“Then
why?”
His
words stopped her. She turned back around, her temper flaring, and stepped up
to him until they were nearly touching. Lifting her face to his, she fought to
keep her anger from causing her voice to tremor. “I’m upset because you never
talked to me about it. You made your own mind up without even thinking about
me. You only thought about you, and about what you wanted. Did you ever once
stop to think about me? About what I wanted? No,” she said, putting up her
hands in front of her. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. It would hurt too much.
I’m going inside, Mason. Let me be.”
Spinning,
she walked away from him. Once in the house, she made her way to her bedroom,
letting Chaos in through the sliding glass doors, and getting him settled in
his crate for the night. She was just closing the door of the crate when she
heard her own bedroom door open. Spinning around, she saw Mason standing in the
doorway.
“What
the...? Mason, what the hell are you doing? You can’t just barge in here like
this...”
He
stopped, leaning in the doorjamb, and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s my house.”
“That
does not give you the right to just open my door and walk in on me. I could
have been getting undressed.”
As
soon as she said that, she realized it wasn’t the right thing to voice. Mason’s
eyes grew darker, and he just stared intently at her.
“What
do you want, Mason?” she asked, her teeth clenched.
“You.”
“Excuse
me?”
He
pushed himself away from the frame and stepped inside her room.
“We
weren’t done, Emma.”
“Yes.
We were. I have nothing else to say to you.”
“I
have a few more things to say to you, and then I’ll leave you alone.”
She
stood in the middle of room, her eyes flashing, her hands on her hips.
“Go
ahead then.”
“I
did think about you, Emma. I turned down my uncle’s estate so that you never
needed to worry about that. I offered to stay married to you, so it wouldn’t
hurt your reputation for us to divorce so soon after getting married.”
“Offered?”
Emma picked up on his wording, and repeated the offending statement
incredulously. “You ‘offered’ nothing. You simply told me what you had
decided.”
He
advanced toward her, stopping a few feet away from her.
“I
decided based on what was best for you.”
Her
eyes narrowed. “And how would you know what’s best for me?”
He
crossed his arms in front of him and looked down at Emma, the coolness in his
expression fueling her frustration.
“Tell
me what you would want, Emma. How exactly would you like me to handle this?”
“By
talking
to me.”
“I’m
talking to you now,” he pointed out mildly.
She
sighed. He was right.
“Fine,”
she said at last, sinking into a chair in the corner of her room. She watched
as he simply leaned against a wall, his arms still crossed, looking down at
her.
“Don't
glower,” she said crossly.
A
small twinge of a smile curled up the corner of his lip.
“Do
you want a divorce, Emma?” His voice was low and his tone was mild, but Emma
saw the storm in his eyes.
“Of
course I do,” she responded. “Yes. That’s been what this marriage was headed
for since the day we married. It’s almost contractually obligated,” she added
sarcastically.
But
Mason’s response was gentle. “Do you want a divorce right away?”
Emma
allowed herself to look over at the man, saw the closed expression on his face
and wondered, for the first time, if the coldness was a protective mechanism.
Her heart softened slightly.
“I
don’t know,” she answered quietly. “I understand your need to protect your
reputation, Mason.”
“Your
reputation too,” he reminded her.
“Mine
is mine to worry about.” She hesitated. “What if we were to start spending more
time apart? Maybe I could stay at my house for a few nights a week? And spend
the weekends here?”
Mason
was surprised at the wave of anger that rolled over him, but didn't take the
time to analyze it.
“No.”
“What
do you mean ‘no’?” Emma asked, fairly shocked both at his sudden response and
the vehemence behind it.
“No.
You live with me.”
“Then
what’s the point of talking to me about this if you won’t compromise?” Her eyes
sought his. Hers were troubled and his were stubborn.
“You’re
my wife, Emma. As long as we are married, you live with me.”
“And
how long will that be?”
“That’s
the question, isn’t it?” he asked mildly.
“How
long, Mason?”
When
there was no answer from Mason, Emma looked back down at her fingers, clasped
tightly in her lap. When she looked up again, her eyes met his, and his gaze
bored into her.
“Until
I’m ready to let you go,” he finally said, his expression blank, his voice
cold.
She
shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she said at last.
Mason
pushed away from the wall.
“The
contract is for three years, Emma.”
She
looked at him with doubt. “But Mason, surely, now that you know that the reason
for the marriage is void...”
“Three
years.”
“Mason...”
With
a sense of disbelief, Emma watched as Mason moved toward her, stopped in front
of her, leaned down and placed his hands on the arms of her chair, trapping her
in place.
“Why
are you doing this?” she asked, close to tears.
“Because
you’re my wife, Emma. And I’m simply not interested in letting you go.”
He
realized when he said it that it was true. Grasping Emma's arms, he slowly
lifted her from the chair and into his arms.
She
had let him, but as soon as he pulled her to him, she came back to her senses
and started to push at his chest. “Mason, what are you doing? This isn’t part
of the deal...”
“No.
No, it’s not,” he agreed, his voice taut with tension.
“Mason,”
she tried again to push away, but he was strong. With his arms wrapped around
her, she had no hope of moving away until he let her go. And he seemed to show
no signs that he intended to do that. Instead, he just tugged her closer and
said firmly, “Enough, Emma.”
“Let
go of me,” she said through clenched teeth.
“No.”
“Mason,
this isn’t fair.”
“I’m
done with fair, Emma. Particularly where you’re concerned.”
Lowering
his mouth, he kissed her. It was not a loving, kind-hearted kiss, this one. It
was a kiss of hard passion. A kiss of frustration. A kiss of ownership. But it
still touched something in Emma. She remembered why she had told this man to stay
away from her. Because when she was in his arms, there was no way she could
resist him. But she needed to, she reminded herself, even as she kissed him
back.
Behind
them, Chaos whined in his crate, wanting to be out with his two favorite
people. The noise gave Emma the distraction she needed to pull away from Mason.
Breathing deeply, she managed to walk over to Chaos’ crate and open the door.
The happy dog bounded out, his tail wagging at high speed, moving from Mason to
Emma and back again.
But
Mason and Emma just stared at each other. Mason's cold and slightly predatory
look was back, and Emma was sure that she just looked hunted. “What now?” she
asked quietly, annoyed that her voice shook noticeably.
He
stepped forward, stopping only when he saw the look of trepidation on her face.
“You
don’t need to be afraid of me, Emma,” he said with a touch of anger in his
voice.
But
she nodded vigorously. “I do. I really do.”
At
this, his voice gentled. “I won’t hurt you, sweetheart.”
To
herself, Emma thought,
you will. You won’t mean to, but you will. If I let
you.
As
Mason stood in her bedroom, his eyes fixed on hers, Emma’s mind drifted back to
something Jen had said earlier that month, about how Mason could have found
another way to get his uncle’s stock. About how he could have found someone
else when Jen changed her mind.
Sinking
onto her bed, she thought back to when she had first met Mason. His first
reaction hadn’t been to look at finding someone else to take Jen's place, or
even to find Jen and bring her back - it had been to push her into taking her
sister’s place. Her. Emma. She had offered to find someone else. He had time
before his 40th birthday to look around, and to offer the same deal to someone
else. Even Jen had suspected that Mason could have found a way to get the
stock, without it completely changing his life.
But
Mason had changed his life. Completely. He had a wife, a dog, a kitten. He
wasn’t dating anyone, and he wasn’t sleeping with anyone, even her. Well,
except for that one time, of course. And he had done all of this to fulfill the
terms of his uncle’s will. But Emma still couldn’t figure out why. Why her?
She
felt Mason sit down next to her. Felt it as he reached out and gently brushed
her hair back from her face. Felt it as he settled his arm around her shoulder.
“Why?”
The word slipped out, and Emma didn’t recognize her own voice. It was filled
with haunted anguish, and she flinched even as she said it.
He
turned her to face him, his hand caressing her cheek and her chin, his thumb
lightly tracing the outline of her lower lip.
“Why
what, Emma?” he asked gently.
“Why
did you marry me?”
He
hesitated, his hand stilling for a moment, falling to rest on her shoulder.
“Why
are you asking me this?”
She
looked up at him with a troubled expression that caught at Mason's heart.
“Because I don’t think it was for the stock, at least not completely,” she
continued. “You have other people in your life that you could have called on to
help you with this. You could have challenged your uncle’s will. You could have
done any number of things. But there was no reason to push me into fulfilling
Jen’s contract, and no real reason to stay together now. Unless there was some
other contingency that you haven’t told me about. So why? Tell me, Mason,” she
begged. “If I am going to make it through two more years of an empty marriage,
at least tell me why.”
She
felt his flinch before his hands dropped and he stood up.
“Mason?”
“You’re
right, Emma. It’s late.”
She
watched in disbelief as he left the room. True, he bent down to pat Chaos on
the head as he left, and he did look back at her once with something resembling
tenderness on his face, but he still left. And Emma just sat there, trying very
hard not to cry.
Back
in his own room, Mason paced. He needed to figure out what he was doing with
Emma, and what he wanted from her. Because she was right about one thing - the
marriage had not been about stock, or his uncle’s will, or anything but the
fact that he’d seen her and immediately made up his mind to have her. And in
Mason's world, he got what he wanted. So he’d coerced her into the marriage,
kept her by his side, and had even slept with her, but he’d done it all on his
terms. And for the first time, his conscience was beginning to bother him.
Because Emma wasn’t Jen.
His
marriage to Jen would have been one of convenience only. They might have slept
together, or he might have found satisfaction outside of the marriage, knowing
that she was doing the same. But he’d promised Emma from the start that he
wouldn't sleep around, and he was holding to that. Not just because he wanted
to be a man of his word, but he truly, honestly, absolutely did not want to sleep
with anyone else. He wanted Emma. His wife.
He
had her once, he thought ruefully. He’d seduced her, taken her to bed, and then
he had fled from her room before the night was half over. He had taken her
trust in him and trampled it into the ground. And she had seemingly forgiven
him for it. He’d spent the last year with her, getting to know her, laughing
with her, learning to know her as he knew no one else. And he had been a better
man because of it.
She
had called their marriage empty, and while the words had hurt, he understood
why she had chosen that term. Because while they lived together, dined
together, and entertained together, theirs was a marriage of words, not love. A
marriage of convenience, not choice. And for the first time in his life, Mason
wanted more.
Emma
sighed, standing up from the bed and wiping her tear-stained eyes. It had been
an incredibly long day, and she was worn out. From her long conversation with
Amanda, to the confrontation with Mason, there hadn’t been a moment today where
she had felt relaxed and... normal. Even her banter with Malcolm felt more
tense than usual, knowing that he’d sneaked out the back door of his house to
come and see her.