‘Jordan, it’s Olivia.’
A frown replaced the smile. What did his sister want of him now?
‘I think I might have made a mistake,’ she went on.
He rolled his eyes. Indulging his sister by listening to her troubles was not on at the moment. ‘Olivia, I have people waiting on me for a business meeting,’ he said curtly. ‘I’ll call you back when it’s over.’
‘No, wait!’ Urgent anxiety was in her voice. ‘It’s about Ivy.’
His impatience was instantly ejected by red alert signals going off in his brain. The only time Olivia had met Ivy she had been extremely nasty to her. ‘What mistake did you make?’ he asked, needing to know the worst.
‘I was with Caroline Sheldon and we went to Double Bay to do some shopping.’
Tension whipped through Jordan’s body at the mention of Double Bay and Caroline Sheldon, who could be as bitchy as Olivia about other women. This was shaping up to be a bad scene.
‘Anyhow, we walked into the Liz Davenport boutique and there was Ivy, trying on a pantsuit I know was priced at over seven hundred dollars.’
‘So?’ he snapped.
‘Well, naturally I thought you’d given her the money to make herself look fashionable enough to fit into our crowd. I did the same thing with Ashton.’
‘Ivy is nothing like Ashton,’ he grated out, furious with Olivia’s assumption.
‘How was I supposed to know that? You’ve kept her to yourself all this time. Mum told me she worked on a farm and that fitted what I saw of her with you.’
‘Ivy owns a very profitable rose farm. It’s a solid business. I’ve checked it out,’ he almost shouted in his chagrin. ‘She can afford to buy whatever clothes she likes.’
‘Well, it’s your fault for keeping so mum about her,’ came the typical defence. Everything was always someone’s else’s fault in his sister’s life.
He sliced straight to the vital point. ‘What did you do, Olivia?’
She huffed. ‘I’ve had to ask you to rescue me. I liked the idea of saving you for once.’
‘Saving me from what?’
‘A fortune-hunter! Except … I don’t think she is one. What she said back to me … the way she looked … it didn’t fit at all. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt I should ‘fess up to you about making a mistake, because I think she means to walk out of your life and you might not want her to.’
‘You’re quite right. I don’t,’ he said grimly, knowing he could very well lose Ivy because of Olivia’s interference.
‘At least give me credit for telling you, Jordan. I’m sure you can fix it up now that you know.’
Removing all guilt from herself.
Jordan unclenched his jaw enough to say, ‘Thank you, Olivia. You might also call Caroline Sheldon and correct the false impression you gave her of Ivy who happens to be the most genuine and delightful person I’ve ever met.’
It was the truth. Not once had she ever given him reason to doubt the character she had shown him throughout the whole time they had spent together.
‘Then why haven’t you introduced her around?’ came the swift retort, loaded with self-justification.
‘Because I’m still in the process of winning her over to wanting to be in my life.’
‘Why wouldn’t she want to?’
Unimaginable to Olivia.
‘Because she doesn’t feel she belongs with people like you,’ he answered harshly, unable to contain his anger. ‘And you know what, Olivia? She doesn’t!’
He pressed the disconnect button and stood still for several moments, needing to calm himself and assess the situation. His heart was thumping like a battle-drum. What the hell could he do to counter what Olivia had done! Some things couldn’t be fixed. Ivy would be all the more convinced now that she wouldn’t fit into his world. That conviction had taken her away from him once. He had to fight it again to keep her.
Ivy had brought more joy into his life than any other woman. It was always a pleasure to be with her, in bed and out of it. He’d had more fun at her friends’ parties—relatively uncomplicated people, satisfied with their lives in the country—than he did at the parties revolving around who’s who with the socialite A-list. He knew where she was coming from, knew what she would go back to and, although he understood why, somehow he had to stop it because he was not prepared to accept the hole she would leave in his life.
He quickly tapped in her mobile number, needing communication.
No answer.
She’d turned it off.
Was she on her way home?
No, he decided. Ivy would not skip out on him as she had before. There’d been too much between them to go without a word. She’d promised to be fair, which surely meant facing him with whatever Olivia had said. Therefore, she would be at Balmoral later this afternoon, as arranged. He would have the chance then to employ every hold he could think of to sway her into staying with him. Whatever it took, he was not going to lose her.