THE MISTRESS CONTRACT

CHAPTER 8: THE ONE SHE NEVER FORGETS

Some ghosts don’t haunt you. They find you when you least expect them. Putting on their favorite clothes.

Ivy looked so stunned. “Did I see correctly or are mine hallucinating,” she questioned herself.

She tiptoed again, but this time Mr. J’s mask was back on his face. She released a sigh of disappointment as she headed back to join the crowd. “For a second, I thought I saw Jason,” she uttered to herself. “My mind must be messing with me.” With that conclusion, she let go and waved off the thought.

“Boo!” Gina exclaimed in Ivy’s ear.

Ivy jerked. “Gina, you startled me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Gina apologized.

“Thank Goodness. You came,” Ivy gave Gina a hug.

“Hold on. Were you thinking I wasn’t going to come?” Gina frowned as she swiped her hair over her shoulders. She was looking gorgeous in a black silk gown.

“Not really,” Ivy smirked.

“Wait, why is your face puffed like that? You’re supposed to be happy?” Gina questioned.

“I don’t know, my mood just switched,” Ivy admitted.

“What happened, Ivy?”

“For a moment, I thought I saw someone that looked exactly like an old friend of mine. His name is Jason. We used to be close, but then he vanished into thin air,” Ivy muttered sadly.

“Did you say, Jason?” Gina asked.

“Yes.”

“Was it at this gala you felt you saw him?” Gina added.

“Yes. Why?” Ivy raised her brows at Gina.

“I think I saw that name somewhere,” Excuse me for a minute. Gina went to her car and came back with a black Manila folder. “Have this,” Gina handed Ivy the folder.

Ivy eyed the folder and fixed her eyes on Gina. “What are mine doing with this?”

“The name you mentioned is inside, and it’s connected with this gala. He is their sponsor. So I wanted you to check to know if it’s the same person you said you saw but wasn’t sure about,” Gina explained.

Ivy opened the folder. It contained documents—sponsor contract, donation receipts, and legal forms. All are signed with one name:

Jason Lockwood.

Ivy’s head spun. The ballroom suddenly became smaller. Ivy gripped the folder tighter, bile rising in her throat as her breathing became irregular. She scanned the crowd but Mr. J was nowhere to be found.

Then. It dawned on her at once.

The familiar tension in his stance.

The deep, magnetic voice whenever he whispered her name.

The way the air shifted when he was close to her.

The way he touches her, the familiarity with it also.

It was him all along.

She snapped and slammed the folder down onto a nearby table and stormed out of the ballroom.

Gina immediately ran after her and caught her mid-way. Ivy looked shaken and pale, her eyes were filled with fury. Gina had never seen her in such a mood before. She held Ivy’s hand. “I don’t know what I did that got you this pissed, but we can settle it.”

Ivy looked Gina in the eyes and tears dropped out of her eyes. “Gina, he tricked me.”

Gina heaved a sigh of relief. “Who tricked you?” She grabbed Ivy's hand, “You know what, let’s go to my place.”

Gina opened her car door for Ivy, and then they drove off to her place.

They arrived at Gina’s house, and she handed Ivy a glass of water to help calm her down. Ivy collected the glass, but she didn’t drink out of the water, she simply left it on the table.

Gina came and sat next to her like she was all that mattered. “Who did you say tricked you, Ivy?”

Ivy exhaled deeply and confessed everything Gina needed to know about Jason.

Gina furrowed her brows. “You should have told me about the contract before signing it, Ivy.”

“I’m sorry. I was scared and didn’t know how to come clean to you. Also, I was desperate at the time,” Ivy muffled. Regret string alongside her words.

Gina let out a deep breath. “It’s fine. So what will you do now? Left for me, I think you should confront him.”

Ivy nodded.

Gina looked at her. “Come here,” she gave Ivy a reassuring hug. “Everything will be fine, okay.”

At sunset. Ivy stood in the dark. Her body shakes violently. Mr. J could sense the animosity in the atmosphere. But he couldn’t figure out what the problem was. In an attempt to lighten up her mood, he walked up to her and tried kissing her. She swiped her head and looked the other way.

“Did I do something wrong?” he whispered.

She turned and faced him squarely, “You tricked me!” Ivy shouted, trembling.

At that moment, Mr. J knew she had found out the truth. Slowly, he took his mask off.

The sight of his face, older, sharper, and heartbreakingly familiar, made Ivy swallow hard.

Mr. J reached for her hands. “Don’t touch me,” she slapped his hands away.

“I never stopped loving you, Ivy,” he murmured quietly. “I never stopped wanting you.”

Ivy’s heart twisted angrily in her chest.

“Right from Lockwood’s fundraising gala,” he confesses, his voice rough. "The contract, the sponsorship, the invitation. It was all for me to get close to you again.”

Ivy’s body shuddered, anger and longing crashing through her like a volcano. “You lied to me, Jason,” she growled.

“Yes,” his eyes darkened, and his voice was low. “I’ve lived every day of my life in regret, that I lost you. I stopped deserving of you… but I never, not even for a second, stopped loving you.”

Her hands balled into a fist. “Why did you leave,” she asked, her voice breaking. “Tell me why you left me?” she punched at his chest as tears flowed down her cheeks nonstop. “Why? Why?”