And that little reminder of mortality dumped the ice she needed to freeze the lust hardening her nipples. “I don’t think so.”
They were here for a purpose—to accidentally run into Ivy and pump her for information. Ivy was one of the handful of people who knew Sylvie was the woman behind the High-Heeled Wonder. If anyone would love to spill the beans, it would be Ivy.
“Why don’t you scoot a little closer, Sylvie honey?” Tony’s voice carried across the aisle.
Ivy raised her gaze from her laptop screen. She smirked, rose, and sauntered over.
“Aren’t you two just way too cute for words.” The redhead stood next to the table, one hip cocked.
Just as her name suggested, Ivy’s thin legs went up forever. She’d mostly stayed behind the cameras after checking herself into rehab a few years ago, but she still carried herself with the overwhelming sense of predatory confidence that had made her a star on the couture runways.
Without waiting for an invitation, Ivy sat down next to Tony. The deep green booth acted as the perfect foil for her red hair and porcelain skin. In the past six months, Sylvie and Ivy hadn’t spoken more than five words—a fact that burned a dime-sized hole in her gut every time she thought about it.
The two of them, along with Drea, had started Killer Style Blogging. Drea had covered all things cosmetic with her Make Me Up blog. Ivy took full advantage of her deep contacts within the modeling and fashion photography world to dig up the best gossip for Catwalk Strut. High-Heeled Wonder completed the blog trifecta with its focus on the latest designs and trends. All three of the blogs did well, but High-Heeled Wonder had become the breakout star, with more than half a million hits a day. About six months ago, Ivy left the group in a jealous huff.
Ivy flipped her hair over one shoulder. “You’re lucky Pippa and Anders are seated in the private VIP dining room. From what I hear, both would love to flay you, cook you, and pretend to eat you.” She turned the full force of her blue eyes on Tony. “You must be the stand-in.”
Sylvie slid her fingers between Tony’s. “Trying to dig up gossip for your blog?”
Arching a perfectly waxed eyebrow, Ivy grinned. “You forget I know you, Sylvie Bissette. Your type runs more…soft? Skinny? Beta? Gay?”
Sylvie’s last thread of patience, strung tighter and tighter since she’d walked into The Darling House, snapped and she g
rabbed Tony’s face in her hands. Without stopping to consider the consequences, she slid her lips over his. His surprisingly soft lips parted beneath hers and his strong fingers curled around her waist. She sucked his bottom lip into her mouth and nibbled.
At the first taste of strong coffee and peppermint she forgot why she’d started kissing him in the first place. All that mattered was the magnet-worthy attraction pulling them together and blocking out the rest of the world. Everything that had been building between them since the night of her sister’s wedding exploded in a tsunami of sexual hunger that left her wet and wanting.
Tony’s hands never left her waist, but his touch managed to weave its way across her body on an electric current that turned everything hard into something soft, hot, and demanding. What she wouldn’t give to be locked in his arms anywhere else.
The clank of glass on the polished wood table acted as an unwelcome reminder that she wasn’t somewhere else. She was sitting in The Darling House, in full view of the biggest fashion gossip of them all, and acting like a giant horndog. Aching for more, she forced herself to relinquish what in those precious seconds had become her most sought-after fantasy.
Condensation dripped down her glass, cooling her hand as she grasped it and drank with the gusto of a Viking at a feast.
“Damn, I need a cigarette.” Ivy fanned herself and winked.
Tony rammed his fingers through his thick, dark hair and mumbled something incoherent as he squirmed in his seat.
Eyeballing the woman who used to be one of her closest friends, Sylvie took stock of the situation. The plan had been to covertly interrogate Ivy for information, but judging by the skeptical gleam in the woman’s eyes, a direct approach would probably be a better option. It was a risk, but so was almost everything in Sylvie’s life right now.
“Someone knows I’m the High-Heeled Wonder.”
Ivy’s gaze locked on the paper straw wrapper she was twisting between her fingertips. “That was bound to happen.” Breaking under the pressure, the wrapper tore in half. The white paper floated down to the table.
“You’re one of the few people who knows the truth,” Tony said.
She shrugged. “There are others.”
Sylvie did some quick mental accounting. Her family knew. So did Drea. A few random folks, like her CPA, were clued in, but that was it. None of them had any reason to rat her out. Other than Ivy.
“Yes, but no one else would have—”
“Betrayed you?” Ivy uttered a flat laugh, empty of pretense and joy. “Yeah, that does sound like me. We junkies, we’re known for being lousy friends with fast lips and slow minds. We don’t deserve any of the goodies in life.”
Some little ember of their friendship sparked at the resignation and bitterness in Ivy’s voice. Just as Tony had stuck up for Sylvie as they walked The Darling House’s gauntlet, she’d spent years defending Ivy to the snide bunch of bitches who would never let Ivy forget her fall from fashion’s pinnacle.
“Don’t talk about yourself like that. You’ve been clean for years.”
Ivy flipped a red plastic circle onto the table with a snort. “Ninety days.”