Chapter 16

16

MASON

M y guys on the distillery floor were watching from the balcony overlooking the still room, chuckling as Fia fluttered around me, testing a variety of equipment.

When Fia motioned for me to sit down on a stool in front of one of the giant copper stills, one of the guys whistled. I glanced up at them, willing myself not to start blushing.

My foreman snapped his fingers at the workers on the balcony and motioned for them to get back to work, and within a minute Fia and I were alone again. The unsettling silence between us was punctuated by the gentle hum of the distilling equipment.

It was three in the afternoon on a quiet Wednesday. She’d texted me Monday morning after having dinner at my place, letting me know she was busy with forgotten plans and we’d have to postpone the shoot until today.

I hadn’t heard from her since, and judging by her clipped tone and the fact she could barely meet my eyes in the half hour that she’d been here, I gathered that something was wrong. That maybe I’d done something wrong.

She had her whole setup here. A camera and a variety of lenses. Lighting, a tripod, other things I knew nothing about and couldn’t name. I felt like I was seeing a glimpse of her world for the first time. This was Fia at work. Fia at her most concentrated. Fia at her most serious.

“Hmm.” She snapped a few pictures.

“I wasn’t ready?—”

“Test shots,” she cut in and finally gave me a hint of a smile. “I’m just checking the lighting. The copper behind you is throwing me off a bit.” She chewed her lower lip as she looked down at the camera screen, internally debating her next move. “Take off your suit jacket.”

I was glad my audience was long gone. They would have gotten a kick out of me stripping down at her command. I obeyed, carelessly tossing my jacket on a railing a few feet out of the frame. She hadn’t told me what to wear, so I went with my usual, especially since I’d come here from the office across town. Black pants, black jacket, muted light blue button-down shirt. My favorite Rolex on my wrist.

“That’s better.” She took a few more test shots before sighing and walking over to me, hesitating for a moment before reaching up and adjusting my hair.

She was wearing a warm, spicy perfume that made me want to lean in, but I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the way her nails raked over my scalp as she swept the rogue curls away from my forehead. “Did you know that you have an auburn hint to your hair?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Only in certain light.”

“Were you a redhead as a kid?”

“Not quite.”

“Huh, interesting.” She stepped back and looked at me like I was a prop. Looking through me, honestly. Her face had lost that bright, playful expression she perpetually wore.

I shifted uncomfortably as she moved back behind her camera.

“Turn to the side a bit for me. Okay, stop. And smile.”

I winced as the camera clicked and the flash went off.

“Not what was I thinking but… okay,” she said.

“Fia?”

“Turn back to me a bit but keep your body angled just like that?—”

“Fia, is something wrong?”

The camera clicked. I squinted against the flash.

She shook her head. “No, why?”

“Did someone die?”

“What?” Her head popped up from behind the camera, her eyes going round. “Who died?”

“I’m asking you. You’re acting weird.”

She cocked her head at me. “I’m not being weird. I’m doing my job.”

“You’ve barely said a word to me since you got here and you didn’t text me back this morning, or the day before.”

The column of her throat bobbed as she swallowed, her eyes downcast on the screen.

I didn’t want to come off as clingy. That was the last thing I wanted to do, but if she felt the same way I did, I had a sneaking suspicion that kiss, and our weekend in each other’s company, were making her feel off kilter.

“I’m just having an off day,” she tried to tell me, shaking her head again. “That’s all.”

“It’s not the kiss?”

She gritted her teeth and sighed, running her fingers through her hair. “Mason…”

“I’m sorry that happened.” I’m not . “It won’t happen again.” I really hope it does. “I think I got too far into character that night. I apologize if that made things weird between us.”

Her eyes met mine with an unreadable expression swirling behind them. I couldn’t tell if she was happy with the apology or exceedingly disappointed. “I don’t want you to apologize.”

“Then what do I do?” I asked, my voice crumbling. “I don’t like whatever is happening right now. You haven’t said a mean thing to me since you got here.”

She bit down on a smile. “I’m not being mean to you and that’s why you’re worried?”

“Yeah, actually. What happened?”

“Nothing happened.” She toyed with the tripod but kept her eyes on mine, rolling her lip between her teeth like she was trying to hold back what she really wanted to say.

“Just say it,” I pressed, leaning forward a bit.

“I just—wait, stay right there. Don’t. Move.” Her face dipped back behind the camera while adjusting the lens. My back felt pinched slouching forward like this but I held my position. “Smile, okay? Just a little one.”

“I don’t smile, Fia.”

“Yes, you do. I’ve seen it.”

“Well, you’re the only one who has.”

She peeked at me from behind the camera, shooting me a sharp, cat-like smile. There it was, finally. That attitude, that flare I’d missed. I hadn’t realized I’d given her the smile she so desperately wanted until the flash went off and she took a deep, restorative breath. “I think that’s the best we’re going to get.”

“Can I straighten up now?”

“Yeah, of course.” She waved a hand in dismissal and popped the camera off the tripod, flipping through the pictures before coming to a stop at my side. “See how bored you look?”

“Uh, thanks?”

“But this one is perfect. You look happy. You should look happy on your website, you know, so people think you actually like your job and care about your business.”

“You should teach this at Columbia.”

“They don’t teach marketing strategies?”

“Not to me. I have a team for that.”

She smirked, giving me a little nudge with her elbow. “I’ll edit it a bit, add some contrast. The copper behind you really makes your eyes pop.”

“Do you have to edit them right away?”

“I’d like to. It’s always better to do it while the little details about what I want to adjust are fresh. I planned on doing that tonight, anyway. I was supposed to go out to dinner with Liv but she canceled last minute, saying she had a date.” Her smile faltered as she shrugged.

“Do you have plans for dinner?”

“Hmm, leftovers and a movie on my couch.” She eyed me for a moment, lowering her camera. “Do you have plans?”

“I’m going back to the office after this for a few hours but no, nothing other than that. I could come over?”

She hesitated again, looking into my eyes like she was searching for something. She had no idea I was doing the same thing. It was stupid, honestly, how the two of us were ignoring what was building between us.

Was it possible for us to just be friends? To go back to the way it was before I kissed her? I hoped so because I wasn’t sure how far I could take this or how far she wanted this to go, but I was forgetting about our deal with every passing moment. My feelings for her weren’t fake anymore.

“Do you want to watch me edit your photos and pick your favorite? Normally I’d send them in an email but if you don’t have plans, I guess I could use the company.”

“Next time, just come in,” Fia teased as I stepped into her apartment. “Oh, my gosh, how hard is it snowing out there?” She brushed snow from my shoulders.

“Hard,” I grumbled, looking for a place to slip off my wet shoes and coat.

“Did you walk?” She laughed in disbelief.

“I told you I liked to walk.”

She helped me with my jacket and hung it up. “What does Rex do while you’re galivanting around town? Isn’t carting you around his only job?”

“Well, he can add fitting a Christmas tree into a service elevator to his resume now. And I don’t galivant, for your information.”

“Sure,” she teased, motioning for me to follow her to the couch. I immediately noticed that her plastic Christmas tree was broken at its base and leaning against the wall, half of its lights burned out.

“Don’t ask,” she huffed, flopping down on the couch. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

I narrowed my eyes at it. “You should unplug it before it starts a fire.”

“You’re always so worried about something traumatic happening to me.” She slid over so I could sit beside her, but the couch wasn’t that big, and our thighs were touching as she leaned forward to grab her laptop off the coffee table. “Fracturing my skull falling out of my loft, falling down your stairs, getting hit by snowballs. Now, suffocating from smoke inhalation because my fifteen-year-old Christmas tree may catch fire in the middle of the night? You must really like your fake girlfriend, darling.”

“I’d have to find a new one if anything happened to you, that’s why.”

“Oh, please. Like that would be hard.”

It would be hard to find someone I liked as much as her. She opened her laptop and proceeded to walk me through all the edits she made, directing me to choose my favorite. In the end, her favorite won out, and she emailed it to me.

“Is taking pictures of couples different than doing portraits?”

“In a way,” she replied, leaning her back against the cushions. “Weddings are generally very posed and you have to worry about two bodies instead of just one. Portraits are of the face, you know, so there’s a lot of emotion and nuance involved. That’s why I wanted you to smile.” Her eyes met mine. “When you smile at me you get this look in your eyes that I don’t see otherwise.” She toyed with a loose string on her gray sweatpants. “I wanted to see if I could capture it, and I did.”

“Do you take pictures of yourself?”

She laughed. “No, no I don’t. How vain do you think I am?”

“I was just asking.” I was smiling. I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted to hear her laugh today.

“You know what I was thinking earlier? We don’t have any pictures together, and I know you don’t have social media and you still live in the bronze age?—”

“What do you mean, bronze age?”

She turned ever so slightly to face me, tucking her legs beneath her. “I talked to Colin yesterday and he said people—don’t ask me who—have been talking about the fact the infamously private Mr. O’Leary has finally been seen in public with his girlfriend.”

“Well, we both knew people would start talking.” I shrugged.

“I know you have some luncheons coming up that I’m not invited to?—”

“You’d be bored to death.”

She grabbed my arms, laughing. “Just listen to me. We don’t have any pictures together. What if you’re asked for a picture of me? What are you going to do? Say you don’t have a picture of us together? That might raise suspicions.”

She wasn’t entirely wrong. I reached into my pocket and handed her my phone. “Go crazy.”

“A picture together, Mason. With you smiling. Smiling like you’re happy to be taking a picture with me.” She settled beside me, leaning in with her head resting in the crook of my shoulder as she extended her arm.

Our faces lit up the screen, and I did my best to look relaxed. She huffed a breath and turned to glare at me. Our faces couldn’t be more than a few inches apart, and she was almost in my lap in an attempt to fit us both into the frame.

“You’re trying to look miserable on purpose!” she accused.

“I don’t look miserable!”

“You do! Just smile. Move your lips like this, see?” She cupped my cheek, her thumb sweeping over the corner of my mouth. “Just like that.”

“Fia.” I barely recognized my own voice. Her eyes lingered on my lips, her thumb brushing over my lower lip. Screw it.

I kissed her again.

I started to pull away but she pulled me back, dropping my phone between us as she clasped my face between her hands. This kiss wasn’t like our first. It was heated, desperate, and passionate in a way I hadn’t experienced before. She climbed onto my lap in nothing but those sweatpants that made my mouth water the second she opened her door in a tight white T-shirt. I could feel her heart beating out of rhythm as I slid a hand up her belly, my fingers sliding between the fabric of her shirt and her skin.

She let out a soft moan that had my synapses firing to the point I couldn’t think straight. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to throw her down on the couch and kiss down her neck to her breasts, making her make that sound over and over.

“Wait,” I breathed, my lips still pressed against her. “Fia, I don’t want to fuck this up.”

“I don’t either,” she panted, pulling away to look into my eyes. “We shouldn’t do this, should we?”

It was all I wanted to do. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she felt the same.