The Moment We Began (A Fairhope New Adult Romance)

By Sarra Cannon

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Sarra Cannon

eISBN: 978-1-62421-017-4

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Cover designed by Sarah Hansen @
Okay Creations

Find Sarra Cannon on the web!

http://www.sarracannon.com

To Tonya
 
You've always been like a sister to me.
 
I honestly don't know what I'd do without you.

I pour another shot and throw it back, my fingers
trembling as I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. The tequila
burns my throat and I squeeze my eyes shut.

I lean against the edge of the sink, my head down
as I breathe in and out, trying to steady my heart.

I don’t know why I’m surprised. He
always does this. Every time I think Mason and I have a real
moment—something that gives me hope for a future with him—he
does something to prove he’s not interested in monogamy.

Why would today be any different?

I look up. My eyes are full of fear. Hurt. Anger.
My forehead is wrinkled with worry. Not exactly my best look. I need
to get it together. Sure, I’ve loved this guy pretty much all
my life, but I’ve seen him with other girls a hundred times.
They never stick around for long. I’m the only one he keeps
coming back to.

I push the air from my lungs, then turn the bottle
over again. This is the last of it. No more excuses to hang out in my
stateroom, avoiding the inevitable. I pick the crystal shot glass off
the counter, hold it in my hand for a long moment, psyching myself
up. With a quick jerk, I down the shot and slam the glass against the
granite.

My head swims.

My heart aches.

I want him with everything that I am, but the
harder I try to hold on to him, the more violently he pulls away.

I’m so tired of watching him parade these
bimbos around like trophies. I’m tired of the anger that
consumes me every time he puts his lips on someone else’s. And
it’s always someone else. Someone new.

I don’t want to be mad anymore. I don’t
want to have to pretend I’m not wanting him every single second
of every day. I don’t want to have to laugh at his stupid jokes
and pretend I’m happy when he’s with someone else.

I just want to be the one he’s kissing.

I close my eyes and think about last night. My
fingers run across the softness of my lips, remembering how it felt
to be in his arms with his lips on mine. They’re still sore
this afternoon from kissing him for so long. I kept telling him to
shave, but he never did, and I didn’t really care. He looks so
sexy with that little bit of stubble growing after a couple days.

I’m smiling at the memories, but the second
I think about the blonde he’s got upstairs on the sun deck
right now, my stomach twists with disappointment and regret.

When he walked onto the yacht, his arm around her,
his eyes searched mine for a long moment. I felt it straight down in
the core of my heart. He wanted me to understand that he doesn’t
belong to me. He’s free.

Message received, Mason Trent. Loud and fucking
clear.

I turn the bottle of tequila over again, but only
a few drops fall into my glass. I toss it into the trash can.

I wonder how drunk I’d need to be to stop
caring about the girl in his arms.

I wonder if I’m there yet.

Someone knocks on the door to my room, and I study
myself in the mirror. I run two fingers under my eyes, sweeping away
any stray eyeliner left from when I’d been crying. My eyes are
a little red, but I can easily blame the alcohol.

I expect it to be Bailey or Summer or Krystal.
Someone coming to get me to tell me to get my ass back to the party.

But when I open the door, my breath catches in my
throat and the world around me spins in circles.

“Mason,” I whisper.

Mason’s eyes drink me in. He takes his time,
his eyes traveling from my newly painted toes upward to the tiny red
bikini that barely covers my breasts.

The look is hungry and it awakens an ache deep
within me.

“What are you doing down here?” I ask.
I want to be unaffected by him, but he caught me by surprise and it
takes me a few seconds to recover. “Is someone else babysitting
your date for you?”

He swallows, then meets my eyes. He doesn’t
react at all to my comment about his date. “I came down here
for you.”

His words take my breath away, and for just the
tiniest heartbeat, I think he means he’s come to tell me he
made a mistake and that he wants to be with me.

But then he follows up with, “Preston asked
me to come find you. He wants to know if there’s anymore
champagne. Trina wants me to make her a mimosa.”

I push the hope back down like I’ve done too
many times to count. “Trina?”

He shrugs. “The girl I came with,” he
says, like it’s not a big deal. Like he wasn’t just with
me in this room—this bed—a few hours ago. “She said
she’s dying for a mimosa, but Preston can’t find the
champagne. He thought you might know where there was more.”

I straighten my shoulders. “No, sorry,”
I say. “I think that must have been the last of it.”

I’m lying, of course. I know where there’s
an entire case of champagne in the store room, but I’ll be
damned if I’m lifting a finger to make Trina more comfortable
on my boat.

“That’s too bad,” Mason says,
but he doesn’t really look upset. His gaze keeps dipping to my
breasts and when he meets my eyes again, I know he wants me.

What I don’t know is why he denies it every
chance he gets.

For the past year, Mason and I have been playing
this game. Push and pull. Love and lose. We’ll spend a
passionate night in each other’s arms, but in the morning, he’s
always gone. His body says there’s something more between us. I
see it in his eyes, too. But in a crowd, I’m never the one on
his arm. Out there, I’m just a friend.

And that’s exactly how he likes it. He wants
to have it all. He tells me he doesn’t want to be tied down to
any one girl, and how am I supposed to object? If I do, he’s
not going to change his mind. He’s just going to stop being
with me.

I can’t let that happen. I need him like I
need air to breathe.

So if this is how I get him, I have to learn to
live with that.

There’s a part of me that hates myself for
allowing him to hurt me over and over again. I want to be the kind of
girl who stands up for myself and takes the high road, but when he
looks at me like that with those green eyes, his dark blond hair
slightly longer than normal and messy on top, I can’t deny him.

He’s my addiction.

The one drug I can’t ever get enough of.

“Aren’t you going back up?” I
ask.

He’s wearing nothing but a pair of black
swim trunks, and I have to stop myself from running my hand across
his tanned, muscular chest. He’s been working out more than
ever and it shows. His abs are perfectly cut and my eyes follow the
trail of fine blond hair as it leads toward his waistband and beyond.