Lost in Paradise (Paradise Club #2)(52)
“Is that so?” I lean in, placing my arm on the top of her seat.
A smile dances across Ivy’s lip. “You know so,” she says, looking through her dark lashes.
“It’s nice to know we’re on the same page.” I grin.
“The girl you met on the island isn’t me. She was adventurous, confident, and didn’t worry about sleeping with a heap of different people. I don’t normally date, let alone do something so bold. But if I do meet someone, then my interest is on them and only them. It’s burned me in the past because inevitably, the person I’m seeing seems to always seek out others.
“I’m putting it all out there, Alex. I totally understand … look at you, you’re so handsome, and I’m sure there are a million women wanting to date you, and you should have the opportunity to do just that. I just … I don’t know what I’m saying. I think the champagne has gone to my head, and the boat’s rocking has made my brain fuzzy,” she says, shaking her head with a frown pulled across her forehead.
It’s cute. She’s cute. And I love the fact that she just laid it all on the line regarding what she wants. “I’m not looking for a boyfriend, Alex, or commitment,” she adds.
“Ivy,” I say her name sternly, which pulls her attention from the internal struggles I think she’s having in this moment after blurting out all her inner thoughts. I reach out and run my hand along her cheek. “I want you and only you. If you want to explore The Paradise Club, let me explore it with you. I want to date you, and only you, but I’m not ready for labels just yet. If things change between us further down the road, then we can have a conversation about where we want it to go.
“I enjoyed our time at the resort. I enjoy our messages throughout the day. I also want to take you out more often. We are both workaholics, and our schedules are crazy. We put business first, and I think each of us understands that. This is me letting you know my intentions,” I tell her, putting it all out there.
“You mean that?” she asks.
“I do. I want to have fun with you, Ivy. No pressure.”
A smile forms on her face, and she moves closer to me before wrapping her arms around my neck and kissing me. Her lips are soft and tender. My arm falls from the back of her seat and wraps around her body pulling her to me. My other hand slides up and cups her face as our lips move in sync with each other.
Eventually, we pull apart.
“Does that mean a second date is on the cards?”
Ivy chuckles. “Yes, I believe it does.”
“Good,” I reply, kissing her again.
“Not sure how you’re going to top this one, though,” she tells me.
“Really? That good, hey?”
Ivy grins. “Yeah. My ex used to use me as window dressing, so dates were never fun,” she mumbles, and the sadness in her voice cannot be mistaken. “Sorry, I don’t know why I mentioned him. I may have been out of the dating game for a while, but I do know that’s a major faux pas.” She looks up at me with concern glittering across her eyes.
I reach for her again, pulling her into my side. “You don’t have to tell me what happened with your ex, but know I’m nothing like him. Nothing at all,” I say, kissing her head.
Ivy lets out a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to ruin tonight by talking about him and our past issues.”
“Nothing you could tell me would ruin our night or the way that I see you.” I try to ease the nerves I can feel swirling around her in a whirlpool of emotions.
“Why are you so nice to me?” Ivy questions with a frown. It sounds like she’s still suspicious of me and my intentions.
Fuck, I hate her ex. It seems Ivy’s damage runs a lot deeper than I originally thought.
“Did you know I’ve been engaged before?” I ask, wondering if my brother shared my past with her sister and she’s passed it on to Ivy. She shakes her head indicating no. “It was very short-lived. I met a wonderful woman when I first started out with my father. She was my assistant … smart, beautiful, and nice. Nothing ever happened between us as I was dating someone else, then one night she found me drunk after my heart was fucking shattered. Things happened that night that changed our relationship.
“We’d known each other for so long that things moved quickly. During that time, we were dealing with corporate espionage … someone was giving out sensitive information to our competition, and we couldn’t work out who it was. We kept losing out on deals, and there was a time when I thought we were going to lose everything because of the amount of information our competitors seemed to have about our business.
“My father ended up hiring private investigators, and those PIs found out it was my fiancée who had been giving the information to our competition. Turns out she was the mistress of one of the owner’s sons. She’d used me to get what she needed, and I was devastated over finding out I was the reason my father nearly lost every damn thing he held dear businesswise.”
“That’s not your fault,” Ivy tells me with her brows drawn together.
“I know. It took me a long time to come to terms with that fact. But how do you trust someone after that? Stupidly, I did again years later, and it blew up in my face a second time. I fell for another woman who fell in love with my money. She worked hard to get to the point where I was willing to propose again, but then I overheard her talking to a friend where she was explaining about living this life of luxury while she could still fuck her ex on the side. Because that’s who she really loved, but he was poor, and she deserved more than being some poor man’s wife.”