The two burly men walk away, muttering their apologies to me as I beg the floor to swallow me whole. I pray the entire venue didn’t just witness my silent hysteria.
Mason gently escorts me to a quiet corner of the room. Worry darkens his expression. “Jesus, Piper, are you okay? What did they say to you?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “It was nothing. They were just being friendly. I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t ruin this for you.” I move my weight back and forth between my feet that are now aching in these pretentious shoes.
“Ruin it for me?” he asks. “Not possible. Besides, I’m the one who dragged you here. I shouldn’t have let you wander off. I’m the one who’s sorry. I swear I won’t leave your side again. You’ll be safe with me.”
“Safe? You think I need you to keep me safe?” I bite, cringing at the tone I’ve taken with him after he’s shown me nothing but kindness tonight.
A look of dismay flashes across his face, making me feel even worse over my harsh words. Then he laughs it off. “I’ve seen you box, Piper. I’m pretty sure you can handle yourself.”
“You’ve seen me box?” I don’t remember ever seeing him at the gym except for that very first day.
He looks slightly embarrassed, which I find amusing on such a big guy. “I’ve watched you a couple of times, yes.”
My body heats up at the declaration. My first instinct is to tell him not to ever watch me. To ‘piss off’ as he told those other men. But the way I feel right now—knowing he took the time to notice how proficient I’ve become; knowing he thinks I can take care of myself when nothing can be further from the truth—it’s a strange, yet comforting connection that I’ve only felt with one other person on earth. The one person I abandoned in Barcelona.
Before I can filter my words, I open the can of worms that shouldn’t be opened. “Why did you watch me?”
“Why do you think, Piper?” He cocks his head to the side and raises an eyebrow.
I asked for it. I ran right into it head-fucking-first. I have no excuse for baiting him like that. I’ve seen the signs from him. I’ve felt it in his touches. But what he doesn’t understand is that it can never happen. “Uh . . . I can’t . . . um, I think I’ll take that drink after all.”
He gives me a poignant look and then grabs two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter.
He tries to hand me one but I wave it off. “I was thinking of something a little stronger.”
“You know where the bar is,” he says, depositing the untouched drinks on a nearby table. “Lead the way.”
We walk up to the crowded bar and work our way up to the front where we watch the bartender prepare us a couple of Jack and Cokes. I savor the burn of the first alcohol I’ve had in three weeks. Then I look across the room and see the fashion model he was talking with earlier. The one who seemed to have no problem trying to get cozy with him. “Who’s that woman?” I nod my head at her.
“Her name is Janice Greyson. She’s the owner’s daughter.” He points to the well-appointed older gentleman on her right. “That’s her father standing next to her. He’s the big boss.”
“I thought you said this was a small charity function.” I shift around again, my feet really starting to hurt now. “Why is the owner of the Giants here?”
“Janice is the one who organized the benefit. Not to mention she’s very close to the cause being that she’s adopted. It makes sense her father would come to support it.” He nudges me gently with his elbow and adds, “Plus, I think he’s trying to set me up with her.”
My stomach churns, a slight sick feeling building from within, reminding me how empty it is since I was too nervous to eat earlier. I throw back the remainder of my drink. “I’m going to get another.”
“Are you sure about that, Piper? The marathon is only a few days away.”
I balk at him, “What are you, my dad?”
He holds his hands up in surrender. “Fine, fine. I’ll take you to get another. But if you lose the race on Monday, don’t come crying to me.” He winks and something inside me melts.
His stare is intoxicating and I question my choice to have that second drink. The liquor is making me brave and stupid at the same time, reminding me exactly why I shouldn’t have it.
I’m mesmerized by the bartender as he expertly mixes scores of drinks seemingly all at once. It almost becomes a ball and cup trick to figure out which ones are ours. I stare intently until he places mine on a napkin in front of me.
“Dix! It’s good to see you, brother.”
I watch as Mason and the tall stranger enjoy one of those guy handshake-turn-hugs, patting each other affectionately on the back as they share a few words.
The man turns his attention to me, but unlike some of the others, he doesn’t try to undress me with his eyes. “And just who did you find to escort your pathetic second-string ass to this thing?”
Mason hits him with a reserved, playful punch and looks at me. I shake my head at him, eyes wide with trepidation. “This is . . . uh, a friend of the family. Garrett, meet Snow.” He winks at me. “Garrett and I went to Clemson together. He’s the pathetic second-string running back for the Giants.”
“Friend of the family? What family—you mean to tell me you have a life outside of football?” Garrett says to him before turning to me. “Snow, huh?” He laughs and I’m sure he’s going to make fun of my ‘name.’ “It’s a shame my wife isn’t here, you’d get along great. Her name is Autumn.”
“Where is your better half?” Mason asks, scanning the room.
“At home probably puking her guts out. I don’t know who decided to call it morning sickness, because she’s got it all goddamn day long. I just came to make an appearance and write a check.” A waiter hands him a glass of champagne. He tips it at us. “And drink. The woman won’t let me drink at home anymore since she can’t.”
Garrett excuses himself to talk to some of the other players. Then Mason introduces me to a few other people, smirking at me every time he uses my new name. While some of the others in our group hold conversations about their children or their pregnant wives, he pushes my hair to the side and whispers into my ear. “I knew I’d find some way to call you a princess tonight.”
When his hot breath flows over my ear, tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention and I notice an involuntary hitch in my breathing. When I turn to question him, I see he noticed, too. His gaze is fixed on my neck and his hand is still holding back my hair. His eyes dilate and he blows out a deep breath.
I conjure up every ounce of willpower and pull away, my hair falling back down around my shoulders as he stares at the dark tips when they meet my flesh. “What do you mean?” I ask.
“You know, Snow White. She’s one of those Disney princesses, right?”
I break into a huge smile as laughter bubbles from within me. “Oh my God, you’re hopeless, you know that?”
He studies my face as if he’s in awe. “Piper Mitchell, I do believe this is the first time I’ve ever heard you laugh. I think I’ll make it my mission to produce that sound from you more often.” He leans in close and my eyes flutter in anticipation of the feel of his breath on me again. “And I’m not hopeless—” he puts a strong arm around me and pulls me ever so slightly closer to him “—I’m hopeful.”
Squelching the lava running through my veins, I tell him I need to use the bathroom again. It’s a lie I hope he doesn’t detect. I need to get away. Distance myself from him for a minute to gain a little perspective.
Sadly, perspective is hardly what I get in the well-appointed restroom that’s nothing more than a flurry of women applying makeup and spreading gossip. But mostly what I notice are the three pregnant women sitting on the bench, comparing stories while working the circulation back into their feet. I make quick time of my business and exit the ornate ladies room. “Is every woman here pregnant?” I mutter to myself.
“You’re not,” Mason says, surprising me as he leans against the wall outside the
bathroom. “And count your lucky stars. From what I’ve seen and heard, it’s no walk in the park. Morning sickness, stretch marks, and weird-ass cravings. Not to mention all the moodiness.” He points to the men’s room. “I’ll just be a second. Wait here, okay?”
I nod, watching him disappear behind the bathroom door. “Yeah, lucky me,” I say under my breath, ignoring his command when I head back in the direction of the bar.
A few minutes later, Mason finds me downing a third drink, standing shoeless by the service entrance in an attempt to avoid the cameras now making their way around the congested atrium. He shakes his head in mock disgust. I shake mine back at him and realize that it doesn’t stop when I do. My head is spinning. He smiles sympathetically, taking my empty glass and placing it on the ground, picking up my shoes in the process. “Winning that bet is getting more likely all the time. Let’s get out of here.”
He opens the service door behind me, pulling me through into the brisk nighttime air. With whiskey coursing through my veins, I don’t notice the chill. But that doesn’t stop him from removing his jacket to place it over my shoulders.
Before now, I didn’t realize how truly large he is. His tuxedo jacket is longer than my dress and envelopes me like a black hole. As he puts my arms in the sleeves, rolling them up as if he’s dressing a little girl, I study him. I never noticed how unique his hair is. He has this platinum-blonde hair normally reserved for west coast beach bums. It falls into an effortless part, courtesy of the cowlick above his left eye. It’s not very long, but it has an edgy look that is slightly this side of rebellion.
His icy-blue eyes are bright, even in the relative darkness of the evening. I’ve never seen this exact shade of blue before. I glance down at my dress and it dawns on me why Skylar insisted I wear this one in particular. I can’t stop the roll of my green eyes before I look back at his dress-matching blue ones. I can’t remember ever admiring a man’s eyes the way I am right now. The alcohol has made me brave. Bold. Careless.
When he’s finished dressing me in his jacket, he turns his attention to my feet. He lowers himself to the pavement and lifts one of my legs to put on my heels. My foggy head swims with a little-girl fantasy, and then I almost fall over when he seems to read my mind. “See, and now you’re Cinderella,” he says, slipping on one of my shoes. “That’s two.”
Two princesses. Ha! My life is anything but a fairy tale. Those are reserved for people who aren’t stupid, like me. For people who pay attention to details. For people who never go looking for trouble. I frown, watching this prince of a man put on my shoes, knowing not he nor anyone else could ever fill that role for me. But for just a split second, deep inside the far reaches of my spinning head, a voice tries to be heard. A voice that tells me how, just maybe, someone like me can have a happy ending.
“Ouch,” I say, attempting to walk alongside Mason back to the car. I halt our progress and lean against a wall, sinking down and looking very unladylike as I once again remove my shoes. “Feet hurt.”
Before I can stop it from happening, I’m picked up and cradled in the arms of my sizeable escort, being carried helplessly through the parking garage. My body and my mind are at war with each other. My mind screams for him to let me go, but my body relishes the feel of his arms around my back and thighs, holding me tightly against his chiseled chest. My body shudders as my face falls against his neck. I inhale, dragging his clean, athletic scent deep into my lungs.
My eyes close at his intoxicating aroma when, suddenly, I’m falling into a dream. There are hands everywhere on me, grabbing at my clothes and jockeying for position on my body. Only this time, I fight. I lash out, screaming bloody murder while my fists swing at anything and everything. I hear my name being called over and over as my self-defense training kicks in, refusing to let me be claimed as a victim.
“Jesus Christ, Mister, what’s wrong with her?” a strange voice bellows.
Strong hands shake my shoulders, causing my eyes to open as I’m pulled from the nightmare. “Piper. Piper, wake up,” Mason implores. My drunken eyes try to focus on the young guy on the ground holding a hand to his face.
“What happened?” I ask, eyeing the kid on the floor of the parking garage.
Lines of worry collect near the corner of Mason’s mouth. “He was just trying to help me get you in the car when you starting fighting us. You punched him, sweetheart.”
My chin falls to my chest as reality sets in. “I’m so sorry.” I watch the kid stand up, rubbing his reddened jaw. “I didn’t mean to do that,” I tell him. I turn to Mason. “I’m sorry.” I duck into the car and close the door, wanting it to swallow me up and spit me out in another dimension.
I see Mason exchange a few words with the attendant; shaking his hand and forking over what I think are several very large bills much to the kid’s pleasure. I blow out a deep sigh. He’s paying him off so he won’t press charges. Or maybe so he won’t go telling the story to one of the many journalists inside the building.
When Mason gets in the car, I’m barely awake, alcohol pulling me under as my head rests against the window. I sit wallowing in regret over how badly this could have turned out for him. For me. I don’t even put up a fight when he reaches across me to secure my seat belt. But I do everything I can to ignore the intensity of his touch as his fingers brush up against me when he gently grabs my neck and turns my head towards him. “Piper, what’s going on? What happened back there? Tell me. I can’t understand unless you talk to me.”
I pull my head away from his hand. “I told you when we first met, Mason. You don’t want to know me. Maybe you’ll believe that now. Just take me home.”
We drive home without talking, neither of us bothering to turn on the radio. He scrubs a hand over his jaw. The debate going on in his head is apparent. The tension between us is palpable. The silence in the car is deafening.
He finds a parking spot in front of Skylar’s place and sprints around the car to help me as I quickly exit and stumble my way up the porch stairs. “That’s where you’re wrong, Piper,” he says, stopping me short of the front door. “I do want to know you.” He cups my chin with his hand, raising my fallen head so our eyes meet. “Believe it or not, you’re worth knowing.”
Without bothering to acknowledge his words, I slip through the front door and shut off the porch light, watching his defeated body shuffle back to his car. Under the dim light of the streetlamp, I see him pound the steering wheel in frustration before he drives away.
I take a bottle of water and some aspirin upstairs with me and lock myself in my room, not even bothering to undress before I fall onto the bed.
Suddenly, it occurs to me that he called me sweetheart back at the parking garage. My heart pounds at the recollection. And my head aches when my mind grasps the notion that of all the events that took place at the benefit—this is the one I choose to focus on. Not the humiliation I imposed upon him tonight. Not the damage I inflicted on the poor kid’s jaw. Not the complete ass I made of myself all evening. No, my stupid, under-the-influence-of-too-much-whiskey brain keeps playing his endearment over and over, like a looping movie reel.
Mason didn’t even seem to care about how I embarrassed him. In fact, I recall him saying he wanted to help me. Protect me. Keep me safe. I try to imagine for a second the possibility of being with him. But then my stomach wretches and I dart into the bathroom just in time to empty its contents into the toilet.
I clean myself up and look in the mirror, shocked to see I’m still engulfed in his jacket. The heady smell of his cologne travels across my every nerve ending. I pad back to my bed, mindlessly wondering what happened to my heels. Then I drift asleep, surrounded by the intoxicating scent of the only man my body has ever craved.
chapter ten
mason
It’s Marathon Monday. Thousands await the gun to sound and start the third wave of runners. As I stand among the herd, I scan the crowd looking for the only reason I’m here. I know I won’t find her. She’s much
further up in this wave than I am. She has actual qualifying times from other marathons, so even though I got her in under the charity waiver, she gets to start with other people who have similar qualifying times.
I’ve never run a full marathon before, just a couple of half ones last year for various benefits. But the only qualification I really needed, other than the available slot, was a decent pledge amount and a promise to be able to finish in under six hours. I’ve been training hard with Trick, so I figure I can do it in a little more than half that time. In fact, my one mission today is to catch up to the mercurial princess, watch her fabulous behind for a mile or so, and then beat the black spandex running pants right off her gorgeous body.
I saw her before the race, but she didn’t speak to me. I could tell she was mortified over what happened the other night. She all but ignored me. I told myself it wasn’t me; that it was the crowd. And maybe the nerves she was feeling over the possibility of losing and having to hold up her end of the deal.
For a minute, I even contemplate losing on purpose just to see what she would ask for. But despite my curiosity, and the very tiny part of me that wants to see her cross the finish line ahead of me, I still know that, being a guy, I’d rather have her see me as this strong alpha-male type, not the pussy who got beat by a five-foot-nothing girl who is half his weight soaking wet.
And I really want a date.
The gun sounds, but there isn’t much movement in the herd. I suppose it takes a while for almost ten thousand runners to get started. There are officials trying to keep eager participants from trampling others in their quest to fulfill their dream of running in this momentous race. Finally, we creep forward; a pack of sardines vying for position in a too-tight space. It makes me wonder how Piper is handling the crowd. I’ve never felt so claustrophobic. I noticed she had her earbuds and iPod with her this morning. Although it’s discouraged by the race organizers, and forbidden among those going for prize money, it may be the one thing that allows her to get through marathons despite her distaste for crowds.
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