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His words cut internally, wrapping my heart in cold steel and constricting my lungs to the point of pain.
My heartbeat slows at the angry vulnerability he let me see. While I’ve been cowering behind my fear of abandonment and my feelings of inadequacy, I failed to realize he shared the same fears.
My throat tightens at the thought that I'm the source for those feelings. Whoever had left him in the past . . . I was no better, demanding perfection when I amfarfrom it.
He’s silent for a moment, watching me with what he’s trying to play off as indifference, only I can see through it now, to the man beneath. He’s not as cold-hearted as he’d like me to believe.
Please kiss me.
He turns away.
“Go,” he murmurs coldly. Like ice slipping through my veins. “Go home. I have stuff to finish here.”
“Mason—” He cuts me off, dismissing me completely by turning his back to me. I want to go to him. Apologize. Just freaking be near him for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours.
But he doesn’t want that. Not right now.
“Hannah.” His voice is so quiet, so calm, I know he just wants to be alone.
I take in the strong lines of his shoulders where he stands at the desk, back to me, and accept that sometimes, even the people you want most need time away from you.
So, I don’t say another word and slowly back out of the office, shutting the door behind me with a finalclick.
Mason’s father was handsome. Not nearly as handsome as his son, but a good close second. It’s easy to see where the hurricane eyes come from, as his father had the same ones. He smiles backat me from the picture in Mason’s home office, surrounded by his three older children while holding Mila.
They looked so happy.
Even Monica grins from the side of the picture, her arm around Mason’s shoulders.
Funny how things change.
I came in here a little over an hour ago because I ran out of things to do. I cleaned the house when I got home, even scrubbing the baseboards. While Mason’s tidy, you can tell those hadn’t been done in a long time. I made dinner, picked at it, and opted to put it away, leaving a plate for Mason in case he decided to come home.
I tried watching TV, but nothing could hold my attention, so, I started cleaning again.
I’m beginning to think it’s become a nervous habit.
Now, I’m in his office, sitting at his big desk in his giant chair and thinking about all the things I said and staring at the single text he sent me when I asked if he was coming home.
Mason: With Prince.
The little girl in me wanted a Hallmark movie ending. Where he would come home, we would kiss and make up and I could profess everything I felt about him.
But . . . Mason and I aren’t a Hallmark movie. We never have been.
We’re darkness and lust and seething passion that threatens to drown me in a pool of my own making. I’ve been standing at the edge of that pool, afraid to jump in, but now that I’ve had that glistening moment of Mason’s affection, I find I’m fucking destroyed without it.
I want to go to him. I want to help. I want to apologize and wrap myself around him, but the knowledge that his refusalcould end me keeps me pacing the floor in the living room until I worry the carpet is going to wear down.
He can’t just leave me here. Wondering what the hell’s going on. It’s my right to know why that man tried to kill me as much as it is anyone else’s. I’ve been good, thus far. Listening. I’ve stayed inside. I’ve avoided all contact with my mother or Michael.
“It’s bullshit,” I murmur angrily to the picture of Mason’s family on his desk. “I should be there.”
They don’t reply, but I have a feeling his father would agree if he were here.
And then it dawns on me when my gaze catches on a young Savannah.
Fortunately, she answers.
