by Zara Cox
My heart lurches when it occurs to me that he could’ve had the dress and necklace arrangements made the day I said yes, and never got round to cancelling them.
I throw the box on the coffee table and pace my living room, torn between calling him and just turning up in D.C.
I pull out my phone and finger the buttons. My breath strangles with yearning at the thought of hearing his voice, but it’s the chance to see his face again, even if it’s for one last time, that makes me put the phone down.
I’m going to D.C. And if there’s the smallest chance that I can see and talk to Mason again, I’ll take it.
###
Do not pass out. Do not fucking pass out.
I recite the words to myself as I pick up the hem of my black, sleeveless silk gown and quicken my steps. I’m ushered into the State Dining Room, where the Industry Innovators dinner is being held.
An accident on the Brooklyn Bridge had held up the limo taking me to Teterboro Airport, and not even the efficiency of travelling by private jet had been able to save me from being late to the dinner.
“Right this way, Miss Benson.”
I follow the usher as we weave through tables holding seated guests. I keep my flame-hot embarrassed face down, and pin a smile on my face when I’m shown to the last empty seat in the room.
An elderly woman smiles at me and I smile back. “I’m so sorry I’m late. There was a pile up on the Brook—”
The words strangle in my throat when I look up into a pixie-like face, and a pair of eyes I’ve only seen once before in a photo.
Cassie Sinclair, Mason’s ex-wife, is staring back at me with unabashed curiosity, and an almost pitying smile on her lightly glossed mouth.
Shock lodges in my chest as I glance one along and encounter Mason’s dark, intense hazel eyes. He looks a picture of perfect and suave health, while I know my face is an unpleasant caricature of gold-fish-in-death-throes.
I can’t move. Or breathe. Or think beyond the fact that Mason has come to the dinner with his ex-wife!
Bile rises in my gut and settles at the back of my throat.
When the woman next to me addresses me, I nod and clasp my shaking hand in my lap.
Drinks are served. I gulp down fine white wine without a thought to taste or vintage. I respond to small talk with monosyllables, and I don’t ever look back across the table.
The moment the announcement is made for a twenty-five-minute mingle before the award ceremony starts, I jump from the chair and head for the door.
An usher steps in front of me, a solid wall of courteous muscle. “May I help you, ma’am?”
“Yes, I need to leave.”
“I’m sorry, guests are required to stay until the event is over.”
Panic claws up spine. “I can’t wait that long.”
“Is it an emergency?”
“Yes,” I say, then I remember I’m standing in the White House. “No.”
He frowns. “Which is it, ma’am?”
The thought of being denied escape fills me with horror. “Please, I really...really need to leave. I think I may be coming down with something.”
Concern streaks through his frown. “Okay. Come with me.”
Relief pours through me. I’m walking down what I think is the west corridor, when an arm slides around my waist.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Mason blazes in my ear.
“Get your fucking arm off me,” I whisper-scream.
The usher stops and turns. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes—”
“No, my girlfriend’s recovering from the flu. She just needs to catch her breath. Can you offer a quiet place?”
“Of course, Mr. Sinclair. If you’ll follow me?”
I glance at Mason and see the warning in his eyes. I want to throw the mother of all tantrums, but I’m in the fucking White House, so I bite my tongue and follow the usher.
“This should do it, I hope. Can I get you two anything? A glass of water?”
“No, thanks. She just needs a minute.”
I keep my head down so the usher doesn’t see how livid I am. The minute he shuts the door behind him, my head jerks up.
“Your girlfriend? You can say that with a straight face when your ex-wife, the woman you came here with, is just down the corridor?”
Mason strides toward me, looking far too dashing in his tuxedo. “Calm down, Keely—”
“Do not tell me to calm down! Play your cruel games with her all you want, but I will not let you drag me into this.”
“Are you finished?”
“No, I fucking well am not! Why did you do it? For some sort of cheap thrill?” I exhale shakily, and all I feel is pain from head to toe. “Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. All I want is to get out of here.”
“No.”
“What the fuck do you mean, no?”
His eyes gleam at the torrent of swearing, and I cock my eyebrow at him. “I mean you won’t leave this room until you hear me out. We have twenty minutes. Shall we talk first, or get your punishment out of the way?”
My face flames in anger, but my heart flip-flops like a foolish thing in my chest. “Lay a hand on me, and I’ll kick your fucking ass.”
He nods solemnly. “Talk first, then.”
“Yeah, talk to yourself. Leave me the fuck out of it. I’m leaving.” I reach for the door handle. His hand captures mine a second later.
He crowds me with a wall of heat and muscle, and I helplessly breathe him in, inhaling the scent I’ve missed more than I want to admit.
“I didn’t bring Cassie instead of you. I brought Cassie so she could meet the woman I’m in love with,” he says next to my ear.
I gasp, then sway against the door as dizziness hits me.
“Dammit, are you okay?” Concern colors his voice.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
Cursing, he grabs me by the waist and lifts me from the door.
“Mason, put me down.”
He ignores me. Heat ripples through me when he sits and pulls me into his lap.
“I tell you I’m in love with you, and the first thing you do is pass out?”
“You’re not in love with me.” The pain that grips me when I say it makes me groan. “You can’t be.”
“Why the hell not?”
My heart tears wide open as I stare at him. “You know what I did. I gave my child away because I couldn’t cope. It wasn’t his fault, Mason. And yet, I couldn’t stand the sight of him when he was put in my arms.” I shudder in remembrance. “He screamed so loud, I thought I’d harmed him.”
“Baby, don’t do this to yourself.”
“Why not? You know what I felt when he was taken away?”
He remains silent.
“Relief. I was glad he was gone.”
“If you truly were, would you be suffering as you are now? Would you not have gone on with your life, never giving him another thought? Instead, you’ve spent the last six years ripping yourself apart about it.”
He inhales and I wonder if I’m imagining his chest shake beneath my shoulder.
One hand captures my chin, and tilts my face up to his. His heart-stopping features explode across my brain and I’m dizzy all over again. I want to touch him so bad, I curl my hands into fists to stop me reaching for him.
“Don’t tell you how I feel because it’s not what you want to hear? Or because you don’t love me back?” His eyes are alive with heat. And frantic with apprehension. Deep with an emotion I don’t want to acknowledge, in case it’s a dream.
“Mason...”
“You know me, better than anyone on this earth. I’ve suffered a great loss and repaid it with acts that will stain my soul till eternity. There’s a man locked up in a mental institution who will never be whole again because of what I did to him. I have to live with that.” His head drops forward, and his forehead rests against my cheek. “I left the yach
t, and stayed away because I knew it was wrong of me to ask you to live with it too. But I can’t do it, baby. I know what hell feels like. Being without you goes beyond any pain I could’ve imagined. I can’t go through life not knowing if there would’ve been the sliver of hope that you’d say yes. That you’ll let me love you and worship you, that you’ll let me pay for what I did by letting me devote my life to you.”
He lifts his head and I see the sheen of tears in his eyes.
I shiver.
He sees it and his face twists. “You can’t, can you?”
“Mason—”
“It’s okay.” His arm convulses around me. “I’ll let you go in a minute. Just...let me hold you for one last time.”
“Mason...”
“Please, kitten. Just one minute.” I stay silent, let him hold me, let myself drown in the heat and joy and completeness of being with the other half of my soul.
When the minute is up, he groans, “God, what the fuck am I going to do?” His voice bleeds naked anguish.
“I love you, so you don’t have to do anything,” I murmur.
“What?” Disbelief echoes through his voice.
“I love you,” I say again. “If you can accept me and what I did—”
“You have nothing to be agonised about. I’ll drill that into you for the rest of your life if I have to.”
“Oh, Mason.”
“Tell me you love me again.”
“Tell me first what Cassie’s doing here.”
He hears my irked tone and smiles. “I’ve had a lot of time lately to...mend fences. Cassie wanted to meet the woman responsible for making me human again.”
“Fine, but did she have to sit next to you?”
“That seat was yours. She took it when I thought you weren’t coming. When we go back in, you’ll be next to me, where you belong. Now tell me you love me again.”
“I love you, Mason.”
He groans and kisses me with a fervor that warms my frozen heart. I slide my arms around his neck and he surges to his feet. He walks forward without breaking the kiss. It’s only when he sets me down that I look around.
“Where are we?”
He spins me around and slams me back against him. “Lincoln’s Bedroom.”
I gasp and look around. Sure enough, the room I’d seen in books, is laid out before me. I reach out to touch the antique bed cover and feel Mason’s hand lifting the hem of my gown.
My heart kicks a thousands notches. “What’re you doing?”
“Delivering your punishment, of course,” he rasps in my ear.
I bite my lip to stop the groan of bliss that spirals through me. He gathered the cloth in one hand, and pushed me forward with the other. My tiny thong means is no barrier for what’s coming, and I gasp as the first smack lights up my ass and spreads through my body.
“Oh God!”
Smack.
“You knew this was coming, didn’t you, kitten?”
“Yes.”
Smack.
“Yes, what?”
Smack. Smack. Smack.
“Yes, sir.”
He groans. “God, I wasn’t going to fuck you now...was going to take my time with you later, show you much I’ve missed you, how much I love you. But your ass...I need you, baby.” He’s panting, and I hear his zipper open.
Love and fire, electricity and joy light up my veins. “Mason, what if we get caught?”
“Then we’ll be the happiest jail birds in history.” He pulls my thong to one side and rams inside me. “Now shut up and let me love you. I have an award to collect.”
Epilogue
Keely
“Are you ready?” Mason asks, his smile lighting up my heart, my soul, my world.
But I can’t smile in return. “I’m too nervous. What if I mess it up?”
“You won’t. It’s just a meeting. We don’t have to take it further if you don’t want to.”
I look out the window of our SUV at the sun dappled office building in Maryland, where our search has brought us. It’s been a year of incredible highs and a few heart-breaking lows.
When another email arrived shortly after my return to New York, this time with a photo of me tied up in the chair, and a ransom demand for one million dollars, Mason had put his foot down.
He’d called in favors, and investigations had been launched. The search had taken three months, but the blackmailer had been found.
Richard Donner, a fellow UCLA freshman, had confessed to sneaking in a camera and taking the pictures of me, before raping me. He’d been tried and convicted for raping me. Despite his confession, he hadn’t been able to shed light on whether there had been any other violators.
Professor Harding had also been brought in for questioning, and arrested for several counts of sexual harassment.
Although I’ve found a little closure now, the deep dredging up of my past hasn’t been pleasant.
But Mason has stood by me throughout. And with a line drawn under the events of six years ago, I’m ready to move on to the next step: finding out if the child I gave birth to is happy.
Mason and I had talked about it, but ultimately I’d decided it would be better, if there ever came a time that we met face to face, to leave my child in the dark about his conception. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to have a connection with him, but for now I’m leaving the door open to possibilities.
My hand glides over the small swell of my belly, and the smile that’s been missing bursts from my soul.
Our little girl is scheduled for arrival at Christmas, and my heart can scarcely contain the love I feel for the new life growing inside of me.
I look up, and the love of my life is staring at me with utter adoration.
He picks up my left hand and kisses my knuckle just above where my diamond and platinum wedding rings rest.
“Happy thoughts, Mrs. Sinclair?” he quirks his brow at me.
“Happy thoughts. Always.”
mason
“Come on. Let’s go do this thing.”
I round the car, and open the door for my new wife. She smiles and slips her hand into mine as we head for the Child Protective Services office. Her skin glows in the mid-morning sunshine and I want to stare, and keep staring at her for the rest of my life.
She’s beautiful.
And mine.
When further revelations of her past had surfaced and threatened to send me back down dark and tortuous road, her strength had held me together.
And when thoughts of becoming a parent again had terrified me, she’d talked me down.
Neither of us were bright-side people, but with Keely by my side, I greet at each new day with a positive perspective. Especially if the day started with one of us initiating a session of the mind-melting sex that had drawn us together in the first place.
“Careful there, Rusty, you’re leering with intent.”
I laugh, not minding the name so much now since it’s a reminder of how we met and what we’ve been through.
“Ah, sorry, Officer. Please go ahead and arrest me now. I intend to be a repeat offender.”
Her unfettered laughter lifts my soul and infuses me so much happiness, I can barely catch my breath. I pull her close and I don’t let go. I hold her as she weeps softly through being informed by the social worker that her first child is happy and healthy, and living a fulfilled life with adoptive parents who love him.
I hold her when we re-emerge into the sunshine and both our phones ping.
“You think the Savages have anything better to do than check up on us?” I gripe without malice.
She laughs. “Nope. They know today’s a big day for us. Bet they’re waiting by the phone, ready to call the moment we respond.” She lifts her phone, but I stay her hand.
“Leave it for one second, kitten.”
Her eyes gleam at the pet name, and her hand slides around my neck. “Are you going to make it worth my while, sir?”
I kiss her, long and deeply,
in the middle of a car park in Maryland, and I’m filled with a sense of homecoming so strong, my head spins.
“Kitten, you rescued me and made my life worth something other than the hellish wasteland I turned it into. You nourish my soul with your love and trust.” My hand caresses her belly. “I can’t wait to love and cherish our child the I love and cherish you. I love you, Keely. So much.”
Happy tears fill her eyes and I brush them away.
“I love you too, Mason. Always.”
THE END
Acknowledgements
As always, to Kate Reed, my friend, crit partner and my (long-suffering) editor. You continue to inspire and blow me away with your friendship and support. Once again, I literally couldn’t have done this without you!
To my Gorgeous Minxes, and the reason for at least a dozen smiles each day. I love you guys! I’m so very grateful for you.
To my readers who, amazingly, keep asking for more books! I love each and every one of you! Your support means the world to me. Thank you!
To my Dani, my publicist at Barclay, may this be the start of a long and fruitful relationship.
Last but not least, to my husband and kids (who’s waiting patiently for me to press publish on this book, so our vacation can truly begin) I love and adore you for your patience, your care and your unfailing support.
COMING SOON
SPIN
(THE INDIGO LOUNGE SERIES NOVELLA -
ZACHARY & BETHANY’S WEDDING JOURNEY)
Coming In Summer 2015
INDIGO VELVET
(An INDIGO LOUNGE NOVELLA -
Part of the JUST DESSERTS ANTHOLOGY)
(A glimpse into the life of NOAH & LEIA)
Coming In June 2015
**********************************
Other Books By Zara Cox
HIGH (The Indigo Lounge Series #1
HIGHER (The Indigo Lounge Series) #2
SPIRAL (The Indigo Lounge Series) #3
SOAR (The Indigo Lounge Series) #4
WRECKLESS
Rules are made to be broken...
...but not at Westchester United.
Incoming chairman Hugo Alvarez issued two rules for the new season.