Chapter 18

18

MASON

I had rules. For myself. Rules that stemmed from decades of masking that morphed me into the man I was at this moment, standing on the deck of the yacht meant to drift into the stars with Fia by my side.

But she’s not here.

I watched the other guests board the boat dressed in their gowns, tuxedos, and furs. I recognized the faces of men I knew from a business standpoint. Investors and financial managers. Lawyers, consultants, and other sharks with their dates beaming on their arms.

I should have known this facade would break. I knew, deep in my bones, that kissing her would chip away at the carefully crafted wall I’d built around my heart in a protective measure to prevent people from seeing me as who I really was. Incapable of understanding the emotional nuances of others. The spiraling social anxiety that left me paralyzed. The fact that I would never fit in nor stand out, always trapped in an in-between of my own creation.

My rules were simple. No attachments. No strings. No repeats. The only app I had on my phone that could be considered social was a hookup app, totally anonymous, where I laid out everything I wanted, needed, and wouldn’t do, clear as crystal. It had been a Godsend when I was younger and desired things like touch and surface-level connection, but things changed. I watched those few men I considered friends get married, start families, settle down. I watched my company grow and my pockets expand. But I had no one to share it with. I had no one to come home to, who would sit with me in the kitchen and talk over glasses of wine.

Because no one got me, and until now, I was perfectly content with that. I was content with a life of social solitude until Thanksgiving, when that pink dress changed the trajectory of my life.

My parents never understood me. I jumped through every hoop they threw at me. Academics weren’t the issue. I excelled in school. I loved the structure, the climate of the private institutions where I thrived, unburdened by the growing shadow of my familial expectations. They didn’t understand my interests. They never put any interest in my mechanical mind. They were surprised when I couldn’t handle the social aspect of my degree path in college, why I never joined a fraternity or secret society like they had, why I never mentioned girlfriends and refused their attempts to set me up with daughters of their friends and colleagues.

I was different and they hated it, which made me hate it, and fall headfirst into a spiral that landed me here, on this yacht, alone.

My friends and colleagues took me at face value. Quiet, introspective, a touch pessimistic. I’d been called a realist. I’d been told it was impressive how bluntly I spoke, how little I cared about what was said about me. How assertive I was. How dominant. How unfeeling. Everyone, Colin included, kept their distance, leaving me out, keeping me at arm’s length.

I was used to it. To that long-suffering distance. I’d built my life around it.

Fia burst in and dismantled it, piece by piece, without even realizing what she was doing. She was the only person who’d ever looked at me and laughed. She was the only person who said whatever they wanted to say in front of me, not caring about the fact I’d go silent and still, needing a moment to process not only her words but the expression that followed, especially when they didn’t match up.

Her sarcasm was the most difficult to decipher. Her teasing nature was refreshing and exciting, and the more I got to know her, the more I just wanted to listen to her talk.

If I’d been called robotic, she was the opposite of that. She was natural. Musical. Artistic.

My rules had gotten in my way. I suddenly wanted strings. I wanted attachment. I wanted repeats of that kiss we’d shared.

But something shifted the other night. I felt it when we went out for pizza. I felt it again at my apartment. I saw it on her face—the uncertainty. The confusion. Clear, bright emotions. Emotions that were impossible not to notice flashing across someone like Fia’s face.

I didn’t know how to make it clear that I liked her more than just a partner in the social crimes we were committing. Telling her outright felt flat. It didn’t feel like enough. I wasn’t used to dating. I was used to one-night stands with women I would never see again, never think about again. I wasn’t used to wanting more.

Now I couldn’t think about anything else.

I took another sip of my scotch. I was supposed to pick Fia up tonight. I arrived at her apartment and stood there for ten minutes, buzzing the door. She hadn’t picked up her phone. She hadn’t responded to any of my texts.

“Mr. O’Leary,” a male voice echoed toward me from across the increasingly crowded upper deck. I turned to a group of men in their early fifties and their wives, glanced one more time at the emptying loading dock, and turned away from the railing, accepting the fact that she wasn’t coming.

The yacht pulled away from the dock twenty minutes later.

“I don’t understand how a man like you is still single,” chirped the wife of a Wall Street kingpin whose name I didn’t remember. “You know, I’d love to introduce you to my daughter. She’s twenty-two, just graduated from Stanford but is returning to the city. Now, the two of you would make a beautiful couple?—”

“No, thank you.”

She stiffened, scoffing under her breath as she turned away from me to allow the next group of people wanting to kiss the toes of my shoes to step forward. Why had I come to this? Why had I stayed when Fia hadn’t shown up? Now I was stuck on this ship until tomorrow with people I barely knew, or cared to get to know better.

“Mr. O’Leary—” Several conversations erupted around me. Questions about my business, the success of my last quarter, and how my family was faring made the few feet of deck I’d been able to carve out for myself feel heavy and airless. I zoned out, nodding every once in a while to act like I was in any way, shape, or form interested in the conversation.

A flash of sea-green split the crowd. Glossy dark waves reflected in the wine and champagne glasses being clutched to chests as she moved in on me, looking flustered, her impeccably, painstakingly designed gown clutching every curve.

My breath hitched as Fia huffed a breath, her eyes meeting mine, pleading.

“Excuse me,” I said gruffly, grunting the words before pushing through the crowd surrounding me. I had to stop myself from wrapping an arm around her waist and scanning her for injuries based on the look on her face. Her cheeks were incredibly flushed. Her eyes sparkled the color of the finest scotch but they were tired, unsure, her full lips unsteady as she began to apologize. “Don’t.”

“I couldn’t get into my dress by myself,” she rasped, her cheeks flaring with a blush. “Then I couldn’t get out of it. I caught a taxi and went to Liv’s apartment because I didn’t know what else to do, and when I got there, I realized I left my phone at home and didn’t have time to go back for it.” She looked up at me, her eyes glossy. “I’m so sorry. I barely made it on the boat. I didn’t know which dock it was leaving from and got dropped off at the wrong place. I had to run two blocks.”

I scanned the crowd over the top of her head, noticing the staircase leading to the quieter, open upper deck. My hands instinctively moved down her arms, down the fine satin overlay of the fur-trimmed coat she wore over her strapless gown. I wordlessly took her hand and led her through the crowd, cutting through an army of waiters arriving to divvy out the first of the appetizers. The noise of the crowd faded as I guided her up the stairs.

She stifled a gasp as the cityscape rose around us, glittering lights creating a haze over the water. We were, at least for now, the only people on that part of the upper deck.

My hand ghosted over her back beneath her coat as she came to a stop at the railing, clutching it and leaning over just enough to make me go rigid with worry. “Careful.”

“I’m not going to fall in, I promise,” she said lightly.

My fingers met something thick along the low back of her dress. I gave it tug and she gasped, turning to me with wide, horrified eyes as I fisted the dress’s price tag and tucked it casually in my pocket.

“Why did you do that?”

I shrugged. “The tag was still on the dress?—”

“I was going to take it back.” The diamond cluster earrings shimmered, sending little beads of lights across her cheeks.

“What? No.”

“I can’t keep it.” She reached up and touched the diamond choker on her neck. “Mason, I can’t keep any of it.”

“Why?”

“Because.” She looked up at me as my mind reeled over whether I’d done something wrong. “I don’t need gifts. I don’t need this stuff. I don’t want…” She trailed off, her voice fading with uncertainty.

“What do you want?” I asked earnestly, noticing the way her expression twisted into something almost panicked.

I knew what I wanted—no, needed—her to say. I needed to know that the new confused feelings in my chest weren’t only felt by me. I had to know. I needed her to say it.

Her lips parted to answer at the very moment another group walked onto the upper deck and swanky jazz music lifted from the deck below. Our moment of peace shattered. She turned her expression to steel and I had never felt so much regret over not just saying what I was thinking.

“We should dance, shouldn’t we? That’s what a real couple would do.” There was a bite to her voice that cut me to the core.

Heat rushed toward us from outdoor heaters, cranked up against the cold night air wafting off the water. She began to shrug out of her coat. A well-meaning waiter appeared, leaning in to tell Fia she’d put her coat and purse in our stateroom.

At the mention of the shared space, Fia’s eyes met mine, holding.

She looked radiant. I’d never seen anything so beautiful, nor so conflicted, as I placed my hand on her waist and we joined the other couples starting to dance across the upper deck.

“What’s the plan for tonight?” she said, her eyes on the skyline as the yacht crawled down the river.

I thought of my schedule. My calendar. My rule book. All of the things I sent to her before this happened. Before she happened. We would be dining downstairs—a six-course meal provided by a Michelin-star chef. Drinks and cigars would be served on the three stacked decks where I’d mingle with the rest of the upper crust guests. She’d hang on my arm like their wives—looking perfect, dripping in jewelry. I would show her off so people would continue to talk and our attendance at this party would eventually reach my father, adding fuel to that growing fire.

But I didn’t say any of that. My voice was low and rasping as the words drifted into her hair. “I don’t care. I don’t give a shit anymore.”

I tightened my hand on her waist and felt a rush of relief when she smiled up at me.