‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘Wonders never cease. This is a temporary arrangement, don’t get used to it.’

‘No chance of that. Who is Winlow?’

‘Winlow is a sonofabitch who has a thing for knives. He also has ties to some of the LA gangs. I don’t want to threaten anyone while you’re around, I don’t want them to know your face. I’m guessing you don’t have much of a reputation around LA, you’ve never lived there. So tracking you will be hard if they don’t know what you look like.’

‘But it’s ok if they know your face?’ she groaned. ‘What happens when these people who are out to get me find out that you’re my husband? They’ll use you to get to me.’

‘You think I’ll let them hurt you to get myself out of a jam?’

‘No,’ she said, lifting handfuls of the sheet then flopping her arms down. ‘They might hurt you, I don’t want that to happen. I know you’re too stubborn to tell anyone anything about me. But I’d rather you handed me over than you got yourself killed. Am I supposed to sit around here with my sister and your mother and sip tea while you get yourself into trouble?’

‘Go for a swim, work out downstairs. Avoid them if you want to. I don’t give a shit.’

Dax went into the closet, and she lay on her back again, bringing his towel to her face, Ivy inhaled the scent of clean man and enjoyed how it blocked out the light.

‘What’s wrong with you?’

Dax’s voice betrayed that he was back in the room with her, so she pulled the towel down. ‘Wrong with me?’ she asked.

‘Usually you’re up as soon as the sun hits the horizon.’

That wasn’t even close to being true because she could enjoy a nice lie in just as most of the population could, but that was Dax’s assessment of her because he was never awake himself to see how long she slept.

‘I’d think my troubles were kind of obvious,’ she said.

‘You never let the bastards get you down, never show fear or—‘

‘I’m not scared, I’m bored,’ she said. ‘Well, I know that I will be anyway. There’s no hurry to get out of bed, you’re leaving, I have no job to go to. I just have to stay here for maybe ever and do nothing. Maybe I should call Bri, find out if her and Blaser want to come for a vacation?’

‘Are you going to explain how we got here? Why there’s a bounty on your head? And who those women hanging around are?’

No, she didn’t want to explain that and she wouldn’t want to put her friends in danger, which they could be if Mauri decided that he didn’t like having guests here whom he didn’t invite.

‘Ok, well you go and beat on some people, maybe that will make you feel better. But you better be back here tonight, I don’t want any crap that you went and got yourself into a fight or anything.’

‘I shouldn’t need a fight,’ Dax said. ‘Not if we get our hands on Winlow.’

A car horn blasted, which told her that Serg had arrived. Dax came over to the bed and leaned down to kiss her, but she covered her mouth with both hands, leaving him hanging there, his face a few inches from hers.

‘What?’ he asked. ‘You don’t want to kiss me? Are you pissed?’

Elevating her hands just a little, she let herself talk but didn’t remove the barrier. ‘I love you. But don’t kill anyone today.’

‘I’ll try my best,’ he scowled.

‘They’ll probably deserve it, but you know how important it is that I get mine.’ Joking about sex was actually a potent reminder of how much she needed him by her side and the last place she wanted him to end up was in a jail cell.

Ready to leave and not put off by her hands, his fingers curled under her hip, and he flipped her onto her front before she fathomed his intention. He spanked her three times, then ducked down to dig his teeth into her flesh, which made her laugh.

‘Dax!’

‘Be good,’ he said, spanking her again then retreating from the bed to leave the room.

Ivy turned over to watch him go and saw his form disappear just before the door closed. Alone in this place she sighed and forced herself to get out of bed, now she had to go and make good with her mother-in-law.

Chapter Fifteen

The kitchen was filled with fresh food and beverages and everything that they could need for a prolonged stay. Ivy picked some fruit from the bowl on the kitchen island, then she retrieved a bowl and a board to chop it on.

Casting her attention around, she focused on the drawer that had been locked during her last stay here. This time, it slid open without a hitch. Selecting a knife, Ivy went to work on peeling and chopping the fruit to put together a salad for breakfast.

It was while she was squeezing some oranges for juice that the kitchen door swung open, and Carina came in wearing an ankle length skirt and gauze shirt over a basic tank top.

‘Good morning,’ Carina said.

‘Morning,’ she reciprocated but kept on juicing.

‘I’m sorry that you and Dax didn’t join us last night,’ Carina said, crossing to sit at the island Ivy was working on.

‘It was a long night. We just went to bed.’

‘I know that this is difficult, for all of us.’

‘It is,’ Ivy said. ‘But there’s no reason to make it more difficult than it has to be.’

Pouring the last of the juice into the jug, she then transferred it to the fridge. Scooping some of the fruit salad into an individual bowl, Ivy covered the rest and put it into the fridge too.

‘Is that for Dax?’

‘The fruit salad?’ Ivy smirked. ‘No, he likes his fruit whole, and the only breakfast he has is tar thick coffee and the occasional donut or three when they’re around.’

‘He didn’t look like the type to enjoy deep fried food.’

‘I don’t think he’s met a junk food that he doesn’t like,’ Ivy said, taking another mouthful of fruit. She chewed and sucked out the juice but eventually swallowed. ‘He runs and works out all the time, so he needs the energy. And he’s a believer in everything in moderation.’ As she said it, Ivy immediately thought of at least two things he didn’t mind overindulging in, one of which was her.

‘You must think that this is odd,’ Carina said, smoothing a towel that lay folded on the counter. ‘I’m his mother, but I don’t know a thing about him.’

‘Dax isn’t an easy guy to get to know,’ Ivy said. ‘Why are you doing this? I mean, why are you here?’

‘I haven’t heard of him for so long and—‘

‘Look,’ Ivy said, shoving her bowl back so that she could lean on the counter. ‘You won’t win any points with me or Dax by bullshitting us, we have quite an accurate radar for that kind of shit.’

‘You’re a tough woman.’

To go with her tough guy, yeah, that made sense. But it wasn’t her job to make friends with the mother of her husband, Ivy knew her job now was to protect him, not to prioritise building bridges.

‘You came here for money,’ Ivy said. ‘Mauri said it to us at the mansion. You’ll get a lot further with both of us if you’re honest.’

‘Mauri tracked me down,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to get to know my son… and the woman he loves of course.’

The kitchen door swung open again and her sister, Rosie, swanned in with a grin on her face. ‘This place is immense! Your husband is related to zillionaires!’

The house only had three bedrooms, but the rooms were huge and the furnishings screamed wealth. Rosie was older than her by two years. They were the same height, but Rosie’s hair had been the same bleach blonde for as long as she could remember.

‘Where did Mauri find you?’ Ivy asked her sister who had already bounded over to snatch up Ivy’s fruit salad.

‘I was in Texas, singing in a club in Dallas,’ Rosie said, munching on an orange segment. ‘Where did you find that hunk of a husband? I didn’t really believe the guy who picked me up in Dallas when he told me you’d got married. But, wow, Ive, you did good. He’s a great guy.’

Typical that Rosie would say such a thing having never exchanged a single word with Dax. ‘You don’t know anything about him,’ Ivy said.