It would be easy enough for the Gilligans to get Ivy back. They’d just send over their men, or even the police, to say she’d been kidnapped. I couldn’t take her to another country, like Leo had done with Kaja.
I had a business to run.
I led Ivy down the hallway to the room at the end that had once been occupied by my sister before she’d been handed over to Tam Cornell like a prized cow.
I’d loved and admired my father, but even I had to admit that using Hallie as a way of securing our business was a fucked-up thing to do. It had been different when it had been Harvey Cornell who she’d been marrying—even if he had been a bit of a player and everyone knew it—but I hadn’t expected for our father to then hand Hallie over to Tam after Harvey had been murdered on their wedding day. Tam thought too highly of himself—in my opinion, he still did—but even I had to admit he treated Hallie well now. Plus, they had a baby arriving any day.
I crossed the room to Hallie’s walk-in wardrobe. It led through to an en suite bathroom.
“Here,” I said, opening the door to reveal the walls on either side still lined with hangers, and storage boxes containing shoes and bags. Hallie had only taken her favourites with her. I think, when she’d first moved, she’d been conscious of the fact she’d been moving into Tam’s space and hadn’t wanted to take up too much of it herself. “Take whatever you want. Hallie won’t miss it. The bathroom is through there, too, if you want to get cleaned up.”
She stared at the floor. “Thanks.”
I realised I needed to leave her alone if she was going to get changed. The memory of how her plump tit had hung out of the front of her torn dress flashed into my mind, and heat gathered in my cock. I could happily have stood there and watched as she stripped off my jacket and then that dress. I already knew she wasn’t wearing a bra and I highly doubted her panties were much more than a piece of string either. My mouth watered, and I imagined cupping her tit in one hand, squeezing and massaging, while I covered her nipple with my mouth. It would harden and peak as I sucked and flicked it with my tongue.
“Jayden?” she said, raising her eyebrows at the door behind me.
Shit, I’d just been standing there, staring at her. She really was a pretty little thing—even more so with her makeup smudged and her dress torn. It seemed a shame to make her presentable.
I didn’t want her to notice the bulge forming in my trousers—the lighter material of the suit was less forgiving than the more restrictive fabric of say a pair of jeans—and I turned to leave her.
I hadn’t forgotten about the information I’d gathered from the man on the roof. I was going to need to do some digging if I was going to find out who Doyle was. My gut told me he worked for the same family Ivy belonged to. Once she’d sorted herself out, I’d use this opportunity to question her. Of course, she might cover for whoever he was. It was certainly possible. I couldn’t allow my mind to be clouded just because she was pretty and vulnerable right now. Ivy Gilligan’s allegiance was always going to be with her family, just as mine would be.
Not that I had much of a family left.
I found my phone where I’d put it on the side and did my best to distract myself by sending the name to some contacts to see if anyone recognised it. I didn’t like to think there was a chance this man didn’t exist and Ronald had been lying to me in the hope I’d let him go once he’d opened his mouth. That would put me back to the beginning.
I glanced at the closed bedroom door. Maybe not quite the beginning. Even if Ivy didn’t know anything, she was close to the men who most likely knew exactly who had ordered the bomb set in the warehouse—her father and brothers, Greyson Gilligan, and Aiden and Bruno.
Doing my best to put the thought of Ivy Gilligan stripping off her clothes out of my head, I put my back to the door and focused on the rest of the penthouse. Even though my father had left this place to me, it still didn’t feel like my own. I’d had to step into his shoes with regards to the business, but it was as though I’d stepped into his life as well. I felt like a boy trying on one of his father’s suits only to discover it didn’t fit me at all.
I didn’t want to analyse that image too deeply. This was my life now, and I had to get on with it. I’d been forced to grow up, literally overnight, and maybe it would simply take me a little time for that suit to fit me.
The sound of water running came from behind the door.
Had she wanted to scrub off the remains of her assault? Because that’s what it had been. Those two fuckers had assaulted her. I wished I could find them again and actually gouge out that arsehole’s eye this time.
The open-plan living room and kitchen felt empty and sparse again without her in it. I enjoyed having another warm, breathing body in here. No, it wasn’t even just that. I often had people here—men who’d worked for my father, or even Hallie came around occasionally to visit, though her husband tended to give me a wider berth. I’d never have said it out loud, but it was weird being here alone. I was a grown man and had no issues with being alone, but sometimes I caught the shape of my father moving through the room out of the corner of my eye and I spun towards it, expecting to find him—a part of me, just for one second, forgetting he was dead. It fucking freaked me out. Though again, I’d never tell a soul that a part of me was worried about ghosts.
I liked knowing there was another beating heart in the place, and that the heart had a sexy little body surrounding it was even better.
She emerged from the bedroom in jeans that clung to her thighs and backside—but that were a bit too long—and a t-shirt that stretched across her breasts. Now she’d taken off her heels, it was clear she wasn’t much over five feet tall. She’d washed her face, so the makeup was no longer smudged under her eyes, and from the way her blonde waves were wet at the front, it looked as though she’d tried to wash the blood out of her hair, too. She hadn’t done a very good job, though, and the attempt to wash it had only prevented whatever clotting had already happened, so the wound had reopened.
“You’re still bleeding,” I pointed out.
She brought her hand to her head. “Oh.”
She pulled her fingers back and stared at the bloodied tips. Her skin paled, and I hoped she wasn’t going to pass out.
“Come here,” I instructed. “Sit. Let me patch you up.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Just stop the bleeding. I’ll be gentle.”
She nodded and crossed the floor to perch on the arm of the sofa.
My stomach flipped that she seemed to trust me so much. After what she’d just been through, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe she shouldn’t. She knew who I was and what sort of things I was capable of. Why wasn’t she more fearful of me? Was it simply because she was used to dealing with worse kinds of men at home?