Chapter One - Ivy
The whole thing is like a dream, something surreal and inexplicable. A long dark car pulls up in front of the townhouse. A man in a black suit gets out, buttons his suit coat as he walks up towards my front patio where I am reading a book in the late afternoon sun, and stops, staring down at me from behind a decorative iron gate that has no security purpose whatsoever.
“Miss Ivy Rockwell?” the man asks, tilting his head down at me, looking past the sunglasses.
“That’s me,” I say, nervously putting my book down and getting to my feet.
The stranger reaches into his suit pocket and pulls out a silver envelope. “I have an invitation for you and I’m required to wait until you read it before leaving.”
My brow furrows. “What kind of invitation? From whom?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to open it up to get that information, Miss Rockwell.” He thrusts the silver envelope towards me.
I’m not sure what to do other than take it, so I lean over the gate that separates us—it barely comes up to his waist—and take the envelope.
The paper is thick, the kind you use for weddings or fiftieth anniversary parties. And it’s sealed with a sticker made to tear easily if anyone tries to open it. The card inside is not folded, more like a postcard. It’s silver, like the envelope, and just as exquisite. The paper has fibers in it, like that handmade stuff you get from craft stores. And the lettering is embossed.
It says:
You have been selected to interview for a managerial position with Delaney Resorts in Borrego Springs, California. The time and arrangements will be contingent upon your acceptance. Please notify the delivery man of your decision.
“What?” I ask, looking up at the impassive delivery man. He does not look like any delivery man I’ve ever seen. He looks rich, and a lot like a man who is used to getting what he wants. I try to see his features behind the dark sunglasses, but can’t come up with anything very identifiable. “What’s this about?’
“A job interview, Miss Rockwell.”
“Obviously,” I say, but not meanly. “Delaney Resorts? I never applied for this job. I think I’d remember applying to a resort in California.”
“I’m not able to comment on that, Miss Rockwell. I’m simply here to get an answer, and if you say yes, I’m to have you sign a non-disclosure agreement about the job and give you the transportation details.”
I blink. Non-disclosure agreement? “What is Delaney Resorts? I mean”—I laugh a little—“I can’t possibly be expected to pick up and go to California without a little more information. Especially when I’m being asked to sign a NDA.”
“As I said, all the details will be provided once you accept and sign.”
“I have to accept before I get any more details? And agree not to talk about it?”
“Yes, Miss Rockwell.”
“I don’t know,” I say, suspicion taking over. “It sounds fishy. Too good to be true.”
“You can tell your family about the interview, just not disclose anything else.”
“What if I get the details and change my mind?”
“There is a number to call should that happen,” the stony man says. “So the private jet can be cancelled and you can be briefed on the legalities of the NDA.”
“Private jet?” I have to shake my head for a moment.
“I’m afraid I can’t comment further.”
“Well,” I say, turning away from him so he can’t see how uncomfortable this is making me. What kind of invitation is this? I’ve never heard of such a thing. A phone call is a nice personal way to invite someone to interview. An email is typical. But sending a messenger with news of a private jet tucked inside expensive printed cards? That’s weird. “Can I have a moment to look up Delaney Resorts before I comment?”
“Of course, Miss Rockwell.”
I nod. “OK, one sec. Let me go inside and get my phone.” My phone is in my pocket but I need a moment to compose myself. If this is a real job interview, then I need to take it seriously. I’ve applied to dozens of places since graduating last spring and had no bites at all. I need a job. Soon. But looking at the man in black and the limo he arrived in parked in front of the townhouse is making it hard to concentrate.
I enter the house and close the door, peeking out through the front window at the stranger. I wait for him to shift his stance or pull his phone out to relay the progress of his mission, but he simply stands there, hands in his pockets, staring at the door.
“OK, Ivy, get it together.” I pull my phone out and do a quick search for Delaney Resorts. “Oh, hell.” The information I’m looking for comes up immediately. And I suddenly understand who it is I’m dealing with.
“Nolan Delaney,” I whisper. The infamous Mr. Romantic. No wonder he has all this hocus-pocus privacy stuff.
I stare at his picture longer than I should, but I can’t help it. Nolan Delaney is the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. Of course, I’ve seen him before. His face was all over the TV when I was a teenager, but not in recent years. He was young back then. My age now. Looking like a college kid looks. But today, ten years later, he looks every bit the businessman he is.
It’s real. This invitation might be unorthodox, but it’s real. I’m sure if Mr. Delaney feels he needs this kind of privacy protection he has a good reason for it. He was, after all, accused and almost tried for serious crimes back in college. He must still be feeling the sting of those long, depressing years.
I open the door and say, “OK, I accept.”
Delivery man in black says, “Perfect,” as he once again reaches into his suit coat and produces another silver envelope, which he places on the brick post of my tiny gate. “The arrangements are in there. If you need to cancel there is a number to call. But first,” he says, producing a more conventional white envelope, “I’ll need you to sign this.” He hands the white envelope to me and then finds a pen.
I open the envelope and look it over. It’s one page, three paragraphs, and doesn’t say anything weird. It all looks like legal speak for a simple NDA.
I sign, then reach out and take the silver envelope from the brick post, and before I can even say thank you, the man in black turns on his heel and walks back to the car. My mouth is hanging open from surprise as I watch the long car pull away from the curb and disappear down the street.
*******
“Wait,” my best friend, Nora, says later that evening. “A private jet? You got a top-secret invitation to interview for some random billionaire and he’s flying you to California in a private jet?”
I have to pinch myself, because yes, that’s all true.
“How?” Nora exclaims.
“Remember when I told you my dad wanted me to go to the Brown Alumni dinner with him last month?”
Nora nods, still dumbstruck.
“Well, that afternoon there was a job fair in the library, so I went just to get away from him for a few hours. And I left my résumé all over that room. Maybe he got it that way?”
“So you met him? This Nolan Delaney guy? You do know who he is, right?”
“No,” I say. “But yes. I didn’t meet him and I do know who he is.” Everyone knows who Nolan Delaney is. One of the infamous Mister Browns from Brown University.
“Mr. Romantic,” Nora says. “They call him Mr. Romantic. That cannot be good. Your father is going to flip out.”
“I know. But there’s no way I’m getting this job. I mean, this has to be some kind of mistake. We just graduated four months ago. No one is hiring me to run their new resort. But it’s a free trip on a private jet to an exotic place. I should at least go, right?”
“Oh,” Nora says, “you’re going. There is no way you’re not going. I’ve never even been on a private jet and we have loads of money. You need to take pictures. Of everything. Especially that delicious Mr. Romantic. How long will you be gone?”
“It says a weekend working interview. Is that normal?”
Nora squints her eyes as she considers this. “Hmmm. I’m not sure. What do I know about working interviews? I’ve only managed to get three meetings with no call-backs since graduation. And that’s with all my father’s influence. It does sound a little unconventional. But I guess it’s a big job. He must want to make sure he hires the right person.”
“Yeah. I just can’t believe it. What if I do get it?” I have pictured it in my mind for the last six hours since the man appeared at my townhouse door with the hand-delivered invitation. It would be a huge break for me.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Ivy,” Nora cautions. “I know you’re smart and talented and he’d be lucky to get you, but I bet there’s going to be some exceptional people there.”
“I know.” I sigh. “I’m not really expecting to get the job. It’s probably some kind of mistake.” How could it not be? I have no experience and this is a managerial position.
“When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow. They are sending a car for me at six AM. I’ll be back next week. Unless they have some kind of elimination process and send me home early.”
“A Survivor job interview,” Nora says, more to herself than me. “Weird. How many people do you think will be there?”
I shrug as I refill each of our wine glasses. “It didn’t say. It didn’t say anything. Technically I’m not supposed to be telling you so much. I signed a non-disclosure agreement when I said yes. I was told to only tell my family where I was going, not who it was with.”
“Oh, my God. That is super mysterious.”
“Right?” I ask back. “It’s kind of… hot.”
We both fall back into the couch cushions and laugh. “What do you know about hot, Ivy?” Nora snorts. “Still a virgin at twenty-two. I don’t know what to do with you. Your father’s influence runs way too deep.”
“I know,” I say, biting my lip. I had a guy all set up for V-day after graduation, but I chickened out at the last minute. “All that episcopal education growing up.”
“Honey, we went to the same boarding school and it never stopped me.”
That’s all true. My father is the episcopal pastor, and dean, of the Bishop School for Girls in Bishop, Massachusetts. I grew up on that campus, in that chapel and with all the rules one might expect from being a pastor’s daughter.
“You know what I should do…” I say, the wheels in my mind starting to turn with an idea.
“What?” Nora asks, impatient when I hesitate too long.
“I should lose my virginity this week.”
Nora laughs so loud, it echoes off the cathedral ceiling. “With who? The billionaire? You want a guy like Mr. Romantic to be your first? Please. You need to work up to a player like him, Ivy. He would fuck you inside out!”
“Don’t talk like that!” But I bite my lip just thinking about it. I admit I don’t know much about sex, but I was in a sorority in college and I was the only virgin in that house. Those girls were wild, including Nora. “He’d be perfect, though, right? An older, more experienced man. He’d know just what to do.”
“He’d hear the word virgin and run the other way, Ivy. Men like that aren’t into the whole first-time thing. He wants a yes girl. Get on your knees, Ivy, he’d say. And he’d expect you to do it. You’ve never even given a man a blow job. No, that’s a very bad idea. I don’t like it. It won’t be a good first time. Start small, Ivy. Like Richard. Why didn’t you ever do it with Richard?”
Richard. Boring Richard. He was my significant other all through college. In fact, we just broke up three months ago. “I didn’t love him. I was never going to marry him.”
“So you’re saving yourself for marriage all these years and now you’re ready to give up your V-card to a playboy billionaire? No,” Nora says, like she’s putting her foot down. “Don’t do it.”
I can feel her judgment. She thinks my idea is ridiculous. And I wonder if she thinks that way because it’s just stupid? Or if she thinks I don’t have a chance in hell of getting the infamous Mr. Romantic to ‘fuck me inside out’.
“It was just a silly fantasy,” I say, trying my best to diffuse the situation. “You know I would never go through with something like that.”
“I know.” Nora laughs. “You’re just not that kind of girl.”
Her words echo through my head. Not that kind of girl. All my life I’ve been living with that label and most of the recent years I’ve been asking myself… why can’t I be that kind of girl? My strict religious upbringing? Probably. But there’s this fear inside me. A fear of taking risks. I’ve never been a risk-taker. I’ve always played it safe.
My childhood was spent sheltered on a rambling four-hundred-acre campus in New England. It consisted of school, my parents, and chapel. I didn’t even get to live in the dorms with the other students until Nora talked my father into it in tenth grade. Those last three years of high school were some of the best of my life. And going away to Brown for college was exhilarating.
Having Richard as my boyfriend seemed so scandalous at the time. I didn’t even tell my father until we’d been dating for over a year.
But now, Richard is just so… boring. And I’m tired of New England. I don’t know anything about Borrego Springs, California, but getting that job would be the best thing to ever happen to me. Moving away would be the best thing to ever happen to me. And I love Nora to death, but she has been my only close friend for practically my whole life.
I feel like I’m missing out on things. Especially sex.
I’ve heard all her stories. And the stories of the other girls in the house at Brown. They made me watch porn with them on my twenty-first birthday and holy hell, I never masturbated so much in my life after I went to bed.
I have secretly been watching porn quite a bit since then. So I know what girls do. Maybe I’m no expert, but I’ve seen how they give blow jobs. I even took notes. Look him in the eyes—the men seem to like that a lot. Try to take him deep. I especially like how the men react to that. I love when they tip their heads back and moan. How they fist the girl’s hair and urge her on. God, I’m getting all hot and bothered just thinking about it.
Nora is chatting about the stuff on TV now, drinking her wine. But I’m picturing Mr. Romantic as he dips his face down between my legs. What would that feel like?
I almost groan with longing.
I’m not going to admit it to Nora, and maybe it won’t be Nolan Delaney, but I need to have sex with someone. I can’t take it anymore. This is my week. And hey, if it does turn out to be Mr. Romantic, all the better.
Who am I kidding? I think to myself as I take a sip of wine to hide my smile. I want it to be him. I bet Nolan Delaney fucks like a porn star. I bet he could make me writhe and moan just like the men do to the girls in those videos.
Nora helps me pack as we finish our wine, but as soon as I have my suitcases lined up at the front door, I tell her goodnight.
I have a date with my vibrator and I want to picture Mr. Romantic’s face as I make myself come.