Mirage - Alice Tribue Page 0,72
until I do it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
~VICTORIA~
Ivy bends down, picking up some of the files that have been thrown all over the floor. After spending last night at home, supervising a cleanup crew, avoiding more conversations with my dad, and crying myself to sleep, I woke up this morning and needed to get the hell out of my house. I called Ivy and asked her to meet me at the office where we began cleanup here.
“I don’t get it; why were you the only one brought in for questioning? Why not me or Parker, even?”
“I honestly don’t know, Ivy, but I heard from both Nathan and my lawyer and no charges are being filed.”
“So, he was telling the truth; he took the evidence and kept it to save you.” The look of awe on her face is almost humorous; if it hadn’t happened only a little over twenty-four hours ago, I might be able to find the humor in the situation, too… No. I don’t think I’ll ever find the humor in any of this.
“You don’t know that, he could have made a copy and kept it so that he could use it to blackmail me one day. He’s a cop, for fuck’s sake. We can’t trust shit he says.”
“Or he really does love you,” she suggests with a gleam in her eyes.
“Keep telling yourself that,” I tell her. Little does she know that I’ve been debating the same thing since yesterday. I just haven’t decided what I believe yet. “Have all the girls been contacted?”
“Every last one.”
“Clients?”
“They’ve received the word.”
I sit back in my expensive office chair. “So, that’s it.”
“That’s it,” she agrees. “You’re officially out of the business.”
“It’s a good thing; it’s time to move on anyway.”
Ivy picks a few more files up off the floor, places them on my desk, and takes the seat across from mine.
“What was it like being interrogated?”
“Exactly how you might imagine It was scary as hell.” It’s the truth. I may have appeared cool, calm, and collected when Detective Burke interviewed me, but I’ve never been so scared in my life.
“I can’t believe someone actually got that close to sending us all to prison.”
“It’s over now. Now, we focus on the spa, we get to work on the second location, and we never look back. This chapter of our lives is closed, Ivy. Let’s just be grateful it turned out the way it did.”
“Have you seen Nathan again?”
“Not since yesterday. He wants to see me tonight, but I told him no. He’s crazy if he thinks I’ll ever give him another chance after all that’s happened.”
“Why is it so crazy, Vic? He saved your ass. He was supposed to put you away, and instead, he let you go. If it weren’t for him, you’d be in jail right now. We’d probably both be in jail.”
She’s right. He saved me and I owe him for that, but he also lied. He made me fall in love with him knowing the whole time that he was only going to break my heart. He knew we were living a lie, and he said nothing. I know I’m guilty of the same thing, but the difference is that I never set out to hurt him. In fact, I took steps to make things better, to free myself of the things that would have damaged our relationship.
“I have to tell you something.”
I pause and brace myself because when Ivy has to tell me something, it’s rarely good news.
“What? I don’t think I can handle any more surprises, Ivy. Please don’t piss me off.”
“I think that the reason I wasn’t brought in for questioning is because Rick and I became kind of friendly.”
“The fake security guard?” I probe, furrowing my brow. “Oh, that’s just great. How friendly?”
“As friendly as you can get with a man.”
“Ivy!” I yell in disbelief.
“What? I didn’t know he was a cop.”
“Well, has he been in touch with you since yesterday?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “He won’t answer my calls.”
“I guess we both got played.”
“Sucks… he was really good in bed.”
“I’ve heard enough. You don’t even know the guy’s real name. Just chalk it up to another one-night stand.”
“Only it wasn’t one night, it was more like five or six nights.”
“Slut,” I chastise, thinking that it’s just par for the course. We both were mixed up with the wrong man; it wasn’t the first time, just the worst time.
***
I told my father to go home, told him that it was over, and that he had nothing