Chapter 8: Blackwood Estate

Ivy POV

I was glad Alex didn’t own some obnoxious sports car, or worse, hadn’t hired a limo for whatever grand function we were headed to. Small mercies.

At least Milo’s SUV felt like something a normal person might actually own, even if “normal” was doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Milo took the wheel. Alex and I sat in the back, and the space between us felt smaller than it had any right to be, given the actual size of the seat.

My shoulder hovered just shy of his, close enough to sense his warmth, far enough that the distance felt deliberate. I tried to focus on the blur of headlights and trees, pretending I wasn’t acutely aware of every breath he took.

The tension was electric.

I kept my eyes fixed out the window, mostly so I wouldn’t keep sneaking glances at him, and failing anyway. My reflection in the glass looked too pale, too wide-eyed, a dead giveaway that I was in way over my head.

Why was I so drawn to him? It didn’t make any sense. Every time I looked at him, my skin ran too warm, my pulse tripped over itself, and I hated how little control I seemed to have over any of it. It was infuriating, the way my body betrayed me, the way my thoughts tangled up and refused to unravel.

I glanced at Alex through the window.

He was dressed simply tonight in a black suit, a white dress shirt, with no tie, despite what sounded like a small ongoing war with Milo about it in the driveway. His hair was still a little messy, but there were signs he’d actually tried to tame it for once, which somehow made him look even better.

The drive stretched on longer than I expected. Buildings gave way to open road, open road gave way to trees, and the trees just kept coming, thicker, darker, pressing closer to the car with every mile until the headlights were the only real light left anywhere. It was like the world was shrinking down to just this car, this moment, this knot tightening in my chest.

“How much further?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light and failing.

“Not far,” Alex said.

That wasn’t exactly reassuring.

The deeper we drove, the tighter my chest got. There were no streetlights out here, no houses, no gas stations, no other cars, nothing to suggest civilization existed anywhere nearby, just endless trees swallowing the road on both sides, branches reaching low enough to scrape against the windows.

I gripped the edge of the seat without meaning to. “This doesn’t feel like function territory,” I said. “This feels like the part of the movie right before someone gets murdered.”

“You’re not getting murdered,” Milo said entirely too cheerful for someone driving through what looked like the setting of a true crime documentary.

“That’s exactly what someone would say before getting murdered.”

Alex huffed something close to a laugh, but I caught the way his hand had shifted slightly closer to mine on the seat between us, like some instinct in him wanted to close the distance even if the rest of him was holding back. I almost reached for it, then stopped myself, curling my fingers tighter around the edge of my dress.

“We’re almost there,” he said again. “Don’t look so nervous.”

Easy for him to say. He belonged wherever we were going. I very much did not. I pressed my lips together, forcing my expression into something more neutral than I felt.

I inhaled slowly, trying to settle the nerves crawling up my spine, and a moment later the trees finally broke open and a building came into view that made every ounce of that settling effort completely pointless.

It wasn’t just a building, it was an estate. It sprawled and lit from every angle, stone and glass rising up out of the forest like it had grown there instead of being built, like the trees themselves had been arranged around it on purpose.

Cars I didn’t recognize the kind with logos I was pretty sure cost more than my entire life lined a circular driveway. The whole place looked like it belonged in a movie.

I blinked at it, certain for a second that I was looking at the wrong thing entirely, then turned to Alex, my mouth already forming a question I didn’t have words for yet. He didn’t look at me his expression had shifted into something unreadable, like he was bracing himself.

“Welcome,” Milo announced, “to the Blackwood estate.”

A chill ran down my back and I swallowed hard, and for the first time all night, the nerves in my chest tipped fully over into something closer to dread.

Milo stopped the SUV almost right at the door, like the space was reserved for him and him alone. He was out of the vehicle so fast that before I’d even processed we’d stopped moving, he opened Alex passenger door, and Alex had moved to mine, pulling it open.

I didn’t react at first. I was too busy contemplating whether it was socially acceptable to just stay in the car for the rest of the night.

My hands fumbled for my bag, stalling, but Alex’s presence filled the space.

Alex stretched out his hand to me, and I hesitated half a moment before taking it.

“Come on,” he urged. “I’ll keep you save.”

That wasn’t reassuring, but the moment my palm touched his, something like a electric current snapped up my arm, sharp enough that I gasped out loud before I could stop myself.

Alex didn’t react, either he hadn’t felt it, or he was better at hiding it. My hand tingled even after he let go.

I slipped out of the car with his help, legs steadier than I expected given how loudly my heart was currently arguing with itself.

Milo shut the door behind me and immediately reached to fix the back of my dress, tugging at something I hadn’t even known was crooked, muttering about fabric like it was the most important thing happening tonight. I let him, too distracted to protest.

“Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?” Alex asked, lifting my hand and pressing a kiss to my knuckles.

My cheeks burned and a small laughed escaped my lips, it was more to cover the sudden warmth flooding my cheeks than out of actual amusement.

“Careful,” I said. “I’m only the assistant.”

“We could always change that,” he said, holding my gaze a bit too long.

“Not until I’ve repaid every—”

“Is this the time to arrive?!”

A voice cracked across the courtyard like a whip, thunderous enough that I actually flinched. My spine snapped straight and I instinctively stepped slightly behind Alex, breath caught.

At the top of the stairs stood a man in an black suit, shoes polished to a mirror shine, gray hair swept back, shoulders broad enough to block out half the doorway behind him. His face was blank, but his eyes were burning, fixed directly on Alex like nothing else in the world existed.

Alex’s hand slipped from mine. His gaze lifted toward the top of the stairs, and I watched his posture stiffen.

“Evening, father,” he said, staring back at the man without so much as blinking.