Holly and Ivy Read online

  Holly & Ivy

  TB Markinson

  Miranda MacLeod

  Other TB Markinson Books

  A Woman Lost Series

  Confessions Series

  The Miracle Girl Series

  The Chosen One Series

  Girl Love Happens Series

  Marionette

  Reservations of the Heart

  A Shot at Love

  Other Miranda MacLeod Books

  Love’s Encore Series

  Americans Abroad Series

  Telling Lies Online

  Copyright © T. B. Markinson & Miranda MacLeod, 2019

  Published by T. B. Markinson

  Cover Design by Victoria Cooper

  Edited by Kelly Hashway

  This book is copyrighted and licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any forms or by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owner. The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Also by TB Markinson

  About the Authors

  Chapter One

  Holly glared at the glossy brochure splayed out on her otherwise pristine desk, hating every inch of its full-color layout of serene sunsets, frost-tinged glasses of cucumber water, and smiling men and women holding perfect yoga poses. It was obscene, and she had no doubt as to the culprit who’d placed it there. “Nolan! What the hell is this?”

  From the office next to hers, the sound of a chair rolling across a plastic floor protector confirmed she wasn’t the only one who’d clocked in bright and early this fine Friday morning. While most of the software developers kept something akin to vampire hours, shuffling in just shy of noon and toiling past midnight in a Mountain Dew and Red Vines fueled frenzy, she and her CFO shared a more old-school work ethic. Holly was a quintessential worker bee, which was why she found the offering on her desk so annoying. No, not annoying. Offensive.

  “You bellowed, my liege?” Nolan’s face appeared at her open doorway, his complexion exhibiting the bloodless pallor of a man who spent most of his life indoors.

  Presiding over Dungeons and Dragons marathons every weekend, if his Ren faire vocabulary is any indication. Fortunately, she had just enough restraint to keep the mockery to herself. The speed with which he’d responded told her he’d been expecting the confrontation. At least, that was something. She could only hope the part of his body hidden from view behind the wall quaked in fear.

  Sucking in her breath, she swiped the brochure from the desk and waved it in the air. “This,” was all she said, letting the scowl on her face do the rest of the talking for her.

  “Oh, that.” Nolan entered the office without a trace of trepidation and plucked the offending paper from Holly’s fingers, causing her blood to bubble like a cauldron about to spill over. He could have at least pretended to be intimidated by her wrath. “That is where you will be spending the next four to six weeks, resting and relaxing to rejuvenate your mental faculties.”

  “My mental faculties are just fine,” Holly snapped, not liking the insinuation she needed to rest in order to work harder. “This hippy-dippy, new age bullshit of a glorified summer camp, on the other hand, is not. It is not fine at all, and frankly, I’m a little surprised you would stoop to hollow threats just to get me to work harder.”

  Nolan eyed her steadily, his sustained silence making her squirm, which was very unfair since she was not the one in the wrong here. He was, without a doubt. She stared back at him, doubling down on her righteous indignation until, finally, he sighed. “Holls, suggesting you deserve time off isn’t a hollow threat, and I’m not finagling a way to get you to work harder. Jesus, how could you think that? I’m trying to slow you down so you don’t burn out.”

  “Burn out?” She let out her breath in a huff. “Holly Adler Lovelace does not burn out.”

  Nolan’s brow creased, his concern as evident as it was maddening. “You don’t remember calling me last night, do you?”

  Holly reached for her rainbow-colored unicorn stress ball, just one of an impressive collection of toys that formed a neat line along the back edge of her desk. She didn’t play with them, of course. She was a grown woman, for God’s sake. But it seemed as though every guy in the office had a menagerie of childhood memories cluttering his desk like some sort of shrine to late twentieth century geek culture. As a military brat, she’d moved too often to keep the toys, but with the marvel of E-Bay, Holly had tracked down replacements for quite a few favorite trinkets. It had started as an effort to fit in, but piecing together lost remnants of her childhood had proven surprisingly cathartic, too. That she could sometimes pick one up and chuck it at the wall, as she did now with the squishy, gold-horned beast, catching it as it bounced off, was a bonus.

  “I didn’t call you last night, Nolan.” Her tone projected confidence, but a hazy memory of a bright screen against her palm in a darkened room coupled with the sudden stab of discomfort in her gut told her what she’d said might not be true. She fidgeted with the stress ball, staring at her desk to avoid Nolan’s gaze.

  “You really don’t remember?”

  She swallowed hard before risking an upward glance, withering under the intensity of her best friend’s stare. Sure, Nolan was her business partner, too, but right now his expression was that of someone who had known Holly long enough, and seen her through enough shit, that he wasn’t going to let her off the hook with a convenient fib. “I might… have a vague sort of recollection, but it feels more like a dream.”

  “You said it was a bad dream that made you reach out. You’re having them again, and regularly. This time, you sobbed the majority of the call.” His chin trembled a little as he said it, the trauma she’d blocked from her memory evidently still very fresh in his mind. “Then you chanted that you couldn’t go on, couldn’t go on, couldn’t go on...” He circled his finger in the air, implying the sentence had been looped.

  Their eyes were locked now, and try as she might, Holly couldn’t look away. Coldness snaked like a river through her insides. She didn’t remember saying it, didn’t remember anything at all about the night thanks to her trusty, prescription-strength sleeping aids, but she had no doubt it had happened exactly as he said. Still, she felt the need to deny it. Holly did not want to go to a wellness boot camp. “I didn’t mean it like that, Noles. I swear I didn’t.” It took effort to shove a question out of her mind: Who was she lying to? Nolan or herself?

  “Fourteen years ago, Holls.” His voice was soft but as strong as steel, and instead of being soothed by it
, every muscle in Holly’s body started to twitch from a current of nervous energy. “You swore to me if it ever started happening again, you’d do whatever I asked.”

  “That’s not fair.” Holly jumped to her feet and began to pace. “This isn’t the same thing. I’m an adult worried about a business—the one I built up from nothing, not some melodramatic kid despondent over a breakup with her unfaithful girlfriend.”

  “Exactly. Rebecca was no great loss, and look what almost happened. The stakes are way higher this time, and it’s taking a toll.”

  “I had a rough night. It’s been brought to my attention, so consider it dealt with.” Like her father used to say: SITFU. Suck it the fuck up.

  Nolan’s determined expression hardened. “Only one of us in this room has come home to find his best friend unconscious on the living room floor next to an empty pill bottle, so you’ll excuse me if your assurances don’t cut it. I saved your life that night.”

  “Saved my life?” Holly stopped in her tracks, her shoulders drawing together like a cornered cat, and like any trapped animal, her first instinct was to lash out. “A handful of allergy pills can’t actually kill you, you know. It just makes you paranoid and sleepy. Live and learn.”

  “Those pills could’ve caused seizures. Even a coma.”

  “Neither of which happened.”

  “I know, but you’re a lot smarter now than you were back then. Maybe smart enough, with the right mix of stupidity and stubbornness, to get it right this time, which is why I’m cashing in on that old promise. You need to get your shit together, Holls. My way.”

  “I don’t even know why I’ve kept you around,” Holly muttered, clenching the forgotten stress ball in her fist until her knuckles turned white. Her breathing quickened and gave the spark of resentment inside her just enough oxygen to burst into a bright blue flame. “Talk about some sort of twisted savior complex you have, by the way. You reported me to the administration. I didn’t finish college because of you. My best friend, and you betrayed me. Just like Rebecca. Just like everybody.”

  “If you equate calling an ambulance as me ratting you out, fine. I did. But I didn’t betray you. You scared the shit out of me that night. Hell, you scared the shit out of yourself, too, which you’re conveniently forgetting right now.”

  “They kicked me out!” Holly’s voice cracked on the final word, making her cringe. I sound like a hysterical girl, she chided herself, then took a deep breath and continued with a measure of calm. “I lost my scholarship.”

  “It’s not like they expelled you, and you know it. It was a six-week mental health leave, during which you had a stroke of genius and got so wrapped up in working on a new algorithm you forgot to complete your coursework, and those incompletes turned into Fs. That’s why you lost the scholarship. Does it matter, though? A year later, Lovelace Enterprises had angel investors up the ying-yang, and you’d made so much money that tuition at MIT was nothing but pocket change to you. If you decided not to finish college then, that was on you.”

  “Whatever.” Holly resumed her pacing, tossing the unicorn back and forth, each catch making a thudding sound. She picked up the intensity of the throws, the sound getting louder. Right. Left. Right. Left. Although the nervous energy that had animated her before was waning, the movement gave her something to focus on other than the truth of Nolan’s words and the memory of having her stomach pumped. Focus on something else, Holly. “I figured out what’s wrong with this company, by the way.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the company.”

  “You’re wrong,” she spat. The quiet confidence in Nolan’s tone rankled, as if she weren’t the expert on her own fucking company.

  “Okay. Explain it to me.”

  “It’s simple. We need to scrap everything we’ve done and start over from the ground up.” Holly mimed knocking everything down like dynamiting a building, feeling oddly tranquil over the idea.

  Nolan scratched his temple in that exaggerated way he had when he was pretending to give something due consideration but, in reality, believed himself to be placating a crazy person. Holly found it hilarious when he did it to some faceless client on the other end of a conference call, but it was a lot less charming when she was the target. “Would you care to elaborate?”

  Holly planted her white Chuck Taylors firmly on the floor, her stance wide. She stared him down, determined to get him to see the truth. “It’s falling apart. Everything is… crap.” She made a slicing motion with both hands, letting the unicorn fall to the floor. “Broken. Kaput. And I’m the only one who can fix it. I have to start over.”

  “And you accuse me of having a savior complex? I’ve got news for you. Lovelace Enterprises isn’t some little start-up anymore. You can’t just go back to ground zero.” Nolan held her gaze, not backing down an inch. “We’re going for Series B funding soon. That’s major leagues. We’ve got the product lineup, and we’re hitting our benchmarks every quarter. Like it or not, you’re at the helm of a soon-to-be multi-billion-dollar company.”

  “Yes, I am.” Holly’s lips twitched into a slow, sly smile, seeing another avenue off the expressway to the nuthouse. “Which is why this would be a particularly terrible time for you to bundle me off to crazy camp.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  Holly heard her father reciting the Eugene B. Sledge quote: Your soul may belong to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the marines.

  Nolan raked his hands through his stylishly long mop of brown hair, an action which, combined with his oversized round glasses, left him looking like a shocked owl. “It’s a health and wellness retreat center, not the psych ward at Bellevue.”

  “Potato, Po-tah-toe. However you say it, you’re still trying to send me away.”

  “It’s not just me, kiddo.”

  Holly bristled at the nickname. They’d been in the same class in college, but because she’d skipped the first grade in elementary school, she’d always been a full year younger than her classmates, and Nolan loved to rub it in. “What the hell do you mean it’s not just you?”

  Nolan let out a pained sigh. “The board backs me up on this one.”

  Holly’s limbs went numb, and she wanted to throw the stress ball, but it lay uselessly on the floor. “You ratted me out to the board over one late-night phone call?”

  “It wasn’t just because of the phone calls, of which there have been several, and you know I have a fiduciary responsibility to inform—”

  “Fuck your fiduciary responsibility.” The whole world seemed to rattle and shake, to the point Holly almost thought San Andreas was finally offering up the Big One, until she realized it was her own legs giving out and not an 8.0 earthquake. She grabbed the edge of her desk and sank into her chair, barely avoiding collapse. “You’re my best friend, and you sold me out. Again. How fucking typical is that? I should have learned my lesson fourteen years ago.”

  “You’re right that something’s falling apart, but it’s not the company. It’s you.” Nolan gulped as if something were caught in his throat, and even from behind his thick lenses, there was an unmistakable glisten of unshed tears. At that moment, Holly wanted nothing more than to smack him, give him something to cry about, like her dad used to say. But she couldn’t, so she just sat and fumed.

  “You’re just gonna make me leave my own company?”

  “No one has suggested you leave the company!” His voice was sharp, and Nolan immediately put his palms up to indicate it’d been unintentional. “We need you.”

  Holly squeezed her lids shut, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. “You said it yourself; the company’s on track. You don’t need me.”

  “How can you think that?” Nolan squatted down beside her and took her hand, the sudden infusion of warmth calling attention to just how icy her fingers had become.

  “It’s what you said.”

  “No, it’s what you heard. Sure, we’ve got a solid portfolio of apps and a sound marketing plan, but so what? Lots of companies have th
at. What they don’t have is you and that amazing brain of yours. All of this”—he waved to the rows of desks on the other side of the glass walls—“wouldn’t exist without you.”

  “It’s a lot to live with.”

  “I’m sure it is, which is why you want to knock it all down and start over, get the cheap, easy thrill of chasing something new instead of doing the really hard work of seeing this through to completion and creating a real work of genius.”

  “I’m not a genius.” The worst of her shaking had stopped, enough that Holly’s contrary nature could manage a few feeble sparks. “I only scored a 159 on my IQ test.”

  “Anything over 140 is a genius, you idiot.” There was a ghost of a smile on his lips.

  “Einstein was a 160.” Despite herself, Holly felt the corners of her mouth twitch as something distantly related to laughter stirred deep in her belly.

  “You’re one point behind Einstein, and you think that isn’t good enough? For such an insecure little shit, you’ve got to be the most competitive woman on the planet.”

  The look of utter disbelief on Nolan’s face when Holly cracked one eye open further stoked the hint of humor she’d felt until it emerged as a soft chuckle. “I’ve gotta be me.”

  “I know you think of yourself as just another code monkey, an interchangeable part, but like it or not, you’re a hell of a lot more. That’s why it’s crucial for you to rest. You need to recharge your brain and body. It’s clear being here isn’t helping you tap into that beautiful mind of yours. We need another Holly masterpiece—”