperate. I don’t know you, and I definitely don’t care about a cheap piece of trash like you. You were a way to piss off your sister and that bastard over there. I used you, and you made it easy for me. The sex was just a bonus, though it was hardly worth the effort from what I can remember of it.