Chapter 4 - Damage Control

Ivy's POV

By seven the next morning, the photo had three hundred thousand views and a hashtag.

Ivy sat at her kitchen table with her laptop open and her coffee going cold, watching her own professional nightmare unfold in real time — the exact kind of story she'd spent three years preventing other people from starring in. #AshfordAffair had already overtaken whatever half-hearted trend Camille's appearance at the lounge should have generated, and every single comment thread had decided the same thing: Ivy Callahan hadn't just cheated on her fiancé's scandal with sympathy — she'd apparently upgraded to his uncle within the same news cycle.

Her phone rang before she'd finished her second read-through of the worst comments.

"Please tell me you have a plan," Julian said, without a hello.

"I have several plans. None of them fix the fact that you're the one who was photographed arguing with another woman first."

"That's not fair."

"Fair isn't the job, Julian. Optics are the job, and right now the optics say we're both liars, which means neither of us gets to be the sympathetic one in this story." She rubbed her eyes. "I need you to release a statement by nine confirming Camille was an old business contact and nothing more. I need you photographed somewhere wholesome by noon. And I need you to not go anywhere near her for at least a month."

"And what about you and my uncle?"

The question landed harder than she expected. "There is no me and your uncle. He gave me a ride home after your fiancée hunt turned into a public spectacle."

"He's held your hand in every photo since the moment he showed up in your life again." Julian's voice had gone tight in a way she rarely heard from him. "Did you think I wouldn't find out you two had history?"

Ivy's stomach turned to ice. "What did you find out?"

"Enough to know why he showed up at that café yesterday, and enough to know you didn't tell me any of it before you said yes to marrying into this family." There is a pause, heavier than the silence that came before it. "My mother wants to see you. Today. Before this gets any worse."

Ivy closed her eyes. Margaret Ashford summoning her wasn't damage control anymore — it was a verdict waiting to be handed down.

"Fine," she said. "Text me the address."

---

Roman's POV

Roman heard about the summons before Ivy did, which told him everything he needed to know about how fast his family closed ranks when a scandal threatened the Ashford name.

"You're not invited," his mother said flatly, the second he walked into her study. "This is a conversation between the Callahan girl and this family. You've done enough."

"I gave her a ride home."

"You held her hand for the cameras, Roman." Margaret Ashford didn't raise her voice. She never needed to. "Whatever unfinished business you have with that girl, you will finish it somewhere that doesn't cost your nephew his engagement and this family its reputation."

"Maybe the engagement deserves to end."

The words were out before he'd fully decided to say them, and the study went very quiet.

"Careful," Margaret said.

"I'm not being reckless. I'm being honest, which is apparently in short supply in this family lately." Roman planted his hands on the back of a chair, needing something solid to hold onto. "Julian spent the last two days chasing another woman while his fiancée cleaned up after him in public. That's not a scandal I caused. That's one he built himself."

"And you'd like to be the one to catch her when it falls apart."

He didn't answer, because there wasn't an answer that wouldn't be true.

Margaret studied him for a long moment, the same assessing look she'd used on every deal she'd ever closed, every rival she'd ever outmaneuvered, every son she'd ever tried to shape into something more useful than he wanted to be.

"She'll be here in an hour," Margaret said finally. "You will not be in this house when she arrives. Whatever you think you feel for that girl, Roman, this family cannot survive two scandals in one week. Do you understand me?"

"I understand what you're asking."

"That's not the same as agreeing to it."

His mother's mouth curved, thin and knowing. "No," she said. "It never has been, with you."

Roman left before Ivy arrived, exactly as instructed — and sat in his car across the street for twenty minutes afterward anyway, watching the front door, unable to make himself drive away until he saw her walk back out of it.

When she finally did, an hour later, she wasn't crying. That was almost worse. She walked to her car with the same careful, controlled posture she'd had in the parking lot the night they'd crashed into each other again, the posture of a woman holding herself together through sheer force of will — and when she caught sight of his car across the street, she didn't look surprised at all.

She walked straight over and got in.

"Your mother just gave me a choice," she said, before he could ask.

"What choice?"

Ivy stared straight ahead, hands folded tightly in her lap. "Marry Julian quietly within the month and make this whole scandal disappear under a wedding announcement — or watch my father's company lose the loan restructuring entirely, effective immediately."

Roman's hands tightened on the wheel. "She wouldn't."

"She would, and she made sure I understood exactly how fast." Ivy finally turned to look at him, and for the first time since she'd walked back into his life, he saw something that looked less like composure and more like exhaustion cracking straight through it. "So I need you to tell me right now, Roman, because I don't have room for guessing anymore — is there actually a reason for me to fight this? Or should I just go home and start planning a wedding I don't want?”