Plus, it stops her from obsessing about that detective.
Ivy and Wes have finally come to a point where everything is good. Better than good. It’s fantastic. No lies, no games—they’ve returned to something real. Or rediscovered it.
She takes off the black dress, which is too boring, and puts on the emerald green one.
Better, but not perfect.
Yes, she and Wes got back together in a screwed-up way, and it probably never would’ve happened if she hadn’t called the police. But it didn’t have to turn into all this. Karen didn’t have to dig so deep into the past. It’s a little rude, to be honest.
The blue dress is next. Sky blue, though not so light it’s transparent. Snug without being too tight, sexy but not vulgar, and it doesn’t make her look like she’s trying too hard. It’s also the most expensive.
She can almost afford it. Close enough.
On her way back to her car, she imagines being at Maxwell’s tomorrow night. The little candle on the table, piano music in the background—not so loud that you have to shout, not so soft that you can hear the other customers. Ivy is wearing her new outfit, Wes sits across from her, and they’re smiling.
Until she tells him about her visit from the detective. She should tell him, because being open and honest is the only way to make a relationship work. Everybody knows that, and Ivy knows it from experience. Secrets can ruin everything.
She imagines how that conversation would go, especially when she tells him Karen has been digging into their relationship. More than anything else, she tries to picture the look on Wes’s face when Ivy tells him the worst part.
It’s not good. The only upside is how hot he is when he’s angry.
* * *
—
Marcus walks into Wes’s office without knocking. He is another sales rep, one of the most successful at Siphon, and he always looks like he just walked out of a magazine. Marcus is what they’re all supposed to look like, but he is the only one who manages to pull it off. Other than Tanner, of course. The original. Everyone else is a copy-and-paste.
Marcus smiles and pulls two tickets out of his pocket. “Tonight.”
“No way.”
“You doubt me?” Marcus throws the tickets on Wes’s desk. The Warriors game, not floor seats but close enough.
Wes will be at Maxwell’s with Ivy. If he cancels now . . . well, he doesn’t want to think about what she would do. And it’s a long drive to and from San Francisco. If he goes, he probably won’t see her at all tonight. Yes, he would like to go to the game. No, he doesn’t want to deal with the fallout of making that decision.
“I can’t go,” Wes says.
“Excuse me?”
“I just . . . I have a date. No way I can miss it.”
“It’s Tuesday,” Marcus says. “Who dates on Tuesdays?”
“Seriously, I can’t go.”
“Jesus, who is this girl?”
“My girlfriend.”
“First, when did you get a girlfriend?” Marcus says.
Wes shrugs.
“Second,” Marcus says, “isn’t that a benefit of being in a relationship? The freedom to cancel on her without repercussions?”
“Next time,” Wes says.
It’s difficult to say those words and turn down Marcus’s offer. Of course he would rather go to the game than out to dinner—especially tonight, because Wes isn’t sure if he should tell her about Tanner. That he remembered Ivy, recognized her when she came into the office. And threatened to ban her from the building.
But should he tell her? Wes has been wrestling with that question all day.
No one wants to be told something like that. It might hurt her feelings, and that’s the last thing Wes wants to do. Everything has been going so well, so amazing, that he doesn’t want to ruin it.
He also doesn’t want to hide anything from her. Been down that road a thousand times, and it never led anywhere good.
Lists have been made. The good reasons, the bad reasons, the horrible reasons, plus all the possible outcomes—good, bad, tragic. Including the end of their relationship. Again. And that’s the problem. The last one. He can’t decide if it’s worse to tell her something hurtful or not tell her at all.
What he needs is a rule. A guideline. Something easy to apply so he can make a decision.
He flips the situation around. Ivy used to do that a lot, usually when they were arguing. She would say, “Imagine if the situation was reversed. If I did to you what you did to me. How would you feel?”
Bad. The answer was always bad.
From now on, this is what he should do. When Wes isn’t sure if he should tell Ivy something, he should ask himself if he would want to know. If he would want Ivy to tell him.
And if her boss was threatening to ban him from her workplace, he would want to know.
Probably.
* * *
—
Bianca stares at the door to Wes’s office, wondering about him. She does that a lot.
She also wonders why he is turning down Warriors tickets. He loves basketball. He can’t possibly love this Ivy woman more than he loves the Warriors.
Honestly, Bianca doesn’t see what the big deal is about her. She has looked at every one of her posts, going back years. First, Ivy is not very original. The pictures are copies of copies of influencers’。 Not well-done, either, if she is being honest. And Bianca is always honest, at least in her own head.
Ivy is cute. Bianca will give her that. Ivy looks like a woman you’d see on commercials selling tampons. More sweet than sexy. Not a woman who could set the world on fire. Except, apparently, for the world Wes lives in.
She’s a problem.
Too bad Abigail hadn’t expanded on that and given Bianca some details, but that was all she said.
Bianca has given her next step a lot of thought. She has to be careful before talking to any other coworkers, or else she runs the risk of word getting around that she’s been asking about Wes. Once is acceptable. Two or more times, and people start to notice.
Which brings her back, again and again, to Tanner. No other choice. Her boss asks for the gossip but rarely offers any in return. He wants to know what’s happening but doesn’t spread it. Tanner’s ego is big enough that he doesn’t need the boost.
Bianca does have to be clever in her approach. If she tries to be subtle, he will see right through it. Anyone that good at sales knows how to read between the lines and hear what isn’t being said.
The next time Tanner comes around to ask what’s happening—something he does three or four times a day—Bianca gives him the usual work updates. Where everyone is, who’s meeting who, and what’s coming up for the rest of the day.
“Good,” he says. “What else?”
Bianca has never flirted with anyone at the office before. In fact, she makes it a point not to engage in behavior that falls anywhere on the flirtation spectrum. She has never done it with a coworker or a client, and certainly not with her boss.
Until now.
She has no choice. Her rule has to be broken, because this is about Wes. He’s been driving her crazy since she found that memorial fund in his browser history.
And flirting will work, because it’s Tanner. Assuming what she’s heard is true.
Bianca leans in toward him. Tanner doesn’t look surprised or put off at all. Instead, he responds by leaning right back into her.