Chapter 28

28

MASON

I ’d never seen anything more beautiful than how Fia looked right then, sprawled beneath me, gasping for breath as she came undone. I felt her come, felt it flow through her like a tremor as she tightened her grip on my shoulders. I kissed her through it, allowing myself to come unglued inside of her, thankful I had a condom in the bedside table after all.

We lay tangled with each other for a long while. The lights were off, and the glow of the city illuminated the room as she brushed sleepy touches over my arms, my chest, and my stomach. I had her curled against me, her cheek resting in the crook of my shoulder, and I had no desire to ever move again.

I’d already decided this was what I wanted. Maybe I knew the moment I saw her walk through the doors of my restaurant. Fia was mine, and I wasn’t going to let her go. Unless it was what she wanted, and in that case I would live with the regret of not trying hard enough.

I slipped into sleep unwillingly with her by my side, warm and full. Soft in all the right places. I woke to dreary morning sunlight on Sunday morning to Fia still lying there, turned on her side, naked.

Her hair had been wet from the snow the night before and now stuck out in all angles in beautiful curls. I instantly wanted her again.

I told myself it could wait until later. That feeling in my chest like she would disappear if I got out of bed and made her the breakfast I promised wasn’t anything I needed to lean into. So, I slipped out of bed, dressed, and left her sleeping in the center of my sheets. I clutched the doorframe and looked over my shoulder at her. Beautiful. She belonged at the Met with the other priceless art.

I was mixing pancake batter when my phone started to buzz on the counter. Only a few people had that number, and the name that lit up my screen sent a shock through my system.

I answered the phone right as Fia appeared wearing nothing but one of my shirts, a white one that didn’t hide the fact she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath.

“Colin,” I said by way of greeting, pressing the phone to my ear. Fia went white as death.

“Hey, man, what are you doing?” her brother asked me.

“Making breakfast.” I held Fia’s gaze as I aggressively mixed the batter, tilting my head toward the coffee machine in invitation. “Why? Did something happen at the office?”

“No, nothing like that. I just wanted to make sure you actually planned to take the day off today.” Fia dropped her mug and squeaked, slapping her hands over her mouth. “Who was that?” Colin asked with a wry laugh. “Wow, are you finally back on the scene? Tell me about her.”

“It’s my cleaning lady,” I lied, shooting Fia a look as she crept on her hands and knees across the kitchen floor in search of the mug.

“Good, I thought you might have been cheating on my sister.” His laugh sent a twisting sensation through my chest. I hadn’t told Colin what was happening and now I had his baby sister in my apartment, half naked, crawling on my floor looking for a coffee mug while I cooked her breakfast, with plans to have sex with her again at least once this morning.

I cleared my throat, steadying myself with my palm on the counter. “Let’s get together later. I need to run something by you.”

“Can’t today. I’m headed to Brooklyn. Have you talked to Fia since last night? I know you guys had that event, but we have a family dinner tonight and she never answered my texts about it yesterday.”

Fia popped up with her mug and immediately clipped her head on the corner of the counter.

“Shit,” I muttered, fumbling with my phone. “I haven’t heard from her but I can call her.”

“That would be great.” Colin paused. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just trying to get back into a routine.” The words were rushed through gritted teeth as I knelt to inspect Fia’s forehead while she held a hand over her mouth, her eyes watering.

“See you tomorrow at the office then,” Colin said.

“Okay, bye.” I hung up and dropped my phone on the floor beside me, taking Fia’s face between my hands. “Are you okay? I know that hurt.”

“I’m fine!” She sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. “Am I bleeding? Are my eyes still facing the same way?”

“Your eyes are gorgeous, and you’re not bleeding, but I’m shocked you didn’t cut your head open.” I ran my fingers gently over her hairline and sighed with relief. She would have a bruise, for sure, but nothing worth a trip to urgent care. I wasn’t sure we would be able to lie our way out of that one.

“What do we do about Colin?”

I closed my eyes and sat on the floor in front of her. “I’m going to talk to him. You don’t have to do anything.”

“I feel like I should be the one. I’m his sister.”

“I’m his best friend.”

It was a stalemate. We stared at each other, serious, internally contemplating our next move. But then the corner of her mouth ticked up in a smile, and her eyes creased with silent laughter.

I cracked, smiling down at my hands. “What is wrong with you?”

“With me?” she choked, bursting out with a chest rattling laugh.

“You’re the clumsiest person I’ve ever met!”

“You have the tiniest, slipperiest coffee mugs I’ve ever seen!”

“You were crawling on the floor, Fia. While I was on the phone with your brother, no less.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy the show.” Her tone dropped into a heated, teasing purr that had me running my tongue against the back of my teeth.

“You’re a menace.”

“Get me some coffee while I ice my head,” she grumbled but smiled at me as she rested her head on her hand, exhaling sharply.

She looked really cute right then. Ruffled and undone, her legs bare and her hair knotted in a bun on the side of her head. I leaned in and kissed her, feeling her lips warm and soft against mine.

“You promised me breakfast,” she whined when I tried to deepen the kiss.

I had, in fact, promised.

I made her a latte with a copious amount of sugar since I didn’t have anything resembling flavored syrup. I flipped pancakes while she chatted to me from a barstool, asking about my usual routine on the weekends.

“I don’t really do weekends.”

“Of course you don’t.” She laughed, cupping her coffee mug. “But if we start dating, you’ll have to carve out some time off, won’t you?”

“Start dating? I thought we’ve been together for, what was it? Two years?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“You’d be my reason for taking weekends off instead of spending them in the office like normal,” I told her as I slid a plate of pancakes in her direction. She caught the plate, looking smug. “I’d be home from the office by six on the weekdays.”

“You’d be home by five,” she amended, arching a brow.

“Half past five.” I leaned on the counter, holding the syrup hostage.

She eyed the syrup, pursed her lips, and made a show of considering my terms. “Fine.”

I passed her the syrup and went back to the pancakes still on the stovetop.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked.

“Well, we have Abigail’s big Christmas tree event tomorrow night now.”

“Oh, yeah.” She grinned as I flipped a few pancakes. “What exactly is that?”

“She fills her mansion with trees and we each bring an ornament to decorate the trees with. The trees are auctioned off a few days later at some charity auction her foundation puts on every year.”

“Are we going to the auction?”

I shook my head. “We have plans that night.”

“What night?”

“Christmas Eve. Want another cup of coffee?”

She nodded but looked conflicted as she swiveled in her chair. “Are we still going to dinner with your parents?”

I sighed, closing my eyes for a moment. I knew she overheard what my dad said about her. She acted like it hadn’t affected her, but it sure as hell had affected me.

“I think you should go,” she said.

“There’s no point.”

“I’d like to meet your mom.”

I turned with a coffee for myself and a refill for her. “My mom would love you.” I was being honest. Mom would love Fia. Her charm, her artistic sensibilities. “I’ll think about it.”

She smiled, shrugging, and went back to her pancakes.

I sat beside her and pulled out my phone, raking through my schedule for tomorrow. Fia glanced at my phone, curious.

“What’s Pitch mean?”

“I’m going to pitch taking my grandmother’s recipe to market on a larger scale. It’s not great timing based on everything that happened this week.”

“Why do you have to pitch anything when it’s your company?”

“I have a board. Investors I need to impress. Being a CEO doesn’t necessarily mean you have full control, but they normally see things my way.”

“You seem nervous though.”

I smirked, toying with my breakfast. “Are you reading my mind?”

“You don’t like public speaking, huh?”

“I don’t like having to prove that I know what I’m doing to a group of men who only care about how much money I’m about to make them.”

“Tell me your pitch.” She forked a piece of pancake drenched in syrup.

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ve seen you naked, Mason. You think I’m about to start judging you now?”

Heat flared across my cheeks. I swiped my tongue across my lower lip. “I was just going to give them the data. Our heritage line, that’s what the whiskey’s called, does really well in the restaurant where we serve it exclusively. It’s brewed in very small batches right now. We do twelve barrels a year. I have three barrels that have been aging since I started my company. I want to be able to do more.”

“So the whiskey you currently sell isn’t even your family recipe?” she asked.

“It’s close, but not quite.”

She nodded, taking it in. “You should name it after her.”

“Name what?”

“The whiskey. You should name it after your grandma. I bet—I bet that would make your dad happy.”

“I’ve been trying to make him happy for years, Fia. It’s not that simple.”

“Maybe it is that simple,” she replied, giving me a little nudge.

A few hours later, I drove her home. It’d been a while since I took my own car for a spin, and it felt good having her beside me, my hand resting on her thigh as I sat in gridlocked, Sunday traffic.

“Colin wanted me to remind you that you have family dinner tonight,” I told her over the Christmas music playing on the radio.

Fia shrugged, slouching in her seat. “I already told my mom I wasn’t going to make it. I have to work on Heather Schuyler’s party.”

“How’s that going?”

“Great. Fine. It’s a lot of work.” She laughed, shaking her head. “I love it, of course. This is such an amazing opportunity but it’s also making me realize how much I like just doing photography.”

I pulled up to her building and considered just driving her back to my apartment, holding her captive for the rest of our lives. But Fia ran her hand over her face, sighing as she said, “Will you be my date to her party?”

“Of course I will.”

“A real date, not part of our scheme.”

“Yeah, Fia. I’d love to.”

I got out, jogging to her side of the car before she could open the door herself. I walked her up to her building, our heads ducked against the snow. We were laughing, but then it hit me.

“I need you to know that I really care about you,” I told her. “Last night was amazing.”

“It was,” she agreed, standing on her tiptoes to kiss me. I returned the kiss, realizing how deep I was falling.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night.” She squeezed my hand and let go, turning for the door.

Our last official event as a pretend couple.

Then what?