No answer.
She tried again.
Still no answer.
Fuck it. “I’m going over there.”
Ivy gripped my shirt. “That’s not a great idea, King. Let me go.”
I shook my head. “No, you finish what you’re doing.”
She followed me as I stalked out of the house. “King!”
Turning to face her, I said, “Ivy, I’ve got this. I’ll be back soon.”
Pursing her lips, she said, “You’ll screw everything up. Please don’t go.”
Shoving my fingers through my hair, I demanded, “How the fuck will I screw it up? It’s already screwed up. I just want to—”
“Mum called me today,” she blurted before stopping herself and biting her lip in the way she did when she’d said something she regretted.
I closed the distance between us, my shoulders tensing as I waited to hear what she had to say. “And?”
“She just wished me a Merry Christmas, that’s all,” she said a little too quickly for me to believe that was all that had been discussed.
“Jesus, Ivy, just fucking tell me everything.”
I saw the moment she decided to let it all out. Her expression flashed from frustration to anger to determination in the space of two seconds. Straightening, she said with force, “She told me how hurt she was about everything that’s happened this year with your mum and with me. She misses me and wants to fix things between us. I’m going to see her tomorrow.”
That last bit threw me—we were supposed to be leaving on our road trip tomorrow. But what really pissed me off was that she thought I’d screw this up for her. I planted my feet wide and crossed my arms, settling in for a long discussion. “You don’t want me to go there now because you assume I’ll fuck shit up?”
“Well, you did last time.”
And there it was.
Would we ever move past my last transgression?
“I thought we’d moved on from that.” My tone had turned cold. I tried like hell to curtail it, but when Ivy cut deep, I retaliated with ice.
She stared at me in silence, and I saw all the anger she still carried about this situation. I saw her judgement and her lack of faith in me. And when she finally spoke, I heard her resentment. “You might have, but I’m the one without my mother, not you.”
Every ounce of self-control I had snapped. Anger rushed through my veins and required an outlet. I’d discussed this with Ivy until I was blue in the fucking face over the last two months. I’d apologised. I’d told her I’d do whatever she needed. I’d tried to fix shit with Bethany myself. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done for her if she’d asked.
But she didn’t fucking ask.
She’d cried and held me at a distance and played her games with me. And all the while, she’d told me we would get through this. And now she wanted to throw this shit in my face.
I turned away from her and punched the brick wall behind me. I’d fucking regret that later, but for now it was what I needed. I then stalked to my bike without even so much as a glance back at her.
She came after me, though. “So that’s it then? You’re just going to walk away from me?”
I spun around, anger rolling off me in waves I wasn’t sure I could control. “It’s safer for all of us if I get the fuck out of here.”
She flinched. It was the first time she ever had. But she recovered fast and kept on coming. Slapping her hands against my chest, she yelled, “Do you want to hit me, King? Would that make you feel better?”
I took a step back from her, my jaw clenching. There was no way in hell I’d ever hit a woman. But I needed to get out of here before I started tearing our relationship apart more than we already had.
Fuck.