Chapter 2 - The Man Behind the Green Eyes
Ivy expected never to see Jasper again.
The following morning, she found him standing beneath the ruined angels of Saint Aurelia’s Cathedral.
She nearly dropped the tray of restoration tools in her hands.
The cathedral had been closed to the public for years, and access to the eastern chapel required three locked doors, a security badge, and written authorization from the preservation board. Yet Jasper stood near the scaffolding as though the ancient building belonged to him.
He wore a black suit this time. No tie. His hands rested calmly at his sides while he studied the fresco above.
Owen stood several feet behind him.
Ivy recognized him as one of the passengers from the subway, though she had not noticed him watching them the night before.
“Jasper?”
He turned.
For a moment, something almost warm entered his expression.
“Ivy.”
She set the tray down carefully. “How are you here?”
“I’m one of the private donors funding the restoration.”
Her surprise deepened. “The Hale Foundation?”
He nodded.
The name struck something in her memory. Hale Development owned half the luxury buildings downtown. The Hale Foundation funded hospitals, museums, shelters, and cultural restoration projects. Jasper Hale’s photograph appeared occasionally in financial magazines, though he avoided interviews.
She had seen him before.
She simply had not expected the man from those polished business articles to have tattoos beneath his collar or ride the subway alone.
“You’re Jasper Hale.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“You could have mentioned that.”
“You asked my name, not my résumé.”
Despite herself, Ivy smiled. “Were you checking whether your money was being wasted?”
“I wanted to see the work.”
She looked toward the fresco. “Then you came on a good day. We finally uncovered part of the original border.”
Jasper followed her up the scaffolding, ignoring the nervous protest of the site manager, who clearly knew enough about him not to insist. Ivy showed him how layers of soot and cheap varnish had hidden the medieval pigment. She explained the difference between preserving damage and erasing history, speaking faster as her enthusiasm grew.
Jasper listened.
Not politely. Completely.
Most donors wanted photographs beside finished sections. They nodded through technical explanations and asked whether their names would appear on a plaque. Jasper asked why a patch of blue had faded differently from the surrounding area. He noticed a line in the plaster that Ivy had been studying for days.
“You understand art?” she asked.
“No.”
“You notice details.”
“I notice things people try to hide.”
The answer changed the air between them.
Ivy lowered her brush. “That sounds ominous.”
“Sometimes it is.”
Before she could respond, Theo appeared at the base of the scaffolding.
“Ivy.”
She looked down. “What are you doing here?”
“I brought your lunch.”
His gaze moved to Jasper and stopped.
Jasper’s expression remained calm, but Owen shifted slightly, recognizing the fear in Theo’s face.
“Theo, this is Jasper Hale,” Ivy said. “He funds the restoration.”
“We’ve never met,” Theo said quickly.
Jasper watched him.
“I didn’t say we had.”
Theo climbed two steps, holding out a paper bag. “Can I talk to you?”
“Of course.”
“Alone.”
Ivy followed him into a side corridor.
The moment they were beyond Jasper’s hearing, Theo grabbed her arm.
“You need to stay away from him.”
She pulled free. “Why?”
“Because he isn’t who you think.”
“I think he’s a donor who happened to be on my train.”
“He’s dangerous.”
“How do you know?”
Theo’s mouth opened, then closed.
“Theo.”
“I’ve heard things.”
“From whom?”
“People.”
“That is not an answer.”
He glanced toward the chapel entrance. “The Hale family is involved in things you don’t understand.”
“What things?”
“Things that get people killed.”
Ivy studied her brother. His fear was real. That frightened her more than the warning itself.
“Are you in trouble?”
“No.”
“You knew his name last night. Now you appear at my workplace and tell me he’s dangerous. Tell me the truth.”
“I am trying to protect you.”
“Then stop hiding things.”
Theo stepped back. “Just promise me you won’t see him outside this building.”
“I haven’t been invited.”
“You will be.”
He walked away before she could stop him.
When Ivy returned, Jasper stood exactly where she had left him.
“Your brother doesn’t like me,” he said.
“He doesn’t know you.”
“Sometimes people fear reputations more than men.”
“Should I fear yours?”
Jasper met her gaze.
“Yes.”
The honesty unsettled her.
“Are you going to explain?”
“Not here.”
“Then where?”
He reached into his jacket and handed her a card. An address was printed beneath his name.
“Dinner. Tonight. Public restaurant. You may leave whenever you wish.”
Ivy stared at the card.
“That sounds less like an invitation and more like a contract.”
“Would flowers help?”
“No.”
“Good. I dislike flowers.”
She laughed before she could stop herself.
Jasper’s eyes softened.
“Seven thirty,” he said.
“I didn’t agree.”
“You’re holding the card.”
“That proves I have functioning fingers.”
“Seven thirty, Ivy.”
He walked away with Owen.
At seven twenty-eight, Ivy arrived at the restaurant.
She told herself she had come for answers. Not because she had changed dresses three times. Not because she had spent the afternoon remembering the way Jasper listened to her. Not because being near him made ordinary air feel charged.
The restaurant occupied the rooftop of a restored hotel. Jasper had reserved a corner table overlooking the city but had not emptied the room, which she appreciated. Other diners talked around them. Waiters moved freely. Nothing felt trapped.
Jasper stood when she approached.
“You came.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I’m rarely surprised.”
“Maybe you need more interesting people in your life.”
His gaze lingered on her. “Perhaps.”
Dinner began cautiously. Ivy asked direct questions. Jasper gave incomplete but truthful answers.
Yes, his family had been involved in organized crime.
Yes, he now controlled businesses his father had built through violence.
No, he did not sell drugs or traffic people.
Yes, some of his operations existed outside the law.
No, he was not innocent.
“Why tell me this?” Ivy asked.
“Because your brother is right. You should know what standing near me can cost.”
“And yet you invited me.”
“Yes.”
“That seems selfish.”
“It is.”
She studied his face. “What do you want from me?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Most women would leave after that answer.”
“Will you?”
Ivy looked over the city lights.
She should.
Every rational instinct told her to stand, thank him for dinner, and return to her quiet life of cracked plaster and ancient pigment.
But rational instincts had never explained why she devoted years to preserving paintings no one else believed could be saved.
“Not yet,” she said.
Jasper leaned back slightly, as though he had released a breath.
They spoke for two hours.
Ivy told him about studying restoration after their mother died, because repairing damaged beauty had given her something to believe in. Jasper told her almost nothing about his childhood, but she sensed pain beneath every silence. He asked about Theo. She asked about Susie after noticing a society-page photograph on another diner’s phone.
“You’re engaged,” Ivy said.
Jasper did not deny it.
“To Susie Valenti.”
“Yes.”
The warmth of the evening vanished.
“You invited me to dinner while you’re engaged?”
“It isn’t a romantic arrangement.”
“It is still an engagement.”
“Our families negotiated it.”
“This century?”
A faint smile appeared. “Some worlds change slowly.”
Ivy placed her napkin beside her plate. “I don’t become part of triangles, Jasper.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You didn’t need to. Whatever this is, it’s moving in that direction.”
He did not insult her by pretending otherwise.
“The wedding is a business agreement designed to end a conflict between families,” he said. “There is no love.”
“That may make it sad, but it doesn’t make it irrelevant.”
She stood.
Jasper rose as well. “Ivy.”
“Thank you for telling me the truth.”
“You’re leaving.”
“Yes.”
“Will I see you again?”
“At the cathedral, if you visit your investment.”
“And outside it?”
She held his gaze, despite the pull she felt toward him.
“Not while another woman expects to become your wife.”
Ivy walked away.
Jasper remained beside the table, watching her disappear into the elevator.
Owen approached from the bar, where he had waited discreetly.
“She has principles,” Owen said.
“I noticed.”
“That complicates things.”
“No.” Jasper’s expression hardened. “It clarifies them.”
Across town, Theo sat inside a parked car beside a man named Victor Sanz.
Victor worked for the Valenti family. He had used Theo’s gambling debts to force him into small jobs—delivering envelopes, copying keys, watching doors. Theo had believed he could repay the money before Ivy learned the truth.
Then Victor had ordered him to place a listening device inside Saint Aurelia’s chapel.
“You said my sister wouldn’t be involved,” Theo whispered.
“She involved herself when she met Jasper.”
“It was an accident.”
Victor smiled. “Nothing around Jasper Hale stays accidental.”
“Leave her alone.”
“That depends on you.”
Victor placed a photograph on the dashboard.
It showed Ivy entering the rooftop restaurant.
Theo’s stomach turned.
“What do you want?”
“The Hale family hid something beneath that cathedral twenty years ago. Jasper is looking for it. Susie Valenti wants us to find it first.”
“I don’t know what it is.”
“Your sister has access to every wall in that chapel.”
“She restores paintings. She isn’t a thief.”
“Then you will become one.”
Victor handed him a small metal device.
“Place this inside her equipment case tomorrow. It will map the hollow spaces behind the fresco.”
Theo stared at it.
“And if I refuse?”
Victor tapped Ivy’s photograph.
“Then your sister’s next subway ride may end very differently.”
That night, Jasper returned home to find Susie waiting inside his private study.
She held his jacket from the night before.
The faint blue pigment remained on the shoulder.
“You had dinner with the restorer,” she said.
Jasper’s gaze turned cold. “You entered a locked room.”
“I’m going to be your wife.”
“That does not give you permission.”
“Is she why you suddenly care about the cathedral?”
“I have always cared about my investments.”
Susie walked closer. “Do not embarrass me over some exhausted little artist.”
“You are confusing an arrangement with ownership.”
“And you are forgetting what happens if our marriage is canceled.”
“Your father loses access to Hale ports.”
“And your organization inherits a war.”
Jasper took the jacket from her hand.
“Then your father should pray you do nothing foolish.”
For the first time, Susie’s composure cracked.
“You would risk everything for a woman you met yesterday?”
Jasper looked at the mark Ivy had unknowingly left on his shoulder.
“No,” he said quietly. “But I might destroy everything if someone touches her.”
Susie’s eyes darkened.
The next morning, Ivy arrived at the cathedral and opened her equipment case.
Beneath her brushes lay a black envelope she had never seen before.
Inside was a photograph of her sleeping against Jasper on the subway.
May you like
A single sentence had been written across it in red ink.
Stay away from him, or your brother pays the price.
