Unmasked (New Adult Romance) (The Unmasked Series)

by Karin, Anya

  "And that's where we stand. Do you have any questions?"

  "Alyssa?" Her dad's voice broke her concentration. "Any questions for Mr. Cartwright?"

  "Oh, sorry, no I don't think so." Her voice was far away. Already her eyes were fixed on Preston's form and couldn't be torn away.

  Gadsen chuckled. "That's quite alright. I know this must all be terribly exciting for you."

  "Yeah," she whispered, in the same way she mumbled ascent during conversations that bored her. "That's right."

  "Shall we, Mr. Barton? We have other business to discuss while those two are talking."

  "Sure thing, Gads – uh, Mr. Cartwright."

  "Gadsen's fine. May I call you Ryan?"

  The two men stood on the periphery of Alyssa's vision, and went off into the kitchen to do whatever they were going to do. Her attention was elsewhere.

  "Alyssa?" A voice, soft, velvety and smooth, barely above a whisper, floated to her ears.

  "Preston?" She said. "Is that really you?"

  "It is." He shifted back and forth on his feet and the hands went from his sides to his front. "Please, come closer so we can talk. Your dad has a chair he usually sits in. I prefer to stand."

  "So do I. Stand, I mean," she said.

  Alyssa couldn't believe his voice. It was so very unlike anyone else's she'd probably ever heard. He had a way of speaking that was incredibly clear, but just so quiet and soft. Her foot hit the door when she walked forward, surprising her. The next thing she noticed was how his laugh matched his speaking.

  "How...I mean, why did you want to meet me?"

  "It's a long story," he sighed. "But the short version is that I think I always have. I don't know how to say this without sounding more than a little strange. I've been trying to figure out a way for the last day and a half, but just can't manage."

  "Just say it," she said. "If you do, I'll tell you a secret I've kept for, God, ten years now?"

  He turned halfway around. She couldn't see anything, not really, only a vague outline of his face. In the dark, it was impossible even to see much of anything except a form drenched in shadows, through the door slats.

  "Are you glad you're back in town?"

  "Yeah. It's good to be here. I missed my dad. And..."

  He didn't speak, just waited for her to finish whatever she was going to say.

  "And, well, the stuff with my mom."

  "I'm sorry about that. I know that Mr. Bar – your dad – he's been having trouble. He was very excited you were coming, at least that's how it sounded in the letter I received."

  "Letter? Oh well that explains how you know I'm here, but Mr. Webb, I guess I just don't understand the why." Her voice crackled a little at the end. She looked down and saw his feet move again. His weight shifting from the left to the right and back and forth, Alyssa could tell very easily that he was fighting some immense battle just to talk to her.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm being pushy. I don't want you to be uncomfortable. I shouldn't ask so many questions."

  "No," he said, "you have the right. "It is pretty strange what I'm doing. I know that." Preston took a deep breath and released it with a sigh. His back was to her again.

  "Why can't I see you?" Alyssa blurted and then clapped her hand over her mouth. "No, no, I'm sorry I didn't mean to say that out loud."

  "It's okay," he laughed. "I'd rather have you honest about being curious than walking on eggshells. I have enough of that in my life. I've got scars. Well, one scar, I guess is the most important one, it runs down my face."

  "A scar isn't so bad," she said, "I promise I won't laugh or anything. It's just that talking to you through this door is hard. I'm kinda bad with words and taking meaning from them. Faces help me figure out what's going on."

  "Maybe some other time," he said softly. "Your father," he changed the subject, "he's an incredible worker. I couldn't get by without him."

  Alyssa went with it, thankful that her visitor hadn't gotten irritated at her being obnoxious.

  "When I got back, I found a letter from you to him and wondered what was going on. I remembered all those letters your dad used to send about buying our property so I opened it, thinking it was one of those. I won't lie, I was a little worried that with the stuff he was going through that he finally gave in and sold everything to you."

  Through the door, she saw Preston shake his head back and forth, and then he made a gesture that looked like he was rubbing his face.

  "No, I'd never take people's homes. It probably isn't too believable, but I don't want that on my conscience. Oil men aren't really known for their commitment to decency, but then, I'm not much of an oil man." Another laugh, louder that time, came through the door.

  Lys was having the hardest time trying to figure out if he was laughing for nervousness or because he was entertaining himself. Didn't matter much, she decided.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to get all pointed with you. Anyway, he's really happy with the stuff you've got him doing. He never said, but it sounds like out of his three jobs, the one with you is what's actually keeping him afloat. It's incredible, what you're doing."

  "He does good work. And he does work that I can't possibly trust to anyone else."

  "Why him?" She said, again not thinking before she spoke. "I mean, why get some guy you don't know to run your ledgers?"

  "They're not the current ledgers. That's handled internally. The things he's doing are the older ones, I think they go back as far as the 1940s, some maybe even older, back to when my father first started in the business and bought that land. He was, uh, ambitious, to say the least."

  "The 40s? I had no idea you were so old." After she spoke, she bit her tongue again. "Sorry."

  "No, no, it was funny. Stop worrying so much." He turned again, looking behind him, at her through the door. "My father was older than my mother. He was over fifty when I was born."

  "Wow."

  "Yeah. It's hard for me to fathom, but then again, a lot of things are hard for me to figure out. But that's not your problem."

  "I..." Alyssa took a deep breath, "I have to admit something."

  "I watched you." They said at the same time, paused for a second and then blurted out, "wait you what?"

  "I'll go first," Preston laughed, "this might be easier than I thought."

  "Okay."

  "Remember when you picked mushrooms and my dad wandered around with you sometimes?"

  "Hold on just a damn minute."

  "Yeah?"

  "He told you about that? I didn't know it was your dad until a lot later."

  "Well," Preston said, obviously flustered, "that was you, right? This might get a little awkward if not."

  "I never knew him as your dad. I mean, yeah, I snuck under your fence and picked mushrooms all the time. Until my father told me who he was, I thought he was a hobo."

  Preston giggled a little, and he doubled over, laughing so hard he couldn't stand up straight.

  "That was no hobo," he said. "That old man – he always wore khaki stuff, right? Shirts with lots of pockets? Safari hats?"

  "...Yeah?"

  "I can see him rolling around in his grave, laughing. Richest hobo in these United States."

  "Holy shit," Lys said with her mouth hanging open. "Oh God, sorry. I've got a sailor mouth sometimes."

  "It's okay," he had managed to catch his breath a little. "I can imagine the shock. But, your mushroom instructor was the richest oil man north of Texas. And probably the only completely independent one left, even then."

  "Still blows my mind he was the great Preston Webb."

  "He wasn't a happy man." Preston's voice got very dark and very serious, very quickly. "He had a lot of troubles. A lot of problems, and most of them had to do with me..." He held his breath for a second. "Anyway. You were the light of his day. A lot of times, the only light of his day."

  "I'm sure that's not true," she said. "Sorry, not my place."

  "Again with the apologies. Relax."

&nb
sp; "Okay, my turn."

  "I'm not finished," he whispered, moving closer to the door and facing it for the first time. Alyssa still couldn't make out any features, no matter how she strained. "There's more. I still have to answer the question you asked me."

  "I won't open it," she said quickly, and put her hand on the door. "I just..."

  "I know," he said, and put his on the other side. "And I'm not doing this to make sure."

  In her mind, the heat from his hand moved through the door and warmed her palm. She opened her mouth, but closed it again before she said anything.

  "When you were out there, every now and then you'd come out of the woods. You had a brown satchel. And you'd come out of the woods, poke around and explore a little nearer the house."

  "Oh-"

  "Quiet. It's my turn."

  Lys's mouth clapped shut.

  "Good," his voice was soft again, but it sounded like he was getting impatient. Maybe. Or maybe it was nerves. "Let me finish. I'm not...this isn't easy for me."

  His fingers curled against the wood under her hand.

  "I watched you. I'd stand in my window on days when I felt especially alone. And I'd watch, hoping to see you, and when I did, I imagined that you saw me, too. I'd imagine you waving at me or just looking at me, and not turning away when you saw my face."

  The hand he didn't have on the door flickered through the shadows and it looked to Alyssa like he ran it down his face.

  Is that his scar? His whole face?

  "I did," she whispered.

  "You did?"

  "Yeah. One of the times I was out there, I, uh, was looking at the house. Imagining what it would be like to live there, with all those gardens and the big trees and the massive windows. I was staring at them, at the windows. Up in my room, there's a big one that my dad put in when I asked him to a long time ago. I've just got this thing for big, open windows. It's like being outside but, you know, not." She stifled a giggle.

  "I know what you mean."

  "Shh," she said, finger to her lips. "My turn."

  Preston smirked when she shut him up. No one had ever done that before. Something so simple brought a smile to his lips.

  "But, I'd go out there and look at the place, but the way it's arranged next to those hills, you can only see the top floor from the edge of the woods. Or I guess it's the top floor. That place isn't three stories, is it?"

  "Not above ground, no. There's a basement, but-"

  "Okay so it's the top floor. Anyway, I would go out there and look and look and look, imagining what it was like to be behind one of those windows. And then one of the times I was out there playing pretend, I saw a shape. Tall, and slender," she paused to run her hand down the door's grain, "and I imagined that whoever it was at the window, was looking at me."

  Preston drew a breath and stepped closer to the door. She thought she heard his toe tap against the jamb.

  Suddenly, from behind her, a door shut, and two chairs scooted on the floor. Preston cleared his throat and stepped back.

  "What's wrong?" She said.

  "Nothing. I – I wish I could stay. I wish I could let you see me. I think Gadsen is trying to tell me something though."

  "Quite right, sir," the old man with the pulled back shoulders said from the kitchen. "Very perceptive, as always."

  Alyssa's neck prickled. All the hairs stood on end every time he talked. Every step Gadsen took nearer put her further on edge.

  "Can we not have a few more minutes? I was having a good time talking to Preston," she said.

  "Ah, no. Mr. Webb," he said pointedly, "and I have a meeting this evening with the oil company's board. Perhaps some time in the future we'll have you for dinner. He's a very busy man, young lady. I'm sure you understand."

  "Don't be rude, Gadsen," the man outside the door whispered. "These are very nice people who invited us to their home."

  "Quite right, sir. Sorry for the sharpness Ryan, Alyssa. I didn't mean anything by it. We've just got quite a meeting before us and need to hurry along."

  "No, of course," Ryan said. "That's the way of things."

  "Right, so hopefully we shall call on you again in the near future?"

  "I really hope so," Alyssa said, still a little taken aback.

  "Count on it," Preston said in his velvet whisper.

  Gadsen moved past her, out the door, and footsteps followed then turned back. From the shadows outside a hand darted in and grabbed hers.

  "I have no idea why I'm doing this, but I can't keep from it," he pressed her palm to his lips, kissed it, and turned, all before she could register what happened. "It won't be long, I promise."

  The door clattered shut, the tall man in black disappeared back into the night.

  "Well then, that was more eventful than I thought it'd be," her father said from behind her.

  Alyssa's chest rose and fell as she breathed.

  "Did that just happen?" She touched her chest with the hand that Preston kissed, imagining that his warmth still radiated out from it, and into her body. "It did, didn't it?"

  Ryan Barton smiled, and he picked up a ledger from the counter and returned it to the desk.

  "Now how did that get there?" He cocked his eyebrow. "Huh."

  Chapter Nine

  "No," Gadsen said as he pulled into the back lot of the Webb Oilworks headquarters twenty some-odd miles from the estate, on the very opposite end of the property. "Absolutely not. You have no idea what you're doing with this girl. She's young. The only reason you're so smitten is that you've never had anything to do with anyone else."

  "You're wrong." Preston glared out the window, staring partially at his own reflection and partially at the field beyond. "And you don't actually have any say. You're making it really obvious what you're doing, Gadsen. You want me to fail to meet the demands. You want the board to take over the company and leave me out in the cold."

  "And why would I want that? I have no stake in the company. I have no influence over the board." The butler ran his teeth over his bottom lip. "If you can explain to me how I'd get anything out of your failure, I'd love to hear it."

  "That's...the one thing I can't figure out. I have to give you that. But I know you, Gadsen. If there's an angle to play, you've got it under control. Don't think I believe for a second that you've not planned every single tiny thing you can do once I ruin this trust and get tossed out of my own family's business. I might be sheltered, but I'm not a moron."

  "Fair enough, Mr. Webb," Gadsen said under his breath. "Fair enough. The truth is I've not figured it out. There's got to be some way to leverage this against the board, but I just don't know what it is. But regardless of that, I have no intentions of profiting by your failure. I promised your father."

  Preston didn't notice the old man's sideways glance, or if he did, made no sign. He just stared out the window, obviously preoccupied.

  "I like her, Gadsen."

  "You don't know what you're saying. You were together for twenty minutes on the outside. You're being emotional when you need to be thinking."

  "No!" He snapped with his fist clenched around the handle on the door. "No I don't. And of course I'm being emotional. What's that supposed to mean? She's honest. She has an honest face and a nice smile and I could tell that even looking at her through the door and the three or four seconds I saw her when I opened it, that she spent a long, long time getting ready for those twenty minutes. No one has ever, treated the way she did. No one's reacted to me in any way except to try and either manipulate me for my money, or convince me to do something I don't want to do."

  "Now, sir, that's hardly fair."

  "Don't tell me about fair. You've kept me locked in a twelve-thousand square foot prison cell for my whole life. Fair is about as far a thing from my mind as exists. I like her. You should be happy for me, not trying to maneuver your way out of a sticky problem. This is why I think you're up to something. No," he gritted his teeth, "not think. This is how I know you've got some plan that you
're just keeping quiet about."

  "This is absurd," Gadsen said, visibly rolling his eyes. "You're acting like a love sick puppy. I'll not speak of this until you're reasonable."

  "Reasonable? What does that even mean?" He slammed his fist sideways into the door.

  Gadsen pointedly looked down, swallowed, and looked back up straight out the windshield.

  "You do that, Gadsen. You keep up the act. We'll see how far this goes. I've still got time. Whatever strange little plan you've got cooked up, the first step for you is just watching the clock until it runs out, isn't it?"

  A second later, Preston laughed under his breath as the car's engine switched off. Gadsen handed him a long length of silk.

  "What's this for?"

  Gadsen pinched the bridge of his nose. "You weren't planning on appearing in public uncovered, were you?"

  Preston grabbed the cloth and stared at it, then let his hand fall limp to his side.

  "Maybe so," he shrugged. "Like Alyssa said, it's just a scar. Lots of people have scars."

  Chapter Ten

  "There's no way you can call him or anything?"

  "No, baby girl, I can't. I don't have a phone number. All I do is send letters, which is what I'm doing right now. Sometimes he answers, sometimes he doesn't."

  Alyssa paced back and forth around the perimeter of the red and green area rug in the middle of the living room. Preston was two hours gone, but she had not yet managed to sit down and be still. Her father found this tremendously entertaining, and almost as exciting as she did. He'd never seen her so fidgety.

  "I can't calm down. Why am I all worked up like this?"

  "I'm afraid this is called a crush, Lyssie," her dad grinned.

  "A crush? I'm too old for that."

  Ryan wanted to tell the story about how he had a crush on her mother that made him feel a bit like this for most of his life, but he left it in peace.

  "Well, I'll tell you what. I'll write this letter, you sign it and add a little bit to the end, and we'll see what happens, okay? That's the best we can do. But the way he was acting when he got whisked away by Gadsen, I don't think you have much to worry about in the 'does he like me' department."