Ivy picked up the phone and stared at the image, her heartbeat accelerating.
The photo showed Cullen standing outside her apartment at night. The quality was perfect, as if the photographer had been standing mere feet away.
Ivy swiped her screen and navigated to her text messages. There were two more texts waiting, unread, from the same number.
They were both photos that had been texted just minutes ago.
One picture was Ivy standing in her bedroom. You could only see her, wearing her nightgown. She was somewhat blurry but you could definitely make out that it was her.
The final picture sent from the unknown number was the worst. It was Cullen, standing there, clearly naked and visible from the same window.
Whoever had taken these pictures was a professional. The images were amazingly clear, especially given the time of night they’d been taken. Probably with a telephoto lens or something. Whoever had managed to snap that photo knew everything. They’d followed Cullen and now they had pictures of him in her apartment—pictures that could clearly show the intimacies that had taken place between them.
Was it the FBI? Was it someone else?
She was frightened and humiliated all at once.
“Ivy?” she heard Cullen call from the kitchen. “Food’s getting cold.”
“Be right there!” she called back, as beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. She felt sick and slightly faint.
The final text came through as she was still staring at the phone.
Did u like the pics? There are more where those came from. Keep ur mouth shut and your eyes open. We will get what we need from you…one way or another.
You will give us Cullen Sharpe on a silver platter.
That was the last thing she saw before she fainted.
As Ivy fell, she vaguely heard the sound of her cell phone shattering to pieces as it dropped to the floor next to her, just before everything went dark.
END OF BOOK 5
Part VI
Expose (The Billionaire’s Rules, Book 6) by Kelly Favor
At first, Ivy didn’t even realize what had happened.
There was a buzzing sound in her head and everything was dark, like she was swimming in a lake, trying to get to the surface. It was a struggle to swim to reach the open air, to get above the water line. But then, suddenly, Ivy opened her eyes and reality flooded back in.
She wasn’t swimming. She’d just been asleep…
No, unconscious.
She’d fainted.
Cullen was kneeling on the floor next to her, terrible concern written all over his face. “Ivy,” he said, taking her hand and checking the pulse on her wrist. “Ivy, are you all right? Talk to me.”
Ivy lay on the floor, trying to gather herself and remember what exactly had happened. “I’m…I’m okay, I think.”
But she didn’t feel okay.
She felt frightened. She turned her head and saw pieces of her cell phone scattered across the hardwood floor. Vaguely, Ivy could recall the sound of it smashing as she’d fainted.
Just thinking about her phone, and those horrible pictures and messages that someone had texted her…she didn’t want to remember any of it. She wished her memory had been wiped out so she could forget that Lucas was with the FBI and he was trying to force her to betray Cullen.
Cullen was kneeling patiently next to her, checking her vitals, his hand stroking her forehead softly. “Lift your head,” he said. “I want to make sure you don’t have any trauma from when you fell.”
“I think I’m all right,” she said, lifting herself onto an elbow and allowing Cullen to examine the back of her head.
His gentle, long fingers probed through her hair, touching her scalp. “Ouch,” she hissed, as he happened upon a painful spot.
“You’ve got a decent sized knot,” he said. “So you did hit your head when you fell. We’re lucky. It could’ve been a lot worse if you’d fallen the wrong way.” His fingers withdrew.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at him.
“Why are you apologizing?” he asked, his brow wrinkling.
She hesitated. Of course, she was apologizing because she blamed herself. If she hadn’t lied to him, hadn’t kept him in the dark about Lucas and his threats, then Cullen might not even be in her apartment right now.
And if he hadn’t been in her apartment, then nobody would have been able to get those photographs of him and text them to her.
I’m putting him at risk and he has no idea. It’s not right that I’m keeping this a secret.
However, the idea of going against the FBI was too overwhelming to contemplate.
So she simply shrugged. “I just don’t want you to worry. I got a little light headed and…lost my balance for a minute.”
“Ivy, you were out cold,” Cullen told her. His piercing blue eyes searched her for clues. “Have you ever fainted like that before?”
She found Cullen’s concern for her touching and surprising—but in a good way.