CHAPTER 219: YOU WROTE YOUR VOWS DOWN

Winn pulled her even closer, tucking her against his chest. His arms wrapped around her completely, his chin resting on her head. "How about you leave that bit to me and you get better?" he murmured.

"I have to do this myself," she said, sitting up a little so she could look him in the eyes. Her gaze was firm, determined, fierce—even in her vulnerability.

Winn chuckled softly and shook his head in resignation. "Yes, ma’am. I never could stop you from doing anything." He brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "From the day I met you, you’ve been a walking storm."

"How is this going to work from now on, Winn?" she asked quietly, shifting so she could see his face fully. "We just... work together and pretend that we do not feel anything for each other?"

"I’m afraid yes," he admitted. "I can’t risk you getting hurt again. I’d rather love you from a distance." The admission scraped his throat raw.

Ivy leaned up and kissed him. "I was so looking forward to our wedding," she murmured against his lips. "I had my vows written and all that shit."

Winn huffed a laugh. "You wrote your vows down?" he teased. "I was planning on winging it."

Ivy smacked his chest. "Winging it? I’m hurt," she said. Even now, even after everything—the grief, the trauma, the months of unspoken longing—she could still tease him. And he still loved it. Loved her.

"What?" Winn scoffed, rolling his eyes dramatically. "I don’t need to tell people I don’t give a shit about how I feel about you. I just needed you to feel how I feel about you. The rest of the world could have gone screw themselves."

"I did feel how you felt about me, Winn. Every day."

"I just wanted a simple life with you," he admitted. "To love you. To prove to myself that I could be better than Tom. That I could raise my kids right. Love them right. It seemed simple enough." He exhaled, and his breath came out rough.

"And yet, so hard," Ivy whispered, brushing her thumb across his jaw. Her touch was gentle. Their love had never been the soft kind. It was wild, stubborn, too powerful to be easy.

"Yeah. Turned out, I was never even a Kane." The bitterness cracked through his voice. Being a Kane had been both a curse and an identity.

Ivy shifted, propping herself on her elbow so she could study his face. "Yeah, Joey told me about that." There was sympathy in her gaze. "You find out anything about your real dad?"

Winn leaned his head back against the headboard, staring at the ceiling for a long, weighted second. "I didn’t want to," he confessed. "What if he’s worse than Tom? We’ve seen what my mother’s taste in men is like." Winn had spent his whole life trying not to become his father... only to discover the man he feared becoming wasn’t even his blood.

Ivy reached out and traced her fingers down the inside of his arm. "You really are going to live the rest of your life not knowing?" she asked gently.

Winn sighed deeply, his hand automatically finding her waist, pulling her a little closer—as if instinctively needing her near while facing a fear he didn’t want to name.

"I don’t know," he murmured. "But maybe... maybe not forever."

"And now?" she asked, her fingers slipping beneath the covers—closing around his cock. "Are we going to spend the rest of the night talking?"

Winn let out a deep, exhausted chuckle. "I think my balls are drained."

"Ugh..." Ivy snickered, giving him a slow stroke. "Wimp." Her grin was pure mischief, eyes sparkling.

"Excuse me?" Winn’s brow shot up, offended but amused.

"I said what I said."

"You forget so many things, my sweet darling," Winn growled, suddenly flipping her over with ease, pinning her wrists above her head. His grip was firm, his body pressing into hers. "I can make you take that back."

"My memory..." Ivy giggled, breathless already, "...is a bit foggy."

"You little witch."

Her laugh broke into a gasp when he slid down her body. And then he made her feel all kinds of pleasure all over again, pulling one last intoxicating release from her body before either of them could think about the outside world.

*****

Morning crept in. It was the morning they both dreaded, the one that marked the end of the fragile bubble they’d created overnight. The shower steamed with warmth, but the possibility of goodbye chilled the air around them.

They washed without speaking much.

Winn’s phone rang just as he was getting dressed, his hair still damp, towel slung around his neck. The moment he saw the caller ID, something shifted in him. Ivy watched the ease drain from his shoulders, watched his jaw harden.

He answered curtly. "Yeah... Just one of them? I’ll be there in fifteen minutes."

He hung up and turned toward Ivy, and she felt the shift. His entire body locked down. The warmth from earlier evaporated, replaced with a terrifying calm.

"What’s going on?" Ivy asked.

Winn grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head.

"I need you to make a quick stop with me. Just need you to confirm something for me," Winn said.

"Okay," Ivy replied, assuming—naively, comfortably—that he was referring to the mall project.

Winn pulled out of Orchard Ville without another word. The morning sun glinted off the windshield. The radio stayed off. His hand didn’t reach for hers.

Ivy looked sideways at him, brows furrowed. "Winn, what... where are we going?"

He refused to respond. His eyes kept forward, hands gripping the wheel just a little too tightly.

He drove downtown into Soriya. Commissioned Club rose in the distance. Ivy’s stomach twisted.

"Winn...why are we here?"

But Winn was already pulling into the VIP garage.

The silence grew claws inside her chest.

Two guards led them down the stairs into the underground level. Ivy’s heart pounded.