Chapter 9

9

FIA

T hursday evening rolled around before I knew it. The past week had been a blur of last-minute editing, shooting a very cute engagement in Central Park, and wondering what the hell was my problem when it came to Mason.

I shrugged out of my coat and lazily hung it up on a hook, then tossed my purse into the chair by the front door of my parents’ cozy carriage house in Brooklyn. They had owned it since the dawn of time, according to Dad. I grew up in those snug halls, walked the worn floorboards and memorized every piece of fruit on my mom’s favorite wallpaper that she refused to change even though we were well past the nineties.

The same smells greeted me as I walked through the living room, then the dining room, and into the kitchen, where a familiar scene greeted me. Dad sat at the kitchen table with a glass of port, reading the newspaper and complaining at length about the state of affairs on his side of the bridge, while Mom fought for her life pulling a tray of baked ziti out of the oven that’d been begging us to let it die for the past ten years.

“Fia!” Mom beamed, her curly black hair pulled away from her face with a claw clip.

I wrapped my arm around Dad’s neck and squeezed. “Mom, Dad. What’s new?”

Dad folded up his newspaper and I sat down, leaning to the side to eye the boxes of Christmas decorations stacked on the formal dining-room table in the next room. Mom caught me looking and smiled as she stuffed her oven mitts back in their designated drawer. “Want to help me after dinner? I have to get the tree out of the attic still, but Colin said he’d do it when he got here.”

“I didn’t think Colin was going to make it.” I stretched my legs beneath the table and rested them on the opposite chair, kicking my dad in the process.

He swatted my foot away, frowning over the rim of his glass. “What’ve you been doing lately, Fia? Colin said something about you going to that auction with him last weekend at the Plaza.”

“Yeah, I did do that.” I wondered what else Colin told him. “He introduced me to some of his… work friends.”

“Andy, she’s making connections. That’s what Colin said.” Mom pulled some plates out of the cabinet and set them on the table. I divided them out and took care of the cutlery next, all while Dad looked at me with nothing but skepticism.

“What, Dad?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Andy,” Mom growled.

“What, Gianna? You like her running around with Colin’s friends? All those rich, uppity?—”

“Sorry I’m late,” Colin said as he burst into the kitchen. He immediately strode to Mom’s side, kissed her firmly on the cheek, and then slumped into the chair beside me. He grabbed my chair and pushed me a few inches away, then proceeded to serve himself at least a quarter of the ziti before anyone else could even come near it. “Looks great, Mom.”

“Don’t get her started,” Dad warned, but Mom sat down beside him, patting him on the hand.

“It’s vegetarian,” she said happily.

Colin and I stared at her, going perfectly still.

“There’s no meat in the ziti?” Colin looked horrified, and Dad rolled his eyes, mumbling something under his breath.

“Blame your father and the daily hotdog he’s been eating for lunch for the past forty years. He’s on a diet, doctor’s orders.”

Colin and I looked at Dad for further explanation but he continued grumbling to himself as Mom served him a small serving of the pasta and then piled his plate with salad.

Colin leaned in, his face going slack with what I knew was fake concern. “You dyin’, Dad?”

Dad smacked him upside the head like he deserved. I giggled around my glass of water as my family started bickering playfully, with my mom raising her hands in the air and Colin continuing to goad Dad about his new diet.

“It’s you all that are raising my blood pressure,” Dad said, pointing his fork at me and Colin. “All your life. Your mother, too.”

Colin and I looked at Mom, waiting for whatever sharp comeback she had coming in Dad’s direction, but she flipped her wrist and rolled her eyes, cursing at him in Italian before serving him more salad, even though he hadn’t touched what was already on his plate.

I loved this. I came here at least once a week for family dinner. Colin usually made it if he wasn’t working late, but sometimes it was just me and my parents. The house, unchanged since my childhood, was always warm and welcoming despite the level of noise coming from the kitchen table on any given day. That was just my family—loud and loving.

“Why are you ganging up on me?” Colin said around a mouthful of ziti. “What did I do?”

“Dragging Fia to your parties, that’s what,” Dad replied, pointing an accusatory finger at Colin. “Not my Fia, okay?”

“Not your Fia, what?” Colin rolled his eyes. “You were just telling me about how you wanted Fia to get out of her apartment and start her business again?—”

“Hey,” I cut in, glaring at them both. “I’m right here.”

Mom gave me an apologetic smile as they ignored me completely.

Dad kept going. “I wanted you to make sure Fia wasn’t sulking anymore over that dickhead Jake guy, whatever his name was.”

“Dad!” I gaped at Dad and Colin.

“Jake is old news, Pops. You should be hounding Fia about her new boyfriend?—”

I kicked Colin under the table. He jerked, his head whipping in my direction. I met his eyes, silently pleading with him to shut up. Wasn’t this supposed to be a secret? It was Colin’s damn idea in the first place. Plus, this was just a ruse. Why would he risk getting our freaking parents involved?

“You have a boyfriend?” Mom practically squealed. “I knew it. I was just telling your aunt that you had to be dating someone. You weren’t even upset that we went upstate for Thanksgiving, and I knew—I knew —you had to be spending it with someone special instead.”

“He’s special all right,” Colin murmured, stepping on my toes to stop me from kicking him a second time. “You guys remember Mason O’Leary, right?”

“Mason?” Mom smiled, looking so relieved I thought she might cry, which made all of this so much worse. “Of course, we know Mason. Such a sweet boy.”

“Your boss?” Dad said, his dark eyes scanning Colin’s face. “You got your baby sister dating your boss?”

“Mason’s my best friend, Dad. I set them up. I only want the best for Fia, you know? So, get off my back, okay? She’s going with him to all the events he has to go to this season and I’ll be at a few of them too to make sure they aren’t getting ahead of themselves.” The look he shot in my direction cut me to the core. “Mason is so excited to introduce Fia to his contacts.”

“So, you are getting back into event planning?” Mom’s voice cut over the fray.

I turned pleading eyes to her. “I never said?—”

“It’s about damn time, too.” Dad nodded, his voice low and gruff. “I should have had my guys teach Jake a lesson after what he did to you, thinking he could kick you to the curb after you built his business from the ground up.”

“I broke up with him, remember? And that was—it was catering, not event planning.” I took another bite of my food because I had a feeling it was going to get worse, and regardless of how I felt right then, I wasn’t leaving my mom’s table hungry. I swallowed hard and saw that finally, everyone was looking at me and not talking, for once. “Look, I’m happy just being a photographer. I like what I do. Having my own event planning business was just a pipe dream, okay? I’d be one of a million trying to find my footing in the city.”

Mom, thankfully, heard the edge in my voice and softly cleared her throat, diverting the conversation away from my future, my dream career, and the sinking sensation I felt on every birthday as my life started to slip through my fingers.

“So, Mason?” she said. “He’s such a handsome man. It’s so nice that you’re dating someone we’ve known for so long.”

I shot Colin another look, trying to burrow into his mind to silently ask him what the hell he was thinking.

“His family is catholic too, right?” Mom asked. “I think I remember his mother telling me about that when we were there for parents weekend.”

“That was fifteen years ago,” Colin said smoothly. “I doubt he still goes to services.”

“Still, that means you can get married in the church without any issues, Fia.” Mom nodded and looked relieved.

I groaned and ran my hand over my face, slouching in my seat.

“I only remember his dad being a real piece of work,” Dad grumbled. “No wonder Mason turned to whiskey.”

“Be nice, Andy,” Mom replied lightly, giving him a nudge on the arm.

“No, really. If this guy’s anything like his dad, there’s not going to be a wedding.”

Curiosity killed the cat, so to speak. I peeked at my dad through my fingers. “What about his dad?” I remembered the cold, older version of Mason well, even though we barely met the one time at Mason’s Thanksgiving dinner.

Dad leaned back in his chair with a sigh. I looked to Colin when Dad failed to sum up his feelings, and Colin met my eyes with an identical sigh that he obviously inherited from our father. “Mason’s dad?—”

“The whiskey thing has to be true,” Dad interrupted, waving his hand.

“What whiskey thing?” I asked.

Colin winced like whatever he started officially got out of hand. “Mason started making hooch in our dorm room, you know? Well, he had a recipe, and the recipe caused some major drama in his family, especially between him and Robert.”

I scanned the table, noticing my parents had been gone totally quiet.

Colin continued. “Mason’s grandma was pretty sick our sophomore year. Mason was planning on going to work for his dad’s hedge fund, rising through the ranks to eventually take over for him one day, but his grandma gave him something on her death bed and it changed everything. Their family is from Scotland, you know. They go way back—clan stuff. She had a whiskey recipe that was prized, I guess. A huge secret passed down from generation to generation, and she gave it to Mason.”

Something like dread numbed my senses but I couldn’t figure out why. “So?”

“So, he took that recipe and commercialized it, turning it into a multi-billion-dollar business, and he and his dad have had a really rocky relationship ever since.”

I zoned out as Colin and my parents went back to talking about Mason and our relationship like it was something real and meaningful. Eventually plates were cleared, and I was sitting in front of Colin at the formal dining table, sorting a box of old ornaments Mom kept, several of them handmade at school and brought home to her as gifts.

Was Mason’s reasoning for having a fake girlfriend something that had to do with his dad? Was that why he wouldn’t tell me?

Colin hummed along to the song playing on the radio in the kitchen while Mom cleaned up from dinner and Dad took his daily post-dinner snooze in the living room next door. I looked up at my brother, pulling myself out of the haze of questions clogging my brain. “Why’d you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Bring up Mason in front of our parents? This isn’t real, you know. I’m not actually dating him!”

“You guys looked pretty cozy at the auction.” He arched a brow, smiling as he unwrapped another ornament.

“I’m supposed to?—”

“Mason’s a good guy, Fia. You’re lucky, honestly.” He shifted his weight, his eyes meeting mine. “We had a luncheon today, and he was talking about you to some of our business partners, mentioning your keen eye for detail. You’re going to have some jobs lined up real soon, I bet.”

Something cracked in my heart. Something that spread, cold and utterly unexpected. I signed up for this because Colin was right—I needed to do more. I needed more money, more opportunities, and being a part of their world was the only way I was going to make a name for myself in this industry. Now, that had a chance of happening.

Why did I feel so gutted that Mason had been talking me up in a business sense and not a personal one?