Chapter 35

35

FIA

M om’s eyes went wide as I rushed after them. She rose from the table, grabbing me by the arm to prevent me from following them out the kitchen door and into the snowy night air.

“Fia,” she rushed out, keeping her voice low as a table full of my younger cousins peered at us with curiosity and skepticism. “What was that about?”

“Mom, I can’t do this right now,” I said and wrenched out of her arms, tearing for the door.

There was a bitter bite to the air as I rushed down the stairs wearing the slippers I normally wore around the house. Coatless, I nearly slipped in the driveway but caught myself between two cars, hauling myself upright and panting. I hurried out to the sidewalk and scanned the street. Their muffled voices came into earshot but I couldn’t make out what they were saying until I started running in their direction, sucking in freezing air.

“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days, Colin. I wanted to talk to you about this before this dinner with your family!”

“Talk about what? The fact you’re sleeping with my little sister? She’s twenty-five, Mason.”

“So is her friend, Liv, right?”

My shallow, rapid breath came in puffs of mist as I watched Mason and Colin square up on the sidewalk a few houses down, facing each other.

“That’s none of your business,” Colin bit out.

Mason stepped into him. “Neither is this.”

“She’s my sister!”

“I’m trying to explain to you?—”

“I don’t need an explanation. Whatever this is, it isn’t happening. You know it, I know it.”

“What do you think you know?” Mason asked. “Who the hell do you think I am?”

“Someone who put his hands on my sister?—”

“Colin.” Mason raised his hands in surrender, his expression pleading as I finally came into the light of a streetlamp. “This isn’t just some fling.”

“Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say that to me?—”

“Stop!” I shouted. Both men turned. Colin chuckled darkly as I rubbed my arms to fight the chill licking up my skin. “Please, stop. Colin, what the hell is your problem?!”

“Please go back inside,” Mason ground out, his tone sending a shock through my system.

“Mason?” I gaped. His eyes were dark even under the glow of the streetlight. Snow stuck to his hair, which would have made him look softer had his expression not been so sharp and steely. He looked livid. With me? I wasn’t sure.

“I can’t believe you,” Colin said to me. “Mason was my friend.”

“ You did this to us!” My voice cracked over the words. “You told me I owed you, and this was how I could repay you for messing up your friend’s wedding! You made me do this!” I looked at Mason with pleading eyes. “Mason, I just found out about the job offer. I hadn’t decided on anything yet.”

Mason just looked at me like he didn’t recognize me, which gutted me.

“Mason—”

“Go back inside, Fia,” he said calmly, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “Please.”

“No.”

“This is between me and Colin.” He took a tentative step toward me, and I shocked myself by backing away.

“No. It’s not between you and Colin. This is between you and me.” I tore my gaze from Mason’s drawn face and glared at my brother, shaking my head. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m not.”

“You just embarrassed all three of us in front of the entire family. You did this a few weeks ago when you brought Mason up at dinner, remember?” I sniffled, wiping my freezing cold nose on the back of my hand. “You announced to our parents that I was dating your friend. You didn’t say anything about it being fake, about it being a business arrangement. You put me in a position to lie to our mom and dad and now you call us out for it? On Christmas Eve? In front of the entire family?”

Mason clenched his jaw. I could feel his gaze boring into the side of my face as I kept my eyes firmly planted on Colin.

“This is not the kind of guy you need.”

“You don’t get to decide that for me,” I said.

“Did you not learn anything the past few weeks?” Colin raised his voice, gesturing wildly to Mason, who was just standing there and taking it. “We’re not a part of their world, Fia. Do you know what people say about me? In the circles I run in? Why do you think I got dumped right before Thanksgiving, huh? We are not like them.”

“Colin, that’s enough,” Mason practically growled, but Colin pressed forward, not skipping a beat.

“You’re always going to be a middle-class nobody from Brooklyn, just like me.” He turned his attention to Mason. “I’m not letting you do this to her. Having her on your arm for the events this season was one thing. She got what she needed to get out of that, and now she can go to LA?—”

“Stop it!” I was two steps away from grabbing my brother and trying to shake some sense into him.

“Fia, please,” Mason said coolly. “Go back inside.”

My eyes watered as I looked at him. Whether from the cold or the emotions flaring through my body, I wasn’t sure. But I was sure of one thing. He looked bored. Indifferent. “You told me you’d talk to him about this and you didn’t.”

“I didn’t have a chance.”

“Then do it now.” I barely recognized my own voice, and I hated it. The pleading, begging whine that came from me sounded like exactly the type of women I had promised myself I would never be. Mason showed up. He made me feel wanted. He made me believe that this was real. Realer than real.

Like we were meant to be together.

Until right now.

I’d accidentally called myself his girlfriend earlier. It wasn’t a conversation we’d had, not really. We hadn’t put a label on it because he wanted to talk to Colin first.

Mason tucked his hands in the pockets of his pants and turned to Colin, but he didn’t say anything. He just looked him up and down and shook his head before turning to face the road.

“Mason?” I bit out, shocked.

“Yeah, walk away,” Colin scolded, puffed up and obviously two glasses too deep with wine.

Mason stopped walking and turned around, running his tongue along his lower teeth before stalking in Colin’s direction. I’d never seen someone move so swiftly and purposefully before, and suddenly, for the first time since I met him, I saw him as the man Colin has described him as. Cold. Unmovable. Emotionless and driven. “We’re not having this conversation while you’re wasted, and not in front of Fia. She doesn’t deserve that.”

“You don’t get to tell me what she deserves?—”

“I’ve spent the last several weeks doing everything in my power to give her just that, Colin.” Mason’s eyes flicked to mine, his expression unreadable as he turned back to Colin. “You know me, which is the worst part about this. You know me, Colin, probably better than anyone.”

He took a step away from Colin and my brother looked like he’d just been slapped in the face.

But now Mason was looking at me, some emotion finally creeping back into his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s—”

Mason interrupted me. “He’s going to make you choose and I can’t be a part of that. I can’t get between you and your family.”

I furiously shook my head. “No, Mason, I?—”

“Leave,” Colin growled at Mason, furious. “Get out of here.”

I took a step in Mason’s direction, but Mason shook his head. “Stay here, Fia.”

“No. No, we have dinner with your parents.”

Mason looked down at his shoes, biting down on his lower lip like he was trying to hold himself back from saying something he either desperately needed to say, or something he’d regret. Maybe both, I realized, a moment too late. “I’m so sorry.” He turned away from me, walking into the snowy street, his body cast in the shadow of the streetlights as I gaped after him, numb.

When Colin tried taking my arm, I shoved him. “What the hell is your problem?” I hissed, shoving him again. “What made you think this was any of your business?”

“Mom told me about your job offer. Are you kidding me, Fia? You’d stay here, for him?”

“I love him.” The words ghosted through the vacuum of snowy silence between us. Colin’s lips parted, but I shook my head, tears beginning to roll down my face and freeze to my cheeks. “That isn’t what you want to hear, is it? That I fell in love with your friend? Your CEO? I love him. I love him, and whatever you said to him, you ruined it. I’ll never forgive you.”

“I’m just trying to save you from having your heart broken again.”

“Too late. Do not say another word to me.” I whirled and hurried back to the house, going through the garage door on the first floor to avoid the party upstairs. I couldn’t handle it. I shut the garage door behind me and sank to the cold, dusty floor, burying my face in my hands.

Eventually I heard a commotion upstairs. Colin must have gone back inside and was getting a major talking to by everyone. I couldn’t make out the words. I didn’t care to know, honestly.

Why had Mason just walked away like that?

I curled into myself, pressing my knees against my chest. I wasn’t sure how many minutes or even hours ticked by. The noise upstairs turned to a muffled hum of engines and boots crunching through the snow. Soft well wishes of Merry Christmas drifted behind my back, and the house fell silent.

The interior door to the garage opened and shut, followed by my dad’s heavy tread. He came to a stop in front of me but I refused to lift my head.

“I got you a plate of dessert upstairs. It’s waiting for you.”

“I’m not very hungry.”

“No, you wouldn’t be, huh?” He groaned and cursed under his breath as he maneuvered into a sitting position beside me, his joints popping aggressively. He roped a burly arm over my shoulder, sighing. “Colin’s sobering up upstairs. Your mom has him doing all the dishes.”

“I hate him.”

“You don’t.” Dad gave me a little nudge. “You don’t hate Colin. You don’t have to like him, and he’s a dumbass fool for the stunt he just pulled, but you don’t hate him.”

Silence swelled between us for several minutes.

“I’m not gonna ask about what happened.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“But I am gonna say, because I have to, as the man of the family and your dad, that I’m sorry.”

I looked up at him, confused. “For Colin?”

“For being part of a union and raising the two of you in Brooklyn instead of Park Avenue.”

“Dad, that’s not… that isn’t what it’s about.”

“To Colin it is. I’m not going to act like I know what exactly happened up there, and out on the street for all the neighbors to hear, but Colin has some bitterness he hasn’t been able shake after his breakup. I know he’s friends with Mason and they went to college together and what not, but Colin has never seen himself as being even remotely in the same league.”

“That’s stupid, Dad.”

“Yeah, it is but try seeing this from Colin’s side for a minute. He doesn’t want what happened to him happening to you.”

Mason wasn’t like that. Mason wasn’t like Colin’s ex-girlfriend, who broke up with him because he wasn’t “old money” enough to appease her fancy, wealthy parents.

Right?

“Now come upstairs and get something to eat, okay? Santa will be here any minute now.”