White Ivy(103)

“You want my gloves?” she asked.

“I’m fine.”

She clasped his hands between hers and warmed his fingers with her breath. She wished she had told him to bring gloves.

“Do you hate me, Ivy?” he said keenly.

“Why would I hate you?”

“For what I made you do.”

“Let’s talk about it later,” she said quickly, pulling her hands away. “We’re almost at the halfway point.”

Their breaths came out in shallow pants, sometimes with wheezing sounds during a particularly steep climb. The path that Daniel charted had little red triangular markers he’d tacked on the trees. Ivy lost sight of them for a moment and panicked that she wouldn’t be able to find the ledge. As Roux rested on a fallen log, she looked for telltale marks. A strong breeze parted the branches, revealing the faint glint of red on a branch not fifty feet away.

“I thought we were lost,” she breathed, placing a gloved hand on her chest.

“I trust you,” said Roux.



* * *




FINALLY, A CLEARING opened up to their left, a flat expanse of rock overlooking a view of mountains that seemed to go on forever. There was no sign of technology or roads or civilization; the vast silence felt prehistoric, as if they were the first people to have ever looked upon this section of earth and graced it with human voices.

“Is this it?” asked Roux.

“Almost. We have another half mile or so. I thought this would be a good spot to stop for lunch.”

They admired the view for a moment. Then Roux laid the fleece blanket over the rocks and Ivy pulled out their lunch from her backpack: peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches, a thermos of coffee, trail mix. Roux took out the whiskey—a deep, amber-colored bottle of 1942 Dalmore, which he twisted open and poured into a leather flask, giving her the first taste. “Jesus,” Ivy gasped, pounding her chest. A few more sips and she might start to believe that this poignant magic cast by the mountains was real.

As they ate, Roux told her the history of the Dalmore. He’d won it in an auction from a Scottish lord who’d also been auctioning off his castle where the Dalmore had been stored for decades in its cavernous wine cellars. “But what the hell am I going to do with a crumbling wall of bricks?” said Roux. “Better to have ten more of these bottles. Exquisite, isn’t it?” His cheeks were pink, his eyes lively and relaxed. Ivy told him to drink up—“It’ll keep the cold at bay,” she said. She picked the crust off her sandwich, made a little hole in the ground, and buried the crumbs.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Just restless.” Roux always gave her the best of the best: whiskey, jewelry, a car. He would probably buy her that damn castle if she asked for it. “How are your businesses doing?” she asked.

“I opened a laundromat in Roxbury last week.”

“Exciting.”

He noticed her tone and said dryly, “Do you know how much revenue a laundromat brings in?”

“A hundred K?”

“A single one can bring in a million a year.”

“I should tell my father to open one,” Ivy said, only half-joking. Then, when he actually began listing out figures pertaining to the initial investment, she said in exasperation, “Why are you so obsessed with making more money? Aren’t you already a millionaire?”

“So?”

“When’s enough enough?” It was not a rhetorical question—she really wanted to know. But Roux only shrugged.

“I wonder,” he said, gazing into the distance with the brooding expression he always wore when thinking of his dead mother.

“So what’s the plan, then?” she said. “Are you going to work for the Morettis for the rest of your life?”

He searched her face. “Does it bother you?”

“Not at all.” She looked him straight in the eye. “You know me—when have I ever cared about things like following the law?” She pretended to take another swig from the flask.

“Come here,” Roux said tenderly.

Ivy went. She sat between his knees; his arms encircled her waist and she leaned back into his chest, feeling his heartbeat through the layers of their clothes. His hair tickled her cheeks as his soft voice, gruff with alcohol, whispered elaborate promises in her ear: they’d marry, he’d take his money and they’d start fresh, somewhere far away from the Morettis, maybe in Asia, and he’d take care of her, her family, their children’s future, and he’d never hurt her again—all promises of a man who is very nearly drunk, spilling the rawest dreams of his heart. “You know me,” he vowed, as if he could hear her unspoken doubts, “you know I always keep my promises.”

“You once told me you weren’t the marrying type,” she said.

He laughed, then sighed, then laughed again. “Trust you to remember every shitty thing I’ve ever said.”

Ivy let herself relax into the hard body supporting her, the strong arms wrapped around her like chains, and she looked up at the white-ribboned sky, the weak sun. She would never again mistake physical strength for strength.

“Roux,” she said. “What would you do if I said that I’d told Gideon about us and that he’s forgiven me? That we’re still going to get married?”