Chapter 25

25

FIA

M ason walked toward our corner booth in the little diner a few blocks away from his office. It was the kind of place that was open at odd hours, serving a full menu all day. A true greasy spoon with linoleum tiles, chipped vinyl tables, and a soft, quiet atmosphere that reminded me of taking road trips to the Jersey Shore every summer to play on the beach. Tacky Christmas decorations covered every surface while soft jazz played over the speakers—Christmas jazz, of course.

A fabric Christmas tree on the bar started dancing and singing, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” in a prerecorded voice. Mason jumped, swore, and might have considered taking a swing at it before calming himself down enough to roll his eyes and slide past it.

He slid into the booth across from me, his hand now wrapped in gauze and roughly bandaged together with whatever came in the little first-aid kit I’d picked up at CVS on our way here. I sipped my coffee from a thick porcelain mug with the animated version of the Grinch printed across it. “Do you need me to fight that tree for you?”

“Maybe.” He looked over his shoulder and grimaced. “Haunted, for sure.”

“It’s probably from the nineties, so you might be on to something. We used to have one. Colin and I used to hide it around the house to scare our parents. We had it for one Christmas before it mysteriously disappeared, like Colin’s Furbies.”

“Colin would have Furbies,” he said with a laugh.

“He had three, actually. He used to make them talk to each other.”

“That’s demented.”

“I know.” I laughed and took a sip of coffee. “I was like, five, when my mom brought them down from the attic when she was cleaning out the house, taking things for donation. They’d been up there for years and started talking again the second she took them out of the box.”

Mason shivered, shaking his head. I smiled so widely my cheeks burned. It was, admittedly, easy to avoid what had just happened at his office. I’d only been standing there for two, maybe three minutes but I was sure I’d caught the most heated part of their conversation—their fight.

They’d been fighting about me.

The memory of Mason’s words—that he loved me—rippled through my mind with every breath I took. It was growing harder and harder to tell myself this was still all for show.

“Fia, I shouldn’t have left you in the cold like that. I should have explained what was happening and why I wasn’t around from the beginning, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.” His eyes met mine, a solid, beautiful blue in the unflattering fluorescent lighting. Mason looked good regardless. He was ruffled and exhausted, which was obvious based on the dark circles under his eyes and the hollowness of his cheeks. He had his sleeves rolled up his forearms, his muscles tense as he turned his mug in a circle. “You didn’t deserve that.”

“You were busy saving your company’s reputation,” I argued, feeling awful for my past thoughts and assumptions.

He shook his head, looking down at his coffee. “I didn’t stop thinking about you the entire time. I couldn’t stop.”

Silence swelled between us, broken by the music drifting through the air overhead. I opened my mouth to reply something, anything, but a waitress floated over to take our order.

“What’re you having, kid?” she asked me without meeting my eyes, all business in her sparkly clean uniform that smelled vaguely of cigarette smoke. The tells of a good diner, in my humble opinion.

“The Belgian waffles with extra syrup and whipped cream please. And he’ll have the house breakfast, double meat with bacon and sausage links, four eggs over medium. Hashbrowns instead of home fries and a side of country gravy.”

She raised her brows, her gaze sliding from mine to Mason’s. “Toast with that?”

Before Mason could even open his mouth, I said, “Pancakes, make it a double order. Butter, syrup, the works.”

She scribbled the massive order down and walked away before Mason could object. I could feel his gaze on my face and I blushed, hard.

“I’m supposed to be the one ordering for you, I think.” He grinned wryly and shook his head. “I don’t like hashbrowns, just so you know.”

“Good thing I ordered those with me in mind. They’re my favorite.” I grinned, and the fresh ice that had formed between us was officially broken. “You look like you haven’t eaten in days, anyway.”

“I haven’t.” He sipped his coffee and shifted his weight in the booth. His foot accidentally slid across mine, and he stilled, eyes meeting mine. “Fia?—”

“I like you a lot,” I said without preamble, unable to stop myself. “I think this is getting really complicated and I don’t know what to do or how to act around you anymore.”

He rolled his lower lip between his teeth, then sucked in a breath in preparation to reply. To shut me down, I guessed, but I barreled forward.

“The night we spent on the yacht was unexpected and I loved it. I didn’t want that night to end, and I spent the entire week wondering if it was a mistake because, as much as I like you, I also like being your friend, and I’m worried—” I cut myself off.

I waited for him to break my heart, but instead, he moved his foot so our legs were touching beneath the table. He closed his hand around mine, squeezing. “Nothing about what’s happened between us has been fake to me. I know it was supposed to be that way, but I want to it be real. That night in the park when we got attacked by those teenagers?”

I laughed, biting down on my lower lip to stop the noise. His eyes darted to where I pinned my lip between my teeth. “I remember.”

“That night something shifted. It started at the library when I sat at the kissing booth and wished I was being kissed by you instead of all those sweet old ladies. It hasn’t stopped.”

“It hasn’t stopped for me either,” I managed to say, and his eyes rose to mine again, heavy and tired but serious.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted.

“Me neither.”

“But I want to?—”

“I want to do this,” I cut in with a shrug.

He was still holding my hand when the waitress dropped off the food. He didn’t let go for what felt like an eternity, but I wasn’t in a hurry. Then we sat in that cheap little diner and I ate my waffles while he absolutely ravaged the house breakfast, served up at eight in the evening, all while the city spun with activity beyond the frosted, dusty windows.

We didn’t talk about what happened in his office until we were walking arm in arm down the street aimlessly, no destination in sight.

“I wish you hadn’t heard that,” he said at a crosswalk, his face showered in neon lights. “In my office.”

“I’m shocked I did. The doorman chased me up three flights of stairs.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “You took the stairs to my office?”

“I got on the elevator on the fifth floor.” My legs were still aching from the climb, though. “Is it always this bad with your dad?”

“No, this is the worst.” He hung his head for a moment in thought before leading me across the street. We turned down another brightly lit, surprisingly busy avenue. “He’s upset with me because he feels like I might have ruined the family name for real this go around, but I don’t see it that way. His problem is I never have.”

“You don’t care about your family’s reputation? Isn’t that all that rich families in New York care about?”

“I guess so.” He nodded, shrugging. “I guess I don’t fit the mold.”

“I’m glad you don’t. You’re not what I expected you to be.”

“What did you think I’d be?”

“Stuck up, bossy, posh.”

“Posh?”

“I mean, you do like expensive suits.”

“I love expensive suits.”

I threw my head back in a laugh. He smiled, his eyes shimmering with light from a corner bodega we passed, still directionless. “I just expected you to be like Colin, but worse.”

“Colin’s not that bad.”

“I’m not saying he is,” I amended, pulling him to a stop. I licked my lips, trying to find the words I needed to explain what I meant, but I was actively falling short. How could I possibly tell him he was everything I didn’t know I wanted, and more? “I just didn’t expect to like you.”

“I didn’t expect to like you either.”

“How did this happen?” I laughed.

“Christmas magic? Isn’t that what you believe in?”

I gave him a nudge in the ribs. “I’m on Santa’s good girl list, apparently. I’ve been asking for a billionaire to sweep me off my feet for years. I’ll probably find you wearing a shiny little bow under my Christmas tree on Christmas morning.”

“I don’t think I’ll fit. I barely fit in your apartment as it is.” He paused mid-step, looking around. “Do you want to grab a drink? I could use one after the week I’d had.”

I would have done anything to forestall going home right then, so I nodded, letting him lead me down the street and into an alley. At first, I hesitated and dug in my heels when we approached a service door leading into what I thought might have been a butcher shop, but Mason seemed confident that he knew where he was going. I was just along for the ride. It wasn’t a butcher shop, but it looked like one. We passed through hanging strips of fabric into a room made from plastic and metal, passed several people loading crates, and stopped in front of a scary-looking man that made Mason, who was taller than most of the men I knew, look like he should be working for Santa at the North Pole.

I looked up at the bald, tattoo-covered man and wondered if now was the time I should call my mom and tell her I loved her, but he smiled at Mason, clapping him hard on the shoulder.

“Been ages, O’Leary. Your usual table is ready.”

“Thanks, Mark. How’s the family?”

Mark rapped his knuckles on the huge metal door behind him three times, then a pause, then a fourth. “Better than ever, man. Sidney got into that prep school I was telling you about. She loves it, been playing on their basketball team the past few months. Davie’s still going to that Montessori academy downtown but he’ll be in kindergarten next year, and the wife is still deciding where we’re going to put him next.”

Then Mason was clapping Mark, the giant, on the arm, congratulating him. We walked through the door behind him and were met by red-velvet darkness, the smell of whiskey and cigars thick in the air.

“Do you have something you need to get off your chest?” I whispered, clutching Mason’s arm for dear life.

“This isn’t a sex club, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking that! But now I am!”

We turned a corner and I gasped. A beautiful, obviously very exclusive art-deco bar spread out before us. The bartender raised a glass to Mason as we walked past, and I realized he must come here often, which didn’t surprise me in the slightest. It screamed him .

We sat down at a private table surrounded by red curtains, mostly closed off from the rest of the space.

“It’s a speakeasy, technically. You have to know someone who knows someone to get in,” Mason said proudly, a bit smugly, actually.

“Do you take your dates here to stay out of the public eye?” I asked.

“I’ve never brought a date here. This place has always just been for me.”

Until now . The unsaid words spun into my heart as he looked into my eyes with a soft, easy smile. He ordered me a drink called the Santa Baby Manhattan, which I loved. It was much better than the themed drink I choked down at the first major event we went to together. He sipped scotch while we listened to a live jazz band, his hand resting on my thigh, warming my skin through my jeans.

“Are we still going to that charity event on Friday?” I asked, lost in the bliss of the moment.

“I’d like to, if you’re up for it. It might not be a great time based on what’s going on with my company. I’m sure I’ll be bombarded with questions the entire time.”

“We’ll make it fun. We always have.”

He nodded. “We have.”

I listened to the music again, but then I remembered something. Something that would have meant the world to me only a few weeks ago, something I would have been obsessing over had I been anywhere else and with anyone else. “Remember how you introduced me to Heather Schuyler?”

“Yeah. She’s great.”

I nodded. “She offered me a job.”