Falling in Love : I love you, Today and Forever

Chapter 131 - Reliable Sponsor

After Aria left the apartment, Ivy got ready too. Although she did not have to go to work anymore, she had to go meet Max and the others in his house. They had to discuss their future and also about what Max had in mind. He had told them that he had a plan and wanted to discuss it with them.

Ivy was ready to leave. But when she stepped out of her apartment, she remembered Tim following her everywhere she had gone yesterday. She did know if Joshua had realized them being followed, but with his acute senses, she was sure he must have noticed something suspicious. If Tim had planned to keep an eye on her, then there might be a possibility of him waiting outside her apartment building to follow her again.

She did not mind Tim stalking her, but not on that day. She had to go meet her colleagues. If Tim was following her, there might have been chances of him following the others too. In that case, he would definitely know where Max lived. He following her to Max's house would only make him suspicious and she did not want to do anything that would sabotage Max's plan.

To test the waters, she hatched a plan. She left her apartment and did not go to the basement where her motorbike was parked. Instead, she went to the ground floor and exited the building. She pretended as if she was running an errand while keeping an eye around her.

As Ivy had expected, she saw Tim in the exact spot she had seen him park his car when she had brought Joshua home the previous day. She ignored him completely and walked in the opposite direction. 

Tim was confused seeing Ivy walk rather than ride her bike. Since it would seem more dubious if he trailed her in a car, he followed her on foot. He maintained a safe distance from her, his eyes not leaving her silhouette. After five minutes, he noticed that Ivy was approaching a supermarket. He did not follow her inside, instead, he leaned against a tree, hiding such that he could keep an eye on the supermarket entrance without anybody noticed him.

Ivy saw that Tim had not tailed her inside. So, she heaved a sigh of relief. In this situation, she could not take leave from the front gate. She had to do something else. But right now, since she was already in the supermarket she could as well do some shopping. She remembered she had to stock the refrigerators. As she had nothing to do right now or at least for a few days, she might as well try out new recipes.

Thus, Ivy started shopping for ingredients to her heart content. Before that, she did not forget to send a message to Max informing him that she would be arriving late. After forty minutes, Ivy was done with her shopping and she had two bag loads of ingredients with her. She carried them with great difficulty, they were quite heavy.

When she left the supermarket, she searched for Tim without making it obvious. She couldn't see him, but she knew he was somewhere nearby, his eye fixed on her. She started walking back to her apartment casually as if she was running a daily errand. 

After entering the apartment, she placed the two bags on the dining table. Now she had a big headache to deal with. How would she leave the place without him noticing? Ivy paced around in the living room trying to rack her brain for an idea.

She suddenly stopped when something struck her. She remembered that the apartment building had a back gate. This gate was directly connected to the fire exit from every floor in the building via a metal staircase. She could leave the building that way. So, she went to the fire exit on the floor where her apartment was situated. However, to her dismay, it did not budge even though she exerted a lot of force. 

After that, she went trying on the subsequent floors only to meet the same fate. Now the last option left for her was to try the exit door in the basement. To her relief, it opened immediately the moment she turned the lever. She closed the door behind her, hoping that nobody would lock it. Else it would become difficult for her to come inside on returning.

She saw that she was on the adjacent road of her apartment building. From here, neither she nor Tim could see each other. Since Ivy did not have a vehicle, she could only hail a cab. Meanwhile, Tim who was waiting for her outside could only assume her to be still inside her house.

It took Ivy more than thirty minutes to reach Max's house. The traffic was unbelievably heavy that day, making them halt every few minutes. She paid the cab fare and without further delay, she went to his house. Everybody was already present. Max was reading a file while Sasha and Cedric were involved in their usual bickering and Kira was on the phone.

It was Sasha who first noticed her. " Ivy, you are here. Come in." She completely ignored Cedric and hopped towards Ivy. Sasha's excited voice made everyone look towards the door. Kira ended the call immediately on seeing that Ivy had arrived.

"What happened Ivy? Is everything alright?"

"Yeah. I am fine. It's just that Tim is keeping an eye on me. So, it took me some time to trick him and come here." Ivy said and sat on the couch.

"That bastard." Max cursed. "We need to do something about him. I'll see to it that he stops stalking us"

"Definitely. Ivy be careful. This is for other people too. We don't know what his background is." Cedric said concerned about his colleagues.

"Okay, I'll keep that in mind," Ivy replied, her heart filled with warmth seeing the people who were genuinely concerned about her.

"Now coming back to the actual matter at hand, what do we do now?" Kira asked sitting beside Ivy.

"I have a plan in mind. Before that, if anybody else has other ideas they can put it forth before us." Max stated. Seeing nobody replying, he continued, "I am planning to open my own news agency."

"What?" All four people asked at once, their eyes wide in surprise.

"Yes. I had this idea in mind long back and now is the perfect time to execute it. If you guys are ready, we can start with the plan immediately, but I must warn you that it is a bit risky." Max warned them beforehand. He did not want them to get involved if they were not ready to take risks, he did not want to force them in this matter.

"I like the plan already," Ivy said to which the other three agreed immediately. They had known Max since the time they had started working in News4U. He was a trustworthy person and most importantly, he was honest.

"Is everybody with me on this proposal?" Max asked gaining a nod from everyone.

"Good. Now we have to address the biggest problem in this plan."

"What?" Sasha asked as she munched on an apple while the others had their eyes trained on him.

"We need to find a reliable sponsor."