So
now what?
Well,
he was obviously going to the party alone. That was pretty clear. But the more
important question was, what in the hell was he going to do about Emma?
Just
wear anything. Nobody will notice.
The words cut deep, even
now, hours later, as she pulled into the driveway of her home. HER home. Not
Mason’s. She wasn’t going back there yet. She would have to, eventually, just
to ensure that Max didn’t wreak holy havoc in her room. But she needed her
time, her space, and her silence for a while.
Her
evening with her Mom, Dad, and Gran was nice. They still weren’t back to normal
completely, but Gran was helping everyone to get there. Still, she would
eventually either need to come clean with her parents about why she’d married
Mason, or she’d need to show up with him in tow one night.
Nobody
will notice
. The implication being that nobody really
looked at her anyway. Nobody really cared. Nobody saw her as anything but the
woman on Mason’s arm. She knew it wasn’t true, but she understood that people
saw her and what she wore
because
she was with Mason, not because she
was someone special in her own right.
She
didn’t feel at all badly that he went off on his own tonight. Maybe now he’d be
sure to check with her when he made plans. And if he didn’t, she had no problem
with telling him no again in the future.
Letting
herself in the back door of her house, she stood in the doorway and just
breathed. This was still home to her. The smells, the sounds, the feel of it.
Even after months of living with Mason, this was still her refuge.
She
walked through the darkness to her couch and sank down onto it. Home, she
thought.
Home
was not with Mason. Home was not in that stark, cold, emotionless house on the
other side of town. True, the kitchen was phenomenal, and Max and Chaos helped
to make it more comfortable for her. And true, she loved that crazy little boy
next door with all her heart. But those were surrounding characters in her
life, and those same characters would still be in place if she were living back
here. Where she belonged.
Not
yet, though. If she tried to broach the subject with Mason now, he would think
that she was angry about last night. Or hurt. And while that was kind of true
(the hurt part, anyway), she knew that her longing to be home had little to do
with one night with Mason. It had more to do with the fact that she saw the
writing on the wall. She was not ever going to be the love of his life. She was
not going to be the one to break down the barriers around his heart. And she
needed to just accept that and figure out a way forward. All of that would be
easier to do if she weren’t living with the man. If she weren’t, herself,
falling in love with him.
And
that was the problem, really. Despite everything, Emma was finding herself more
and more drawn to Mason. Sleeping with him probably hadn’t been the best idea
she’d ever had, since it just confirmed what she already knew - he could make
exquisite love to her body, make her feel things she’d never felt before, ever,
but he wouldn’t give his heart. Leaving her the next morning had been his way
of reminding her of that. And still, when she saw past the ice around his
heart, she saw a man who had the capacity to love, but chose not to. And she
needed to both know that, know it deep in her heart and in her soul, and to
accept it. If she had hope of any kind, her heart would be crushed.
Sighing,
she stood up and made her way through the rest of her small house. It was
exactly the way she’d left it after talking to Jen earlier that month. And
while the economically sound thing to do would be to rent it out while she
stayed at Mason’s, she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She needed to be able
to come here occasionally, to reconnect with who she was.
Picking
up a photo of her and her sister, smiling at the camera, she felt her eyes well
up. Damnit, Jen, she thought. Why did you do this to me? You could have dealt
with this man so much better than I can. You would never let yourself get
emotionally invested in him. Like I’ve done. Like I’m doing.
Setting
the frame back down onto the table next to the couch, she took another look
around. Chaos was waiting in the car. It was time to go.
Letting
herself into Mason’s home, she opened the back door for Chaos, and then headed
upstairs to her bedroom. Max was wide awake, busy doing kittenish things, like
climbing the bedspread, scratching at his scratching post, and generally
creating havoc. She grinned. There was nothing like a kitten to make you laugh.
She
was sound asleep when she was awakened two hours later. She wasn’t sure at
first what had pulled her from her sleep, but the footsteps in the hallway told
her that Mason was home. The soft giggle she heard after that caused her to sit
up straight. Silently slipping from her bed, she padded over to the door and
leaned her ear against it. The giggle came again, followed by a low chuckle.
So
Mason had brought a woman home. That voided the contract. She waited for the
sense of relief to come, and was surprised when all she felt was sad. She went
back into her room and dressed quietly, then opened the door to her bedroom.
The voices she’d heard were now coming from downstairs, so she took a deep sigh
and descended the stairs. She had no desire to embarrass Mason or to cause a
scene, but she needed to be sure before she called her lawyer in the morning to
get her out of this situation.
“Emma?”
“Amanda?”
Mason’s sister was here?
“I’m
sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you,” Amanda said, giving her a quick hug. “Mason
wanted to show me Max, but he forgot that he’d be in with you. Can I see him?”
Emma
was still reeling. There was no other woman. Her expression must have concerned
Amanda, who just looked at her carefully. “Are you OK?” she asked.
Emma
nodded. She’d sort out her feelings later. For now, she needed to step up her
game. “I’m fine. Just a little groggy,” she smiled. “Come on upstairs. I’ll get
Max.”
Over
Amanda’s shoulder, she saw Mason smile. It was his predatory smile again, she
thought. The damn man had known just what she was thinking, and he was enjoying
her discomfort. Carefully steeling her face to hide her feelings, Emma turned
away. Oh Lord, she thought. I don’t have the emotional resources to deal with
this man. He’ll win, she thought. Every damn time.
Morning
came quickly. Emma took a quick shower, then went downstairs and brewed a pot
of coffee. Max and Chaos followed her down, and sat in the sunshine while she
waited for the percolator to stop percolating. She felt, rather than heard,
Mason come in behind her.
“Morning,”
she said quietly, looking over her shoulder at him.
“Morning,”
he replied, reaching into the fridge for an orange. “Come into my study when
you have your coffee,” he told her. “I’d like to talk to you.”
She
nodded. “OK,” she agreed softly, wondering what this would be about.
A
few minutes later, after stirring creamer into her coffee, she took a large
comforting sip from her mug, and made her way down the hall to Mason’s office.
Leaning
in the doorway, she asked, “What’s up?”
He
motioned her into the room, and then asked, “What are your plans for today,
Emma?”
She
shrugged as she pushed herself away from the doorframe and sat down on the edge
of the couch cushion. “The usual. Church later this morning. Gran. Chaos. Maybe
a walk with Malcolm. Why?”
“Can
I convince you to spend the day with me?”
She
looked at him for a long moment before asking, “Why?”
“We
have some tension between us to work out. I want to do that before it gets
worse.”
“Tension?”
she repeated disbelievingly.
He
looked at her sharply. “You don’t feel it?”
“I
just wouldn’t characterize it as tension. I’d probably call it pile-driving
pressure. But that’s me. And no. I’m not abandoning my grandmother for you.”
He
shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “I could go with you,” he suggested. “I
haven’t met her yet.”
Emma
shook her head. “You can meet her any time. Except today. I’m not putting her
in the middle of whatever the hell it is that’s going on between us.”
“What
is going on between us, Emma?” he asked softly.
Emma
bit back a number of unhelpful comments, and just sighed.
“I
don’t know that anything is really going on, Mason. I think maybe we both got
carried away the other night. I think maybe you started worrying that I’d go
looking for china patterns and want us to sit on the couch and stare into each
other’s eyes and talk about our feelings.”
His
eyes narrowed. “Was I wrong?”
She
laughed. “Yeah, you were wrong. Mason, look. What happened the other night was
mutual. It happened. It’s done. And while it meant something to me, I know that
you don’t want a relationship. I knew that going in. So my heart is well and
truly guarded - I’m not going to fall in love with you and look for more out of
this marriage than we’ve agreed to. OK?”
He
looked at her shrewdly, and then slowly nodded. “OK. So what happened last
night?”
“Last
night? You mean when I let you go to the party alone, or when I woke up to find
Amanda looking for a cat and you laughing at me?”
He
looked taken aback, but didn’t react in any other way. “First, the party.”
“You
didn’t tell me. I made other plans.”
“With
who?”
“Why
is that your business?”
“I
guess it’s not. I’m just curious what you prioritized above me.”
“My
family. I’d agreed to go have dinner with them, and then to help my dad move
some furniture around.”
Mason
looked surprised. “Furniture? Emma, I don’t want you moving furniture around.
You could hurt yourself.”
Emma
shot him a look of annoyance. “I’ve been moving furniture around my parents’
house since I was twelve. I appreciate the concern, but I’m a little stronger
than I look.”
“You
couldn’t have canceled?”
“I
could have. I would have if it had been important. But it wasn’t important
enough for you to have given me warning. So I didn’t.”
He
nodded. “I’ll try to get better at remembering to inform you when these things
come up,” he said, figuratively holding out an olive branch.
“I
appreciate it.”
He
looked at her shrewdly then. “You thought I’d brought another woman home with
me last night,” he challenged her.
“I
sure did.”
“And
you thought you could get out of our contract.”
“I
did.”
“Sorry
to disappoint you,” he grinned.
She
laughed back. “Me too. But it was good to see Amanda.”
Mason
hesitated, but then said quietly, “Emma, I’m not a nice man. But even I
wouldn't stoop so low as to bring a woman back to the house after the night we
shared. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I didn’t stay around the next
morning.”
Emma
nodded her acceptance of his apology. She instinctively knew that even saying
that much had been hard for him. “I need to go, Mason. Are we good? For now?”
He
eyed her for several seconds. “I’m not entirely sure that we are, Emma. But we
can talk more later.”
She
nodded. “Mason, also for what it’s worth, I’m not unhappy here with you. I’m
just not completely content. That’s not your fault, and I know that. And I’ll
figure it out. I just have one request.”
He
raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t
touch me again.”
If
Emma hadn't been watching him carefully, she would have missed the flinch. But
she
had
seen it. So she explained.
“It’s
not that I don’t like it. I do. But it gets in the way. We need to live
together for a long time yet. I can’t do that if I’m walking on eggshells
around you. So if you touch me again, you need to mean it.”
Mason
nodded slowly. “Fair enough,” he said after a moment.
She
got up from the couch. “You’re a hard man. We’ve established that. But I don’t
have that kind of hard to me. And I need to survive this relationship.”
Walking
over to the door, she turned and gave him a slight smile. “See you later,
Mason. Have a good day.”
Don’t
touch me again
. Until she had said that, he wasn’t aware
of how much he wanted to. He wanted to do more than touch her, he realized. He
wanted to kiss her everywhere, to touch her, to lose himself in her. But he saw
her vulnerability, and he understood. He had behaved like an ass the other
morning, and she was right to protect herself.
He
still didn’t want a relationship. Or did he? The happiest he’d felt in years
was when he was sitting in the kitchen, eating her food, drinking good wine,
and having a conversation with Emma. He liked having her by his side at
parties, and had genuinely missed her last night. And he’d been surprised that
so many people had asked him where she was. She was liked, he realized. People
he seldom talked to and barely knew inquired after her. His sister loved her.
His mother was warming to her, albeit slowly, and had seemed disappointed when
he told her that Emma couldn’t make it last night. Her suspicious look made him
feel like a kid, particularly when she had said something along the lines of
‘She’s good for you. Don’t let her go’, which was completely uncharacteristic
of the woman.