Seven Days: The Complete Story (22 page)

I reply to his
text and head to the shower.

*****

Mason’s
parents live in a mansion.

I repeat. A
mansion.

I have no idea
how I never knew this. I thought he was a normal guy living in a
share house with a bunch of stinky gamer students, not part of the
‘it’ crowd. I mean, this house is literally bigger than the museum.
It has its own car park that’s currently being filled with the type
of cars I know I’d never be able to afford unless I became a
diamond smuggler.

I mean,
seriously.

Mason swings
the car into the driveway, stopping under a portico that leads to
huge double front doors. A guy I’m sure I’ve seen around Uni opens
the car door to let me out. He’s wearing a red valet suit and
looking like he’s not that keen on opening doors for twenty bucks
an hour, especially since I look nothing like a celebrity. I stand
on the gravel drive for a second taking it in. I’ve never seen
anything like this house.

“You grew up
here
?” I ask Mason, as we go up the marble steps into the
entry foyer. I mean, who even has an entry foyer with a hall table
in the centre and a humongous bouquet on it? That’s like living in
a hotel.

“Yep. I’ll
show you round later if you like.”

“Do I need to
bring snacks? Do you have one of those golf carts to get you from
one end to the other?”

Mason
chuckles. He seems more at ease here somehow, like he’s dropped the
façade of how I thought he was to how he is when I’m not around.
“Something like that.”

“Why didn’t
you tell me?”

“What? That my
family own most of the city? I don’t like people to think I’m about
the money. I want them to like me for me.”

“I like you
for you. You know that, right?”

“You’re the
one girl I’ve gone out with who didn’t burst out laughing when I
said I was into comics, so, yeah.”

Now I know how
he affords those comics he has in the plastic packets in his room,
the ones he never looks at because they’re too precious. Even when
he told me they were worth a lot of money I didn’t register. I
thought he’d saved up for them, like I do when I want something I
can’t afford.

Mason puts his
hand in the small of my back and leads me through the house to a
terrace and pool area. The trees are decorated with fairy lights
and what must be a million candles are dotted around tables and
seating areas. There’s a full bar set up near the doors and a gauzy
gazebo. There are swans in the pool. Real swans. Everything is
white and I feel rather out of place in the red cocktail dress
Emily insisted I buy to wear.

“It’s a white
party?” I feel like I’m in a scene from the book of
Gossip
Girl
or something. In a minute Blair is going to appear holding
hands with Chuck and look disdainfully down her nose at me because
I’m wearing the wrong coloured dress. Someone is going to ask me to
leave because I’m clearly a nobody who has no idea.

“Sorry. I
forgot.”

“But I look
like a cherry in a bowl of vanilla ice cream.”

“A very cute
cherry.” Mason kisses the tip of my nose. He doesn’t seem to get
the magnitude of my
faux pas
. “Come on. We better go and
present ourselves to the olds otherwise Mum will think I’m not
here. I’m not up for one of her lectures tonight.”

What? No ‘I
can’t wait for them to meet you’? Am I not good enough? Is that why
Mason has never introduced me to his family before?

We walk around
the side of the pool to where Mason has spotted his parents,
brother and future sister-in-law chatting to guests. I take a deep
breath. I’m seriously out of my depth here. I have no idea how to
behave in high society.

“Mason,
darling!” Mason’s mother has a high-pitched voice that sounds a bit
like a fire engine siren. Her hair is piled on top of her head
accentuating her bird-like features. She looks rather good for a
lady of her age though. Not natural but good. She holds her arms
open for a hug and presents her left cheek. No kissing on the lips
at this party. “At last,” she says. “We’ve been waiting on you for
the family photos.”

Mason pushes
me forward. “Mum, I’d like to introduce you to my girlfriend, Sadie
Cooper. Sadie’s doing a degree in horticulture and landscape
architecture.”

Mason’s mother
gives me the very slow once over, stopping somewhere in the
direction of my forehead. She’s smiling but her eyes are not
meeting mine. “How nice. Are you of the Coopers from the Bay?
Mason’s father plays golf with Archie regularly.”

“I don’t think
so.” I’ve never heard of any relative called Archie Cooper and I
don’t know that I want to. Plus, I don’t think the bay she’s
referring to is the one with lines of fibro shacks and homemade
Cray pots. “Thank you for inviting me. You have a lovely home.”

“Yes. Well,
you’ll excuse us for a bit won’t you, dear? The photographer is
waiting in the sitting room. Come along, Mason.”

Without a
goodbye, Mason shuffles off behind his family. I’ve never felt so
dismissed and insignificant in my life. Not to mention out of
place. I summon a waiter and take two glasses of champagne from the
tray. I down one, replace it and take a third. Who cares about
manners and etiquette? Alcohol is the only way I’m going to get
through this. I’m on my third glass — still no sign of Mason — when
I hear a familiar voice.

“Drowning your
sorrows?”

I turn and
there he is, looking all dashing and swarthy in his white, open
neck shirt and cream pants. His hair is unruly and the smattering
of stubble on his chin displays his usual I don’t give a damn
attitude but gosh, he looks hot. Really handsome.

“Hi Joel.”
Seriously, I’ve never been so glad to see a friendly face in my
life. Even if I would rather not talk to him. Why does he have to
be everywhere I go?

“Friends with
the bride or groom?” he asks.

“Neither.
Mason is the groom’s brother.”

“Lucky
him.”

I detect a
hint of sarcasm. “I gather you know him?”

“Brock? Yep.
Total knobhead. My life would be so much easier if I never had to
deal with him.”

I look at Joel
blankly.

“He’s on the
city council. Head of the planning department. Loves to give Nick
and I shit every time we stick a set of plans in for approval. He’s
the main reason the Iris project took so long to get off the
ground.”

“Why are you
here then?”

“Networking.
People like this don’t have friends, Sadie. They have contacts.
This might look like an engagement party but it’s a P.R. exercise.
Plus, I had the bad luck of hooking up with the bride once or twice
but we won’t go there. It’s one of the main reasons Brock and I
don’t see eye to eye. He feels threatened by my superior bedding
skills.”

I choke on my
wine a little. This night is getting weirder and weirder. “You are
so full of yourself.”

“Hey, if
that’s the one fault you can find with me, I’m happy. And I didn’t
hear you complaining when we were in bed.”

“That’s
because I didn’t know who was who, remember?”

“Would you
like to? Know who’s who?”

“You know I
would. But it’s not going to happen. For obvious reasons.” I
indicate Mason, who is making his way towards me.

Joel puts the
bar table between us. “Anyway, it’s nice to see you. You’re like a
little breath of strawberry flavoured air in room full of ice
queens. You look pretty in that dress. Beautiful actually.”

See, I think.
Redheads can wear red.

“Thank
you.”

“We didn’t get
much of chance to talk last night.”

“Possibly
because you were playing tonsil hockey for most of it.”

“See you
haven’t lost any of that smart mouth in the last six months.”

“I’m trying to
keep up with you.”

“What did you
expect me to do? Stand around and watch you playing hands-y with
Nick. I have to find my fun where I can. Can I help it if she was a
hot model?”

“I was not
playing hands-y.”

“I saw you.
You want him. You want it in you.”

He’s teasing
me now. Arse. “I think we’ve already established that fact.”

“Better be
careful what you wish for,
Little Mermaid
.” He gives me a
wink and takes a slug of his beer.

Oh I hate him.
I hate him so much for making me jealous, because he knows he
can.

It’s about now
that Mason comes to stand beside me. His brother and sister-in-law
are following behind and they gather round the bar table. Mason’s
looking rather frazzled for someone who’s participated in a few
family photos for the album. I wonder if his mother has said
something about me to upset him. I don’t imagine I’m what she
expected. “Did you save me a drink?” he asks.

I hand him a
red wine and he introduces me to his brother and the fiancé,
Bianca. She’s a thin thing, looks like she’d snap in half if you
poked her and she has a look of privilege, a haughty set to her
face that makes her appear hard. Which I have a feeling she might
be. Our conversation begins quite generally but there’s an agenda.
I can sense it as soon as the first question slips from her
lips.

“So, you’ve
been seeing Mason a few months,” Bianca says.

“Since
March.”

“How did you
meet?” Her voice is like saccharine laced with poison.

“We met in the
library. I was trying to get a book and Mason helped me reach it.”
I laugh a little. Bad idea. She looks dark.

“How
convenient. I suppose there are not too many people in your course.
You must all know each other.”

“I’d seen
Mason around. I’d never met him before that day. He was very kind
to me. Gentlemanly.”

“Funny. That
you didn’t know of him, I mean. Are you positive you didn’t know of
the family?”

This is
awkward.

“Not until I
got here twenty minutes ago. It was a bit of a shock. I thought
Mason was like the rest of the guys who live in his house, studying
for their degrees. I didn’t realise his family was well off. He has
a job and a banged up old Toyota. Why would I think anything
else?”

“Yes. The
car’s been a bone of contention between him and the parents,” Brock
chimes in. “Mason wanted to make his own way.”

“But isn’t
that an admirable quality?” I ask.

Bianca frowns
at me. She smiles. I think I’ve gotten over the first hurdle. Then
she pounces and I’m unprepared for the onslaught.

“Why aren’t
you wearing white? You look utterly out of place. All the girls are
wearing white. I specifically requested it.”

“I didn’t
know.”

Last time I’ll
be accepting an invitation from my boyfriend without checking the
dress code first.

“That’s
because you weren’t actually invited. Your name wasn’t on the
invitation.”

Okay, now
she’s being a cow.

“But Mason
invited me.”

If I’d known
it was going to cause so much angst I would have stayed at home. I
look to my boyfriend, who is watching the interplay with the
animation of a stuffed toy. I can’t believe he’s standing there
letting her speak to me so rudely, that he’s not telling her to
back off. He should be defending me, not letting this bitch rip me
apart. Is this some type of initiation thing? Is he looking to see
if I can handle his family?

Bianca fires
up again. “You know that Mason will never marry you, don’t you? You
don’t belong. Brock and I have been together since high school. My
parents are friends with his parents. My sister is marrying his
cousin. You’ve been with Mason a week and you think you can swan
into my engagement party and start chatting up the guests while
your boyfriend is indisposed. It’s reprehensible.”

What is she on
about now? This Bianca’s a mental case. “I wasn’t chatting anyone
up. I’m standing here having a freakin’ drink until you came
along.”

“You were
flirting with Joel. Who the hell do you think you are?”

“That’s not
true. We were talking about musicals.”

In a round
about way.

“And how would
someone like you know anything about what someone like Joel likes?
You have nothing in common. Yet, we come back and here you are, all
over a man you’ve never met like a slutty little rash. I’ve seen
gold diggers like you before. We all have. You’re in it for what
you can get.”

Tears well in
my eyes. They’re stinging. My hands are shaking. I don’t know what
to say, how to react. I look to Mason but he’s saying nothing,
doing nothing. He’s about as useful as a worm on concrete.

“I… I…”

“Enough!” Joel
slams his beer down on the table. “Bianca, cool it. Sadie wasn’t
flirting with me. She and I know each other, okay? She’s a good
kid, not one of your money hungry crowd.”

“And you know
this how? Did you sleep with her, too?”

Cue steam
spewing from brother Brock’s ears. He looks like he’s about to
burst the blood vessels in his eyeballs with the realisation Joel
has been intimate with his fiancée.

“We met over
the summer. At the bay,” Joel says.

Oh. Shit.

Three faces
swivel in my direction. How am I going to explain my way out of
this? Joel could have said I was working at Hardwick & Lawson.
Why did he have to blab about our past? This is so hectic.

“You
know
him?” Now, Mason is looking at me like I’ve told him I
was responsible for the Snowtown massacre and they convicted the
wrong person. “I tried since first year to get a spot at Hardwick
& Lawson and got knocked back every time. Yet you manage to get
one in a day. Even when Brock put in a good word, they said they
didn’t take interns. Is that how you got a placement? Did you sleep
with him?”

Joel puts up
his hands. “The placement had nothing to do with me, man. I didn’t
even know Sadie was coming to the office till the morning she
arrived. You can’t insinuate she did anything untoward to get the
spot. I met her at the beach. We had a bit of fun. End of
story.”