Billionaire Unattainable

by J. S. Scott

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. She’d end up a with a tail for the rest of her life” I said gruffly. “And she’s being protected. I have guys on her ass. I just asked them to keep their distance and be discreet.”

  “And how long will that go on?”

  “Until everybody realizes that we aren’t seeing each other. At all. Or maybe until I feel like she’ll be okay.”

  “What happens if she’s stalked by a mentally ill fan of hers, or she ends up with some asshole who beats her up, or abuses her? What happens when she chooses someone who wouldn’t protect her or treat her as well as you would?”

  I hesitated. “I’ll kill him.”

  Hudson shrugged. “You wouldn’t even know it’s happening. It could be a year down the road or more. I think right now, she’s pretty much hung up on your dumb ass, no matter how much she talks about moving on. But she did mention that she’d eventually kiss a few frogs again. She’ll date somebody else eventually.”

  Christ! I hadn’t really thought about what could happen if Laura started dating again. Probably because I couldn’t stand the thought of any other guy touching her. Ever.

  She’s. Mine.

  Laura was always meant to be mine.

  “Are you starting to re-think this whole ‘getting out of her life’ scenario?” Hudson asked mildly.

  “No,” I said, but my conviction wasn’t as strong.

  He was right. I would be there for Laura. Someone else…might not.

  Hudson crossed his arms over his chest. “So how would you feel if I decided I might want to make my relationship with Laura into something more? She’s a beautiful, compassionate, caring, intelligent woman. I already care about her.”

  I shot him a wild-eyed look. Was Hudson fucking with me? Or was he serious? “I’d kill you,” I concluded.

  He smirked. “Not liking the thought of anyone else touching her? Well, you better get over it, because she’s eventually going to end up with somebody else. She has way too much to offer to a man to stay single forever.”

  He was screwing with me, and I sure as hell didn’t appreciate it. “Bastard,” I rasped.

  “I’m just trying to make you see reality, man. You have a choice to make, and I’m not certain it’s actually not too damn late for that, but you either throw her to the wolves, who may or may not be good to her, or you take the risk and make damn sure you do everything you can to make her happy and safe.”

  “Do you really think I don’t want to be with her?” I asked in a desperate voice.

  “I have no doubt you do,” he answered calmly. “You look like you’ve been dragged through hell and back. You stayed with her and made sure she was healthy before you dumped her—”

  “I didn’t dump her,” I protested in a surly tone.

  “Read her blog post,” he suggested. “She thinks you dumped her.”

  “I did read it. It nearly broke me. If you hadn’t come through that door, I probably would have been at her place by now.”

  “You made her happy, Mason. She loved you. And then you threw everything away because of your own fears. None of this is rational.”

  “She makes me crazy,” I snarled at him. “I don’t feel rational.”

  For the first time since the shooting, I had to stop and think about whether Laura really would be safer with me.

  Was she better off with me, even if I was an asshole to be with sometimes?

  Was any other guy going to be as obsessed with her safety as I was?

  Was he going to try to make her happy like she deserved to be?

  Was anyone going to love her as obsessively as I did and always would?

  Okay, maybe the obsessive part of it wasn’t good, but… “No guy will ever love her as much as I do,” I confessed to my cousin huskily. “I don’t think it would be possible. I think she really would be safer with me than without me. I would have taken that damn bullet for her in a heartbeat if it would have been possible to it.”

  “Then you damn well better find a way to make up for the way you’ve hurt her, because I’d like to hurt you for what you’ve done. I mean, I get the fucked-up logic of trying to protect her, but doing this shit isn’t going to make either one of you happy. And Laura deserves to make the call on whether or not she can deal with the way that you love her. Maybe she will, and maybe she won’t, but you should have given her that consideration instead of deciding what’s best for her unilaterally.”

  “Why in the hell did you even come here?” I asked irritably.

  “Because, like it or not, whether you want to claim me or not, we’re family. And I care about Laura. I’d like to see both of you happy,” Hudson answered grimly. “I’m surprised your brothers haven’t had this discussion with you yet.”

  “At the moment, neither one of them are speaking to me,” I told him somberly. “They think I’m a dick.”

  Hudson laughed. “I can’t say as I blame them.”

  I glared at him. “I need to think. Get the hell out of my office.”

  “I’d think fast if I were you.”

  “Touch her and I will kill you,” I told him.

  He held up his hands as he stood up. “I’m not backing off as her friend, but I’m not the type of guy who would ever screw with another man’s woman. Besides, I haven’t found a woman yet who would ever want to take me on.”

  “I thought you and your brothers were among the most eligible bachelors in the world or something like that,” I grunted. “The media stalks all of you most of the time.”

  He grinned. “You and your brothers have been on those lists, too.”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “But we’re all taken. Have fun with that.”

  Carter used to get a ton of media attention because he let himself be high-profile as the spokesman for the corporation. But once he was married, the gossip rags had moved on.

  “So what are you going to do?” Hudson asked in a more serious tone. “You saw her blog post this morning. I don’t care what she said. She still loves you. But she’s right. If the effort isn’t there on both sides, no matter what, one person can’t keep a relationship together. If I hadn’t come here today, I have no doubt you would have come to your senses. But your time could be running out to fix this. I think what Laura was trying to say is that she’s done lamenting over what she did wrong.”

  “She didn’t do anything wrong,” I rumbled.

  “So you don’t find the scars unattractive?”

  I shot him a dirty look. “Hell, no. I hate them because every time I look at them, it reminds me that she suffered. But they also remind me of just how fearless and strong she really is. Shit, she hardly ever complained, even when I knew she was in pain.”

  Hudson strode toward the door. “I think some groveling might be in order.”

  “I rarely grovel,” I informed him stiffly. Honestly, I couldn’t remember when I ever had, but for Laura, I’d do whatever the hell it took for her to give me another shot.

  “If you’re going to see her today, I won’t go there before I leave,” Hudson said as he grabbed the door handle to leave.

  It was Sunday.

  And I didn’t plan on letting much more time go by before I saw her again. I couldn’t.

  “Go home,” I demanded.

  “Going,” Hudson said with a smirk as he exited my office.

  I followed him a few minutes later.

  Laura

  It was Sunday.

  At almost six p.m.

  And yes, I was in my office.

  But I definitely wasn’t waiting for Mason to call.

  Probably because I hadn’t heard from him for well over a week now.

  The last time I’d seen him was on my birthday. We’d spent the evening together just like I’d explained to Brynn. And then…nothing.

  Crickets.

  I drummed my fingernails on the desk in my home office, annoyed with myself because I knew that somewhere in my body, there was a sliver of hope that Mason might call
and explain exactly why he’d dumped our whole relationship.

  I had to wonder when that little piece of anticipation would start to fade every Sunday.

  I’d meant what I’d said in my blog post. It was time for me to move on. Sometimes, I just wasn’t going to know all the answers, and I wasn’t going to have the closure I wanted.

  Obviously, I was never going to know exactly why Mason had stopped calling or answering my texts.

  I just had to…let it be.

  A tear leaked from my eye, and I angrily swept it away.

  Mason Lawson didn’t deserve another single moment of my sorrow.

  I’d done enough mourning of our relationship.

  My tear ducts should be as dry as a desert by now since I’d been crying buckets over the last week.

  As of today, I was finished wandering around like I was completely empty inside. I was just going to have to find something to fill me up again.

  Eventually.

  I startled as my phone started blasting a different Taylor Swift tune as my ringtone: “We’re Never Ever Getting Back Together.”

  Not that Mason had actually tried to hook up again, but the song was more of a reminder for myself that it wasn’t happening.

  I picked up my cell, and gaped as I saw who was calling.

  Mason?

  Rather than relief, I felt nothing but anger.

  Why in the hell was he calling me now?

  Curiosity got the better of me, though. “Hello?”

  “Can you buzz me in?” he asked brusquely, with no other prelude.

  I hesitated. “You’re here?”

  “Yes. I left something here. Can you let me in?”

  My irritation flared. “You’re just going to show up, on a Sunday, at six p.m., and tell me you want to come up to my apartment after you haven’t answered a single one of my texts or my calls for over a week? Are you crazy?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” he said calmly. “Just let me come up for a minute.”

  “No.” I said firmly, and probably a little bit rudely.

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  Oh, God. When did Mason ever say please?

  That one little word made me melt.

  I felt my resolve slip just a little. “Whatever it is that you left, I’ll send it to you,” I offered shortly.

  Mason didn’t really bring anything with him when he visited me at my place, and I hadn’t come across anything of his that he’d left.

  “You can’t send it to me,” he said obstinately. “I have to pick it up personally. It’s important.”

  Fine. I want answers, right? I want closure. Here’s my chance. If he wants this unknown item back, he’s going to have to answer my questions first.

  I got up and buzzed him in, allowing him to step through the secured front door of the condo complex.

  I leaned against the wall near my front door as I waited for him to come up. “I can do this. I’ll get my answers, and he’ll get whatever the hell he left here. I can do this. I can do this.”

  I couldn’t stop whispering my mantra, even though it wasn’t really helping.

  Maybe I really needed to see the cool, disinterested Mason to finally close the door entirely on our relationship.

  Maybe I needed to see him for who he really was.

  God, I needed something, because I was far from being over him, no matter what I’d posted on my blog.

  In theory, what I’d said in my blog was exactly what I wanted to do.

  But my damn heart couldn’t stop warring with my common sense.

  In fact, my heart was racing so fast that I was starting to feel dizzy.

  I stood up straight when my doorbell rang, stiffening my spine to deal with the encounter.

  I can do this! I can do this!

  I opened the door, and the moment I saw him, I nearly gave in to the urge to fling myself into his arms.

  It was a Sunday, so he was dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a blue polo shirt.

  He looked exhausted.

  He looked like he had lost weight.

  His eyes weren’t cool and elusive as I’d expected.

  They were dark and filled with turmoil.

  He looked…tormented.

  I silently opened the door wider to let him in, and then closed it behind him.

  I can do this! I can do this!

  “Before I give you whatever you left here, I’d just like a few answers to my questions,” I said in a cool voice. “You’re not going to grab whatever you want and go.”

  He moved toward the living room, and I followed him.

  “Can we sit?” he asked. “Please. I’ll answer any questions you have, and I want to say something if you’ll let me. I can’t grab what I want. Not right now.”

  If I’d expected him to defensive, I was all wrong.

  He sat in a recliner, and I was so antsy that I perched on the arm of my couch. “What did you leave here?” I questioned abruptly.

  He looked up at me with those fevered gray eyes of his, and simply said, “My heart.”

  My eyes widened as I looked at him suspiciously. “What?”

  “I said, I left my heart here. With you, Laura. It’s been yours pretty much from the first time I saw you.”

  Oh, shit. Maybe I couldn’t do this.

  The low, solemn tone of his voice sent a shiver down my spine. “You dumped me,” I reminded him in a heated tone. I wasn’t about to just crumble because of his sweet declaration. He had stop talking to me for over a week.

  “I didn’t dump you, Laura. I was terrified.” He stood up again, and started pacing around the room like a caged tiger. “When you got shot, I lost my shit completely. I thought the only way to keep you safe was to push you away from me. You shouldn’t have been at that restaurant. You wouldn’t have been if my cousin hadn’t lured you there on a pretense. What happens the next time something happens because of me? What if a business nemesis pops up and tries to hurt you or kill you to get revenge on me? Or they kidnap you? Christ! Now that I say that, I’m still not sure if I’m doing the right thing by begging you to give me another shot. But I can’t not be your guy, either, because I know damn well no other man is ever going to love you as much as I do.”

  My heart tripped as I watched him continue to move around the living room.

  Once I caught my breath, I asked, “So you didn’t return my calls because you didn’t want me to be associated with you?”

  “Yes. I thought you’d be safer away from me. Not that you were ever actually alone. My guys have been keeping an eye on you.”

  “They have?” I said, surprised.

  “Of course.”

  He said that like I should have known that he’d keep his security on my ass. I hadn’t noticed them, so he’d obviously done it pretty covertly.

  “You love me?” I said quietly, not quite sure what to say. “I told you I loved you, but you never said it back.”

  “I wanted to,” he said fiercely. “You have no idea how badly I wanted to tell you, too. But if I had, I never would have been able to let you go. Hell, I can’t now, and you haven’t said it again.”

  “Could you stop for a minute? You’re making me dizzy, Mason.” I stepped in front of him on his next pass. He collided with my body, but grabbed me fast enough to keep me from harm.

  “Damn it. Don’t do that,” he said in a ragged voice. “I could have run you over.”

  “I want you to just talk to me,” I said softly.

  He took me by the shoulders and looked at me like a man who was being tortured. “Here’s the biggest problem, Laura…I love you too damn much. I love you like a madman. I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you. You almost died because of me.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to absorb exactly what he was telling me.

  He’d pushed me away because he was afraid I’d get hurt again.

  He was obsessed over not l
etting it happen again.

  He blamed himself for what had happened. That one bothered me the most. “What happened wasn’t your fault, Mason. Yes, I took an appointment with Hudson, but who’s to say I wouldn’t have been there eating anyway. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I could see the guilt etched into his face, and my anger fell away. He’d obviously been tormenting himself about this long enough.

  He shook his head. “Nice try, but you were, in fact, there because of me.”

  God, he was so stubborn. “It’s not going to happen again.”

  “How can I know that?” he asked in a strained voice.

  “You can’t. Not completely. None of us are fortune tellers. But I would have chosen to be with you no matter what. You didn’t choose me.”

  “I thought I did,” he said huskily. “I thought I was putting you first. Would you ever really want to be with a guy who obsesses over your safety all the damn time?”

  I had to bite back a smile. “You always have. It would have taken compromise, understanding, and time, especially considering what happened. But you chose to just push me away instead. You hurt me, Mason. You didn’t talk to me about it. You just made a decision that I’d be better off without you.”

  “Not on purpose. Never on purpose,” he vowed hoarsely.

  I let out a shaky breath. “I think I know that now. But I don’t think you realize that I need you to be with me. I need to know that you aren’t going to run away when things get difficult.”

  “I fucked up,” he confessed. “But I’d never abandon you. Never again. You said you were moving on. I can’t. There’s never going to be anyone else for me, Laura. You’re it. And that’s pretty damn scary.”