Chapter 5

Ivy's POV

"You are going to wear a hole in that porch if you keep pacing."

Denise's voice crackled through the phone, equal parts amused and worried, and I forced myself to stop moving, though my heart did not get the same message.

"I am not pacing." I shrugged while still pacing

"Ivy. I can hear your feet." he replied

I looked down at the porch of the old Ashford estate, the one Roman's family had rented for the wedding week, all white columns and manicured hedges, entirely too grand for a town like Maple Hollow. My feet had, in fact, worn a small track back and forth across the top step.

"I have to do this," I said, more to myself than to her. "I have to tell him something before someone else tells him the wrong version of it."

"Tell him what exactly? The whole thing? The baby thing?"

"Well not the whole thing." My stomach twisted at even the idea.

"And if he asks why Bloodmoon would be interested in you specifically?" she asked

I did not have an answer for that, which was exactly the problem, and Denise's silence on the other end told me she already knew it too.

"Just be careful," she finally said. "Call me after."

I hung up, smoothed down the front of my dress for the third time, and made myself knock before I could talk myself out of it again.

Marcus opened the door, eyebrows lifting in obvious surprise. "Ivy. Roman did not mention he was expecting you."

"He is not. I just needed to talk to him. It is important."

Something in my voice must have convinced him, because he stepped aside without any of his usual teasing. "He is out back. Follow me."

The house was even grander inside, all high ceilings and old money, and I felt more out of place with every step, more aware of the flour probably still dusted into the hem of my dress. Marcus led me through a set of glass doors onto a stone terrace, where Roman stood with his back to us, phone pressed to his ear, shoulders tight in a way that had nothing to do with wedding planning.

"I do not care what the tracker says," he was saying, low and hard. "If Bloodmoon scouts were seen anywhere near Maple Hollow, I want to know within the hour, not after the fact."

The floor tilted under me.

Marcus cleared his throat, and Roman turned, phone still at his ear, and the second his eyes found mine his whole posture changed, the hardness dropping away into something far more careful.

"I will call you back," he said into the phone, and ended the call without waiting for a response. "Ivy." his eyes held mine as I felt chills down my spine when he mentioned my name

"You said Bloodmoon." My voice came out thinner than I wanted it to. "You said Bloodmoon scouts, are they near Maple Hollow?" I asked

Something flickered across his face, quick calculation, the look of a man deciding how much to say. "That is not something you need to worry about."

"Well I guess we both have something to worry about then." The words came out sharper than I meant them to, fear making my hands shake at my sides. "when I came here to talk to you about the exact same thing."

That got his attention. Marcus, wisely, excused himself back into the house without a word.

"Explain that," Roman said quietly, closing the distance between us until I had to tip my head back to hold his gaze. "Right now."

I had rehearsed this a dozen times on the walk over, a careful, edited version of the truth, and every single word of it evaporated the second I was standing this close to him, close enough to feel the low, constant hum that had lived under my skin since the day he walked back into my bakery.

"I have been getting postcards," I said instead, the unrehearsed truth spilling out before I could stop it. "Signed with my best friend's name. My best friend who died five years ago."

Roman went very still. "Marisol." He said her name and went very still

"Yes."

"Ivy." His voice dropped, careful, urgent. "What are you not telling me?"

Every secret I had been carrying for five years pressed up against my teeth, desperate to get out, and for one terrifying second I almost let it, almost told him everything, the healing, the memory, the daughter standing in the middle of both our lives like a bridge neither of us had known was there.

Instead his phone buzzed again, sharp and insistent, and this time he did not silence it.

"Darkwood." His jaw tightened as he listened, and whatever he was hearing drained the color slowly out of his face. "Say that again."

I could not hear the other end, but I could hear him, and the single word he finally said was enough to send ice straight down my spine.

"Hazel?."

My whole body went cold. "What about Hazel?"

Roman lowered the phone slowly, his eyes finding mine with an expression I had never seen on him before, somewhere between fury and fear.

"Someone was seen outside your father's house," he said. "Watching your daughter."