Cherreads

Chapter 32 - Chapter Thirty-Two

WRITER'S POV:

Cassius asked her over breakfast.

He slid a folded black card across the table without a word. Ivy looked at it like it might explode. Inside, a note in Cassius's exacting handwriting:

'Dinner tonight. Formal. You're coming.'

She glanced up.

He didn't smile. He just drank his coffee like this wasn't a declaration of psychological war.A dinner party?" she asked. "With... your kind of people?"

"It's not a party. It's business. There will be wine, knives, and thinly veiled threats.""Oh good. My favorite ambiance."

---

By nightfall, Ivy was dressed in a black evening gown that felt suspiciously like it belonged to someone with a deeper bank account and fewer trauma spirals. Her hair was let down, the air was not being nice either, it fanned her hair like she was in a shampoo commercial. Her nerves were staging a full revolution.

Cassius met her in the foyer. He looked at her once—slowly, like he was filing the image away for blackmail—and said nothing.

But his eyes lingered, he badly wanted to brush her hair nad help her make it stay put.

Which said everything.

The dinner was in a private wing of a luxury hotel. The table was long, dramatic, and lit like a scene from a very expensive hostage negotiation.

Ivy sat beside Cassius.

She recognized no one, she badly wanted to return home.

Everyone was beautiful, terrifying, or both. A man with one eye sat at the end of the table. A woman in blood-red silk spoke in three languages and laughed like she'd orchestrated coups. Cutlery gleamed. So did veiled threats.Ivy laughed. It came out like a cracked sob. Ivy kept her face neutral and her hand firmly in her lap.Then Gina arrived.Late.On Purpose.Wearing a dress designed to offend and a smile that could kill small rodents.

She took the seat across from Ivy with the slow precision of a spider.

Oh," she said lightly. "You do clean up" 

Ivy smiled. "And you still talk."

Cassius said nothing. But his wine glass didn't survive the grip he put on it. The dinner dragged on. Ivy made small talk with people who probably had body counts. She nodded. Smiled. Pretended she wasn't ready to faint. 

 When Cassius leaned in to whisper something in Italian, she almost jumped. "Okay. That's horrifying. But okay. What do you need?" Ivy asked with a frown.

 "You're doing fine," he said. She whispered back, "Are we still talking about dinner or my will to live? " 

His mouth twitched.

Gina cleared her throat loudly. "How did you two meet again? I don't think I ever got the real story."Cassius cut in, voice dry before Ivy could think of something. "She was offering me wine."

Gina's smile faltered.

"How poetic." Gina muttered under her breath.

"It was Merlot..."Even worse." Cassius sarcastically added again

Ivy bit her lip to keep from laughing. Or throwing the salad bowl.Cassius's hand found hers under the table.Not possessive.Just... grounding.And somehow, she survived the rest of the night without vomiting.But just barely.

More Chapters