Anger simmered in my veins. He’d sought her out on purpose at the cinema. I didn’t know how, but he had. He was furious about losing the race, and he was using her to get to me.
I couldn’t say anything without looking bitter and paranoid, so I kept my mouth shut. For now.
Play smarter, not harder.
However, my anger gave way to confusion when Clive’s smirk fell. He stared at my date, his mouth agape.
“Ivy?”
“Clive?” Ivy sounded as stunned as he looked.
Color climbed high on her cheekbones, and I got the distinct impression that she would rather melt into the pavement than stand here with us.
Scarlett broke the silence first. “Do you two know each other?”
“Yes. We…” Clive cleared his throat. “We used to date.”
“A long time ago,” Ivy added quickly. “At uni.”
Holy shit. I supposed it made sense. I’d met Ivy through Poppy, and Clive was Poppy’s cousin. That entire circle attended the same schools and functions growing up.
That being said, the chances of my date and Scarlett’s date being exes were so slim it was laughable. It almost made me believe Clive running into Scarlett at the movies was just another bizarre twist of coincidence.
Almost.
“Wow.” Scarlett blinked. “It really is a small world.”
There was strained laughter all around. After a quick introduction between Scarlett and Ivy, we entered the restaurant. The cloud of tension followed us like a swarm of buzzing gnats.
The Golden Wharf’s patrons were used to famous faces, so we took our seats near the privacy-tinted windows with minimal fuss.
“So how did you and Asher meet?” Scarlett asked after we placed our orders.
In an odd seating shuffle, I’d ended up across from her and next to Ivy. Clive and I sat as far from each other as possible, though that didn’t mean much for a four-top in an intimate dining room. We were still close—and he was definitely too fucking close to Scarlett, who was hemmed in between him and the wall.
Ivy flicked a quick glance at me before answering. “We met at a wine bar last weekend,” she said. “He bought me a drink, we hit it off, and the rest is history.”
Perfect. Exactly like we’d rehearsed.
Unfortunately, our rehearsal hadn’t accounted for an ex-boyfriend with a steel-trap memory.
“I thought you hated wine,” Clive said. “You stopped drinking it after Milly Blair’s party fiasco.”
“Uh...” Mild panic crossed Ivy’s face. “I got over it. It’s been years and, um, I’ve developed a new appreciation for it.”
Clive’s brows dipped. “What was the name of the wine bar again?”
“It’s an underground spot in Shoreditch,” I interjected smoothly. If I gave him a name, I wouldn’t put it past him to check and see if I was actually there Saturday night. “Only those in the know would’ve heard of it.”
“And this underground spot doesn’t have a name?”
“Can’t share it with people outside the inner circle. Bar rules.” There were plenty of exclusive, hidden bars in London with similarly draconian rules, so my lie wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“How convenient.”
“What about you?” I turned the tables on him. “Scarlett said she ran into you at the movies. Quite a coincidence.”
“I live near that cinema,” Clive said. “I go there all the time.”
“Really? What was the last film you saw there before last weekend?”
A beat of hesitation passed. “The horror one with Riley K. I forgot the name.”
“House of Snakes?”
“Yeah. That one.”
“Funny.” I leaned back, my pose deceptively casual. “My friend was a producer on that film. It had a limited release in the UK. Only shown in a handful of cinemas—all of them in central London. I believe the one you went to was in north London, wasn’t it?”
Ivy and Scarlett’s heads swiveled back and forth like spectators at a sporting event.
I wasn’t going to let Clive get away with whatever shit he was trying to pull. Coming after me was one thing; dragging Scarlett into it was another.
“Then I remembered wrong,” he said coolly. “Maybe I watched House of Snakes somewhere else. Either way, I’m glad I went to the cinema last weekend. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have run into Scarlett, and we wouldn’t be here.” He smiled and draped his arm over the back of Scarlett’s chair.
Ivy shifted with discomfort while I waited for Scarlett to tell him off. She wouldn’t let someone take such liberties this early into a first date.
“Exactly.” She leaned into him with an answering smile. “I’m glad I ran into you too.”
