Chapter 13

13

FIA

T he first thing Mason said when he walked into my apartment was a strangled, “ Whoa .”

My cheeks went a little pink as I shrugged out of my jacket, watching him walk into the snug studio. His eyes were glued like a moth to the Christmas lights strung across the ceiling as his gaze swept the room. He stepped toward the Christmas tree in the corner by the window, a multicolored plastic contraption I’d pulled out of the trash two years ago and fixed up.

“One day I’ll have a real tree,” I said, hanging my coat over one of the chairs at my two-seater dining-room table. “But not this year. It’s a lot of work getting a tree up all of those stairs.”

He looked back up at the ceiling, then along the walls, where my renter friendly, funky floral wallpaper was set aglow with more lights. “Be sure to put your electric bill on my credit card, okay?”

I pursed my lips around a smile as he moved toward the tree to closely examine the hodge-podge of ornaments I’d picked up at the Christmas markets and thrift stores over the years. “I know it’s a lot?—”

“I like it. It’s very you.”

Very me . How long had we known each other now? Three, four weeks? Had he really been paying attention to my little quirks close enough to not be surprised by the little glass ornaments in the shape of bulldogs wearing a variety of Christmas sweaters?

I needed something to do with my hands. I turned to the kitchen and quickly lit my favorite mulled-spice candle and started the coffee pot, occasionally glancing at Mason as he explored my place.

I heard a creak and turned to find him closely inspecting the rickety, narrow stairs leading up to my loft. “These are not up to code,” he murmured, running his fingers over the loose railing. “You don’t really sleep up there, do you?”

“Is it not up to your standards, Mr. Penthouse?”

He frowned at me, rapping his knuckles on the stairs. “You’re lucky you haven’t fallen and cracked your skull on these stairs. And I don’t live in a penthouse, for your information.”

“Why? Can you not afford it?” I asked sarcastically.

He smiled wryly, shaking his head. “I have this weird thing about elevators. I got stuck in one for close to six hours as kid.”

“Six hours? How old were you?”

“Maybe eight? I’m not sure, but the only reason my mom knew there was a problem was because I’d been on my way to school and never made it there, and the school called my parents.”

“That’s terrible!”

He nodded. “I know.”

“So, you don’t live in a penthouse. Where do you live then?” I imagined he’d live high above the skyline, surrounded by clouds and wealth, maybe on Park Avenue. He leaned against the opposite counter and crossed his arms, considering my question.

“I have an apartment in the Museum Tower in midtown but I’m getting ready to sell.”

I raised my brows. “Why?”

“Because I recently bought a brownstone on the Upper West Side.”

“You bought—” I stopped myself, reminded that this man was filthy rich, even though he was wearing jeans and an ugly Christmas sweater with puppies on it right then. “Congratulations on your new mortgage.”

“I don’t have a mortgage on it. I paid cash.”

“Of course, you did.” I snorted a laugh and started to dig through my one cabinet for a coffee mug that didn’t have a chip along the rim.

“I have a team restoring it to its former glory. Whoever owned it before me painted everything white and gray.”

“You don’t like white and gray?”

“I have a piece of history now and I want it to feel like it.”

I noticed something new in his eyes, an emotion I hadn’t seen yet. It was almost like he was on the precipice of something, walking through a season of change, shedding parts of himself he’d leaned into before.

I was probably looking at him too closely, reading too far between the lines. “So, you still live in your fancy tower?”

“Yes, I still live in a fancy tower, just closer to the ground than you think. I can take the stairs if I want without a problem.”

I poured him a cup of coffee, black, then fixed myself a cup with copious amounts of cream and sugar. We stood against the counters for a moment, not looking at each other, the silence between us suddenly deafening.

I knew we were both thinking about the kiss. How could we not be? Things had been too easy between us, too natural. The ease with which we were able to talk was the first thing I noticed about him. He wasn’t what I expected him to be. And kissing him? I hadn’t expected it to feel so right.

Now I didn’t know how to feel at all. I wasn’t a rich socialite from a family name that carried weight and influence.

I was just Fia. His fake girlfriend for the holidays.

“So… what are you up to this week?” I asked just to break up the heavy silence.

“Work.”

I frowned at him, arching a brow. “That’s it?”

“I have a few luncheons before everyone takes off in anticipation for Christmas, but that’s it, other than Deck the Decks.”

“Do you like your job?” I asked.

“Of course.” He furrowed his brows. “Do you like your job? Being a photographer?”

I wasn’t going to mention that I had nothing lined up this week at all and would likely be sitting around, twiddling my thumbs. “I do. I’m not a huge fan of shooting weddings but it keeps the lights on.”

The conversation started to die again and I felt incredibly awkward as I sipped my coffee. Kissing him wasn’t a good idea. Now this felt complicated and that awkward tension shined between every word that left my mouth.

Mason took a sip of his coffee before setting it down, tilting his head toward the Christmas tree. “What does your family do for Christmas?”

Finally, something I could talk about without clamming up. “Well, the regular stuff. I usually spend the night on Christmas Eve and stay with my parents all day on Christmas Day. We open presents, and Dad likes to watch a movie together, and Mom makes a big breakfast and an even bigger dinner. Dad and Colin usually fight during dinner about something.”

“They fight?”

I waved my hand in dismissal. “My family is Italian, at least on my mom’s side. It’s not really fighting really, just talking really loud over each other.”

“Oh,” he said with a chuckle. “Yeah, I can see Colin doing that.”

I started getting a little excited as I continued. “It’s nothing compared to Christmas Eve during the Feast of Seven Fishes. My uncles and aunts come over and there’s a huge feast, and it’s always blindingly loud.” I went on to explain the Feast of Seven fishes at length, and Mason was rapt, nodding along and smiling. I also told him a story about taking my nonna to the midnight mass and we caught my younger cousins sneaking out to participate in illegal activities .

“She whooped them right there in the street, on Christmas Eve no less.”

“It sounds like they deserved it.” He laughed, his expression softening from the tight tension of before.

“What about you?” I asked.

He shrugged, and some of the light faded from his eyes, which instantly gutted me. “I don’t have a large family like you do. The holidays are pretty quiet. My parents have dinner on Christmas Eve, usually with some extended family and friends from work but that’s really it.”

“What do you do on Christmas Day?”

“Well, this year I’m supposed to be proposing to you.”

“That’s on New Year’s Eve, remember?” I couldn’t ignore the fact that my heart skipped a beat. I clutched my coffee mug for dear life as his eyes met mine, heavy with that new, unreadable emotion.

“It would be a waste of your favorite holiday to propose to you any other time than Christmas.”

This wasn’t real. I kept reminding myself that, but now I was unsure if that was how it really felt. Was the character I’d been playing only a character after all?

“You’re right. I don’t like New Year’s nearly as much as Christmas.”

He nodded, running his tongue along his lower lip as his eyes dropped to his coffee mug. “Would you come with me to my parents’ dinner on Christmas Eve? It’s late, closer to eight. You’d still be able to be with your family, too. You’d only have to make an appearance at my parents’ place?—”

I cut him off. “Only if you come to my family’s dinner on Christmas Eve too, if you think you can handle it.”

No. No, we shouldn’t even be considering this because this goes beyond our business arrangement and is now edging on personal.

But he smiled at me, nodding. “Yeah, of course I’ll come.”

“I’ll let my mom know to set an extra place at the table.” I swallowed hard, fighting against the desire to kiss him again, to tell him how I really felt, because I suddenly, desperately needed someone to talk to about it.

But I was standing in my apartment with Mason O’Leary, not some guy who worked for the city or at the restaurant across the street. Mason was out of my league entirely.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked, meeting my gaze.

I tilted my head to the side. Tomorrow was Sunday, and normally I would rot on the couch with Liv watching trashy TV or walk around the city, running errands I’d put off throughout the week. “I don’t have any plans.”

“I’ll pick you up in the morning. How’s ten?”

“For what?” I laughed, shaking my head.

“I have one Christmas left in my apartment and I’ve never decorated for it. Maybe you could help me with that. If you want, of course. You don’t have to.”

“I’d love to.”

Mason chewed his lower lip for a moment as we stared at each other. I could practically feel the tension crackling between us. I’d invited him into my apartment after kissing him. Not just any kind of kiss, either, an earth-shattering kiss that I was sure would make it hard to kiss anyone else and feel even remotely satisfied.

Now what?

How far were we willing to fall?

“I should go, let you sleep.” He edged closer like he was going to reach for me but his hand curled into a fist at his side. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Okay.” I stepped out of his way so he could grab his coat.

He shrugged it over his shoulders while keeping his eyes on me, scanning my face. “Fia, I—I had a really nice time with you tonight. Kissing booth aside.”

“I think you enjoyed that more than you’re willing to admit.”

He smirked, shaking his head as he turned for the door. “I’m signing you up for it next year. I’m sure someone as beautiful as you would make a killing for the library.”

He thought I was beautiful. The word sank into my chest, blooming into something so warm I felt fevered, and it had nothing to do with the hot coffee now pumping through my veins.

I needed to calm down, but the idea of sleep was the last thing on my mind. Mason stopped at the door, his shoulders slumping as he exhaled deeply. There wasn’t much distance between us given the size of my apartment, and he stepped toward me, pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead that had me melting into a pudding of contradictions. “Lock up behind me.”

“I will. Thank you for tonight. Goodnight, Mason.”

“Goodnight, Fia.”