5. Ivy

5

IVY

“I’m sorry.”

The devastation in those two words hung heavily in the confined space. Cooper and I had just returned to his truck following my visit to the Landing Police Department. I’d been in the process of putting on my seat belt, but the moment I heard my brother’s voice, I stopped what I was doing and looked at him.

“What?”

He shook his head, disappointment etched into every feature. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you last night, that you not only had to go through that, but that you had to relive it this morning.”

It hadn’t been easy. I told the officers what had happened, but I wound up feeling incredibly embarrassed. Not only had I wound up in the situation I had, but in the moment of the attack, I was only focused on getting away. I hadn’t paid enough attention, and I couldn’t provide the officers with much of a physical description beyond the man’s height, build, and that awful stench of cigarettes and sweat on him. Despite my disappointment with myself, I didn’t want Cooper taking this on his shoulders.

I offered a reassuring smile. “I appreciate you saying that, but what happened wasn’t your fault, Coop. You make it sound like you’re responsible.”

Cooper reached across the center console to take my hand in his. “No. I know that’s not the case, but I can’t help thinking how horrible it must have been for you, how I wish it never happened. It was difficult for me to sit there beside you this morning and listen to you recount all of that. It took a lot for me to not lose my cool, and I wish I could go back and change this for you.”

As horrible as what had happened last night was, I wondered if this part of it was going to be worse. Only Marco and Cooper knew about the assault, and hearing the story had impacted both of them tremendously.

What was going to happen when I told the remainder of my family? How would the rest of my brothers react? My dad would lose his mind.

“We can’t change what happened, but I’m hopeful the police will be able to find this guy. They seemed to be motivated, and I don’t think they plan to sit back, doing nothing.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I’m not going to lie. I still feel unsettled, but I know I’m going to be alright,” I assured him.

“What is your plan for today?”

I considered my options for a moment, the concern in Cooper’s expression undeniable. “I’d like to go home and change my clothes. But if you don’t mind, I’d love a ride back to the hotel. I need to work today.”

“It’d be okay if you took a few days off, you know?”

I shook my head, adamant that wouldn’t be the case. “Why would I do that? All that’s going to do is make me sit around and remember this over and over. I’d rather stay busy and keep my mind occupied. It’s better. Plus, everyone is going to be at Westwood’s today, so I probably should make the rounds to let them all know what happened. I’ll start with Mom and Dad.”

Even if he thought it wasn’t the best idea for me to be in the thick of the action again, Cooper didn’t argue with me about it or try to change my mind. “Would you like me to be there with you when you tell them?”

“No. No, I think I’ll be okay. Plus, you have some things you need to take care of anyway.”

“Like what?”

Shooting him an incredulous look, I countered, “You mean, in addition to the never-ending list of work you normally have to do, right?”

“Of course.”

I pressed my lips together, my heart aching. “You need to talk to Marco. I understand why you thought there was something going on between us. Things obviously looked that way. But that’s not what happened, and you said a lot of stuff that wasn’t okay today.”

Cooper took that in, regret clear in his expression. “Yeah. Yeah, I was already planning on finding him so we could talk when I got back.”

“Good. I’ll make the rounds to everyone else while you do that. Then I’ll keep myself busy at the hotel, doing it away from guests until my face is fully healed,” I told him.

“Sounds like a plan.”

With that, Cooper drove away from the police station and took me back to my place. Since my car was still at the hotel, he waited for me to get myself changed and cleaned up. And just as I finished getting ready, a thought popped into my head.

“Hey, before we go, I was wondering about Skye. You came into the hotel room this morning saying something had happened with her. What’s going on?”

A look I couldn’t quite read washed over Cooper’s expression as he inhaled deeply. I grew concerned, fearing something terrible had happened.

“I was going to wait to tell the family all together with Skye, but I think you could use this now. Skye’s pregnant. She took a test yesterday after work. That’s why she called me last night, just as I was getting ready to leave. She wanted to make sure I was coming right home.”

My eyes nearly popped out of my head. A baby. Cooper was going to be a dad. I stepped forward and threw my arms over his shoulders. “Oh my gosh, Coop. That’s incredible news. Congratulations.”

Cooper hugged me tightly. “Thanks, Ivy. We’re so excited about it.”

“How’s Skye doing? Have you told anyone else yet?”

“No. No, you’re the first. And so far, she’s feeling okay. She was late, which was the only reason she took a test.”

My heart needed this. My mind needed this. “Wow, this is so exciting. I’m going to be an aunt. And you’re going to be a dad. Do you know when Skye’s due?”

“We don’t have an official due date yet, but we’re thinking it’s going to be sometime in August. We should know for sure after she sees her doctor.”

I beamed at him. This was the best news. “I’m so happy for the two of you. You both deserve this. And I promise to keep the news quiet until you’re ready to share it with everyone else.”

“Thanks, Ivy. Are you all set?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

He jerked his head to the door. “Come on. Let’s get back to Westwood’s.”

With that, Cooper and I left, and I spent the entire ride back to Westwood’s wondering if Cooper and Skye were going to have to tell the rest of the family they were expecting in order to give them a distraction from the news I had to share today.

It certainly took my mind off my attack.

But it also highlighted the fact that I was still alone and on my own.

MARCO

With the exception of one tiny detail, this had been the worst morning of my life.

I was twenty-nine years old, had known Ivy for more than half my life, and for the first time ever, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Thoughts of Ivy Westwood—that was easily the best part of my morning.

Everything else had been awful. The way she’d woken up, the fears she still had, and that she needed to go to the police station to recount her assault from last night were terrible. Cooper showing up at the hotel room this morning made things even worse. And that he believed I was responsible for what happened to his sister crushed me.

My own best friend.

No matter what happened, regardless of how compromising the situation seemed, I didn’t think there was anything that could ever drive me to accusing my best friend of doing something so heinous.

And yet, that’s precisely what Cooper had done.

Sure, I could accept him assuming something went down between Ivy and me when he saw her wearing just my T-shirt this morning, but to think he believed I had it in me to lay a hand on her in anger, to put those marks on her body, crushed me. It impacted me nearly as much as it had to learn the truth about what had happened to her last night.

Never, not once, since I’d met Cooper had we ever experienced such tension or negative discourse between us. But the way things went down this morning, I wasn’t quite sure how we’d ever get past it.

Sadly, there was a bigger problem than that.

Even if Cooper and I could manage to move beyond this morning’s encounter, even if the apology he’d given me at Ivy’s request was genuine, there was one thing I wasn’t sure we’d be able to work through.

The way I felt about his sister. The way she was consuming my thoughts. The way that everything changed for me when it came to her, something that happened the moment I stepped into that hotel room last night and saw her like I did.

While Cooper might have realized he jumped the gun about everything and that none of his assumptions had been correct, I didn’t think it was a far stretch to believe there was some truth lingering beneath his reaction.

Before realizing that Ivy had been hurt, he’d made it clear he wasn’t happy at the thought of me being with his sister in the way he’d mistakenly assumed already happened. What I had a difficult time understanding was why he would think it was the worst thing that could happen. If my sisters had wound up in a relationship with Cooper—or any of the Westwood brothers, for that matter—I’d have been ecstatic. That the feeling wasn’t mutual was a bit concerning.

I tried to not let it bother me throughout the morning. Instead, I focused my attention on the work I needed to do. But thoughts of Ivy kept popping up, and I couldn’t get the look she’d sent my way before she walked out of the hotel room out of my head.

I’d just finished up the project I’d been working on in the chocolate factory—one of the packaging machines needed a repair—when I glanced up and saw Cooper making his way in my direction.

Normally, I would have found myself gearing up to joke with him about something. Not now. Instead, I was bracing myself for whatever interaction we were about to have, and the feeling left me unsettled.

He came to a stop in front of me and jerked his chin up. “Hey.”

I mirrored the head movement. “Hey.”

“I talked to Trey a few minutes ago,” he said. “He told me you paused the work on the villas so you could come over here and work on fixing the packaging machine. Did you get it all worked out?”

I had done that. I’d been working in the villas every day for weeks now, but since those weren’t a priority when compared to the packaging machine in the factory, something Cooper would have normally dealt with, I decided to get it fixed for him. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s all good now.”

He nodded and looked away. “Thanks.”

I cared too much to pretend I wasn’t interested in knowing how things went for Ivy. “Did everything go okay at the police station?”

Cooper sighed. “Yeah. I mean, she gave them all the details she could about the attack, and they’re promising to get to work on it right away.”

I dipped my chin. “That’s good. I’m glad. Let’s hope they can find out who did that to her.”

“I sure hope they do. But with so little information about the guy, it doesn’t look promising.” Cooper might have been engaging in this conversation with me, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at me. Maybe things were worse than I had already suspected.

I was torn between wanting to call him out on it, so we could resolve it, and trying to put myself in his shoes. That was the side that won out, because it was just the kind of guy I’d always been. Getting worked up about things never appealed to me, and I preferred to let stuff go. If Cooper wasn’t interested in making a bigger deal about this, then I wasn’t going to put us in a position that made it worse.

As I took a step in the opposite direction, I said, “I’m going to head over to the vil?—”

“Marco, I’m sorry.” I stopped moving and looked back at him. His expression was filled with anguish. “I sat there in that interrogation room with her and listened to her tell them what happened to her last night. I don’t know how I didn’t start throwing chairs and flipping over tables. How she got away, I don’t know. But her terror was real, and it was agony to listen to and see that.”

If there was one thing in this whole situation that Cooper and I could agree on, it was that. It was knowing that either one of us would have preferred to be there to save her from that nightmare.

I had a feeling Cooper wasn’t done, so I waited, giving him the time he needed to pull himself together.

“I came at you this morning and said some things that were completely out of line. I saw the marks on her face, and I just lost it. And I know there’s no excuse for it, but I guess I saw her walk out in your shirt after you lied and told me nobody was there with you, and?—”

“I didn’t say what I did to lie to you. I just wasn’t going to betray her confidence,” I explained. “I’d already asked her what her plan was for talking to all of you, and she wanted to go to the police station first. I respected her enough to let her make that decision.”

He nodded furiously. “I know. I know. I can look back and see it now, but in the moment, I was just caught up and thought you two had something going on that you were hiding and lying about. Again, I was wrong for how I behaved, and I want you to know that I’m sorry for what I said to you.”

“I appreciate that. And I understand the fury you felt at seeing her like that. I was just as upset, and I just need you to hear me say that I would sooner die than lay a hand on her like that.”

His shoulders fell. “I know that. In fact, I need to be here not only apologizing for what I said and how I acted, but I should also be thanking you for taking care of her last night and not leaving her alone when she’d been so terrorized. Thank you for dropping whatever you had going on, staying with her, and putting her well-being above everything else.”

I dropped my gaze to my feet, the air rushing from my lungs. I hated that it took something so awful happening to her for me to realize what I’ve had in front of me all this time. Now, I worried that if I tried to act upon it, Cooper would only think I was taking advantage of her being vulnerable.

“You’re welcome, Coop. I should probably head over to the villas now, though,” I said.

“Yeah. Alright. Are we cool?”

I still had so many concerns about the things Cooper didn’t say, but I nodded. “We’re cool.”

I moved to walk off, but something hit me, and I turned around to face him again. “Hey.”

He looked up at me. “Yeah?”

“Is Skye okay? When you came into the hotel room this morning, you said you wanted to talk about what happened with Skye last night. Is she alright?”

Any of the lingering tension and strain that had been visible in his features when we were discussing Ivy and what had happened this morning vanished. The hardness was gone, and he looked like he had not a worry in the world.

“She’s pregnant.”

I don’t know what I thought Cooper was going to say, but it hadn’t been that. I blinked in surprise. “Are you serious?”

Cooper nodded, a smile playing on his mouth. “I’m going to be a dad.”

“Wow. Wow, that’s… that’s incredible. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Skye wants to be with me to tell the rest of the family, but she agreed I could tell you about it this morning,” he revealed. “I wound up telling Ivy first, though. After what happened, I wanted to give her some good news. So, you’re the second person I’ve told. We’ll be telling everyone else later today or tomorrow.”

Ivy had to be over the moon. It was probably exactly what she needed to help get her mind off of what she’d been through. “I’m honored to be the second one to know. And I’m really happy for you, Coop. You and Skye.”

He offered a slight nod in return.

I jerked my head toward the exit. “I’m going to get back to work. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Sounds good. Later, Marco.”

I walked off, leaving my best friend behind, and wondered how I could feel so many conflicting emotions.

I was happy for Cooper, thrilled to hear about this exciting news he’d just received. I couldn’t wait to see him in a new role, to meet his baby.

At the same time, I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to experience something similar. I wasn’t getting any younger, had suddenly found myself feeling an attraction to a wonderful woman, and I hadn’t gotten a single blessing from my best friend. There were no reassurances from him that there wouldn’t be a problem if I took steps to build something with Ivy like he’d built with Skye.

And as I made my way to the hotel, so I could head out to the villas, an overwhelming sense of dread about needing to ignore my feelings consumed me. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel so relaxed and carefree.

My own best friend wouldn’t be happy for me. He didn’t think I was good enough. It was difficult to feel anything but disappointment.