Chapter 83: Leo Loves Me

Chapter 83: Leo Loves Me

Ivy

“Murder?” The word left my mouth like it didn’t belong there. “Do you know how crazy you sound?”

Andy didn’t flinch. “Yes. Murder. You think that day at the lake was the first time he had reached that point?”

My tongue felt useless. I stood frozen in the middle of the guest room, silently begging the universe for it not to be true—for Leo not to be the kind of man who could do something irreversible with his bare hands.

I still refused to give Andy the satisfaction of watching me break. “You’re lying.”

“You know I’m not.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocked it, and turned the screen toward me.

Whatever protest I had left died in my throat.

A sob tore out of me before I could stop it. Nausea slammed into me so hard my vision swam. The image on the screen—bloated, bloodied, almost unrecognizable—burned itself behind my eyes.

I shoved past Andy and barely made it to the ensuite before my stomach convulsed. Nothing came up except bile and panic. Andy followed, wordlessly gathering my hair back from my face while I heaved over the toilet.

When the worst of it passed, I rinsed my mouth with shaking hands and slid down onto the cold tile.

I looked up at him. “That photograph… Leo did that?”

He nodded once. “Julia and Poppy can confirm everything I’ve told you.”

“Why?” The question came out small. “Why would he do that? Leo wouldn’t hurt someone without—”

“A reason?” Andy finished for me. “You still think he operates on normal logic?”

The image wouldn’t leave. Every time I blinked it was there again.

“This isn’t the time to make excuses for him, Ivy. He’s sick. Twisted. He was in a bad episode—hallucinating, paranoid. He blamed that boy for his sister’s death which was actually an accident.”

Everything inside me went still.

“Accident?” I repeated. “Estella’s death was an accident?”

“Of course it was.” He said it without hesitation, like the answer had always been obvious. “She and her friends went camping in an area they’d been warned away from. The snow conditions were bad. She was swept away. By the time they found her the next day, it was too late.”

I stared at him. “Is that the truth?”

“Have I ever lied to you, Ivy?” He reached down and carefully pulled me up from the floor, guiding me back into the bedroom. “I’m telling you what actually happened. You need to leave him.”

I stepped out of his immediate reach, suddenly aware of how close he had gotten. “I’m going to ask him myself. I want his version.”

“No.” The word was sharp. “You’ll set him off. That’s exactly why he tried to kill me. He’s convinced I had something to do with Estella’s death because I told him he was crazy.”

I frowned. “Did you know her?”

He held my gaze a fraction too long before answering. “Yeah. We weren’t close. Same college. A few overlapping classes.”

The way his eyes flicked away made something uneasy twist in my stomach. It felt incomplete. Like he was editing the story as he told it.

“Then why does Leo blame you?” I asked. “People don’t invent that kind of hatred out of thin air.”

Andy’s jaw tightened. For a moment he looked genuinely unsettled. Then he locked it down. “That’s not what we’re talking about right now. He’s bipolar and manic. You need to think about your own safety.”

The pieces he was giving me kept refusing to fit cleanly. Some of it felt true. Some of it felt carefully shaped.

“If he really did that to someone,” I said slowly, “why isn’t he in prison? Why hasn’t it affected his career?”

“His father buried the case.” Andy’s voice dropped. “Money and a whole lot of influence. The usual. He walked away without consequences. The boy never got justice.”

The room felt smaller.

Andy stepped closer again, voice softening into something almost gentle. “He doesn’t love you, Ivy.”

I shook my head immediately. “Leo loves me.”

He cupped my face with both hands, forcing me to look at him. “No. He doesn’t. It’s a game to him. He told me himself he’s only using you to get to me—because he knows how I feel about you.”

“That’s not true.”

“He bragged about taking your virginity.” Andy’s thumbs brushed my cheekbones. “The whole lake thing? It was a performance. He wanted me to see it. He wanted to hurt me through you.”

Tears slipped free before I could stop them. I tried to hold on to the memory of that day—the way Leo had stopped the second I asked him to, the way he had looked at me like I mattered more than the moment.

Had all of that been calculated?

“Ivy.” Andy’s voice was low, coaxing. “I know I come across too strong sometimes. But Leo is good with words. He’s charming when he wants to be. He threw Poppy out and slammed the door in her face when she tried to check on you. That isn’t love. That’s control.”

He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.

When he pulled back, the expression on his face was devastatingly familiar—the same affection that used to undo me when I was younger and hopelessly in love with him.

“I love you,” he said. “Do you still love me?”

I was crying openly now, scared and untethered and drowning in too many versions of the truth.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I think so.”

Something victorious flickered across his face before he softened it again. He kissed the tip of my nose, then rested his forehead against mine.

“Has he ever hurt you?” He asked.

I hesitated. “Yes. But he didn’t mean to. He would never—”

Andy pulled me into his arms before I could finish, one hand cradling the back of my head. I stood there stiffly at first, then let myself lean into the familiar shape of him because I didn’t know where else to put the fear.

“What now?” I asked against his shoulder. “What about Maddie?”

“We’re not together anymore. The engagement is over.” He said it quickly, almost dismissively, and when I pulled back enough to look at him his eyes were already on my mouth.

“I've been wanting to do this again.” He said.

Then he kissed me.

It wasn’t soft. It was urgent and claiming, the kind of kiss that tried to rewrite the last several years in a single motion.

Every rational part of me screamed that this was a mistake with consequences I couldn’t take back. That I would probably go to hell for this. But I didn't listen.

I kissed him back anyway, wrapping my arms around his neck.

For a few seconds the world narrowed to the heat of his mouth and the way his hands settled at my waist like they belonged there.

Then he shifted, trailing his lips along my jaw and down to the side of my neck.

The first slow kiss against my pulse made my breath catch. Guilt and fear made my eyes water.

He did it again, softer, lingering, and something old uncoiled low in my stomach.

His fingers curled into the front of my tracksuit without permission. He made a low sound of pleasure and kept going, leaving open-mouthed kisses along the column of my throat, the scrape of his teeth just light enough to make my knees weaken.

I felt myself tilting into him.

The fear and the nausea and the image on the phone were still there, but they were getting harder to hold onto while his mouth moved against my skin like he was trying hard to erase Leo from my head and my body.

My eyes fluttered shut. A small, helpless sound escaped me. Andy’s hand slid up my back, steadying me as he pressed closer.

Then they moved to my zipper and attempted to pull. I stopped him immediately. “Andy. No.”

“What's wrong?” he murmured against my neck. “It's fine. You’re safe with me.”

I was losing the thread of why this was wrong.

The old feelings—years of wanting, years of swallowing it down—were rising too fast, mixing with the shock and the terror until I couldn’t separate them cleanly anymore.

His mouth found mine again and I swayed into him, fingers tightening in his shirt as I kissed him back with just as much passion.

I was really doing this. I was kissing Andy back. And it honestly didn't feel that bad.

Downstairs, a door opened and footsteps moved across the main floor.

A startled gasp left my throat as I pulled away in fear, the reality crashing into me at once.

What have I done?

Then Leo’s voice carried down the hallway—low, familiar, calling my name like he was already looking for me.

“Ivy? Baby, where are you?”

I froze. Andy’s mouth stilled against my neck. For one suspended second neither of us moved.

Leo’s voice came again, closer this time. “Baby?”

Reality crashed back in all at once—the locked guest room, the photograph, the word murder, the fact that I was standing in another man’s arms with his mouth on mine while the man I had been defending all day was only a few walls away.

I shoved at Andy’s chest, heart slamming so hard it hurt. “Let go!” I whispered harshly.

He released me slowly, eyes dark, expression morphed into irritation.

Outside the door, Leo’s footsteps kept coming.

Then stopped…