I hang up, taking a second to breathe in and then out while I yank the cord from the wall.
“Everything alright?” Jules asks, sidling up next to me, stroking my face with her hand.
“Better now,” I tell her. “Just a ghost from the past… Say, what kind of dogs were you thinking about?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jules
I might not know much about high finance, but I’m no dummy when it comes to who’s on the phone.
I know it’s that Nicholas man. Mason said he’s one of the few who has access to that number. I also know that no matter how much Mason wants me by his side 24/7, I know when to make myself scarce too.
I take a bathroom break, and by the time I come back to the kitchen, I can’t help but overhear. And I think I hear enough to get the picture anyway.
I turn back, giving Mason his privacy, waiting until I think he’s done before going back into the kitchen.
I can’t help it either, the passing thought.
There’s just too many stairs in this place too… the kids… They don’t come out with common sense or big enough to climb stairs the right way.
Remembering what Mason said about keeping me barefoot and pregnant, it makes me smile. I find myself standing in the wide hallway bathed in sunlight, rubbing my belly just thinking about it.
And it’s not the bagels I’m feeling in there.
Maybe that’s why he wants a family. Maybe that’s why I do too, we’ve never known any ourselves.
I hear Mason winding his call down, I know it’s not on a happy note either from his tone. I hum as loud as I can to let him know I’m coming.
I suddenly want to tell him that he can have me barefoot and pregnant if he wants, that all I want in this life is him, him, and his children.
Inside me and all around us.
If money’s no problem, then I don’t have to work. I can work at what I feel like doing best, loving my man, and raising our kids.
Why should life be any more complicated than that?
Mason’s better at dealing with some things than I am, and he looks like he’s dealt with his own demons in a matter of seconds.
I can’t say I’m sad to see that phone cord ripped from the wall either, I don’t want anyone bugging us unannounced anymore either.
I ask if he’s okay and he replies by asking which kind of dogs I was thinking of.
It makes me smile, proving that Mason is thinking like I am, not worrying so much about the business side of his life.
But that still concerns me too.
I nestle myself between his legs as he sits on a stool, his big arms wrapping around me and his nose touching mine.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask him in reply, knowing that once he’s made his mind up its how things will be.
“Dogs?” he says, smiling. “Absolutely! But you’re right, we’d need a house first. Can’t have a pack of mutts running around up here,” he says, looking around as if he’s already considered having dogs.
As if dogs are the only thing we’re really talking about.
“I mean… moving from here. Not being one door away from your boardroom,” I explain.
“Everything has happened so fast, Jules. I know it has,” he says calmly, hugging me close and then pecking my lips.
“But I know when it’s time for a change. I always have. I feel it in my bones,” he explains, and gently guides my hand to his lap.
“Feel that?” he asks, grinning like a maniac, making me laugh until I gasp, curling my fingers around his thickness.
“I feel it,” I hear myself moan lightly. “But I’m serious. I don’t want you to wake up in a week or a month and look at me, thinking if it wasn’t for me you could have done so and so…”
Mason grunts, frowning.
“I just don’t want you to become another Nicholas,” I say out loud, regretting it straight away. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I say quickly.
“How much did you hear?” he asks. Then, “Or rather, how much did you figure out for yourself just now?”
“It’s none of my business,” I let him know. “I just don’t want you making rash decisions when you’re-”
He interrupts me, smiling. Squeezing me tighter.
“When I’m what? In love?”
I feel my breath catch, then shiver. I realize too that maybe I’m the one who’s scared of making a commitment.
Maybe I’m the one who feels a little, okay… a lot afraid of changing her life overnight.
“I do love you, Jules. More than any words can say,” he tells me again.
“And I love you too, Mason,” I echo back to him, really meaning it because I do.
“I just… I guess I just don’t want you to get tired of me or think this is a mistake somewhere down the line,” I admit.
He’s the only good thing to ever happen to me, and although I know he feels the same about me, I can’t stand the thought of losing him, not even after our short time together.
“I wanted you, Jules, I admit that. I went through all that auction business and panicking at the thought you might not want me… being ahem… slightly older…” he says, flushing a little.
“But now I need you,” I feel my heart melting, my body melting into his as I lean forward, enchanted by him when he talks to me like that.
“I need you for a million reasons. The biggest one is because I love you,” he reminds me yet again, kissing me tenderly.
“And what are the other reasons?” I ask, glancing sideways, hoping they’re not doing laundry and dishes, making dinner, and being some kind of wallflower or housefrau.
“Barefoot and pregnant, fine,” I declare. “But I don’t want to miss seeing you, being with you.”
“You won’t,” he says, utterly certain of himself.
“I need a business partner, like I said in the meeting today, one who’s word carries as much weight a mine, although… if you get stuck, I’d appreciate a consult,” he adds, intuiting my current lack of anything corporate.
I laugh softly, wondering if…
“I also want you to head up the charity kitchen details, the whole real estate project, to be honest. If it wasn’t for you, all those people would be out of a home, yourself included. Who better to manage it than a local, someone who knows her neighborhood?”
I feel my stomach turn. “That’s a lot of responsibility,” I hear myself saying. Wincing and already telling myself I can’t. I shouldn’t.
“It is,” Mason agrees, “but if we’re putting your name on it, you’ll know how to handle it, I’m sure of that!” he exclaims, fidgeting a hand in his jacket pocket.
He looks nervous like he’s thinking ahead of what his mouth is saying.
“My name?” I ask, totally confused now.
“That’s right. Actually, I’m thinking about whether to do it on everything, alphabetically or should we do it by experience?”
I feel my jaw dropping, my mind going completely blank.
“I mean, should it be Thorne-McPherson or McPherson-Thorne?”
I feel my head shaking like I’ve missed something.
“Should what be?” I ask, “The soup kitchen charity?” sounding blonder than I mean to.
Mason laughs loudly, clapping his hands in both pockets, looking panicked for a second, then relieved when he finds what he’s looking for.
“Here’s the contract,” he says, and I notice his hands trembling slightly as he produces a small, blue velvet box.
I make a strange sound, a cry of disbelief and a squeal of excitement.
I know a ring box when I see one, but I feel my head shaking. I can’t believe it.
“Hear me out,” Mason says hurriedly.
“I want you to be my business partner, to help me run everything, fifty-fifty, but I also want you to be mine… forever.”
He slowly opens the lid, revealing what looks like the hope diamond on a collar of smaller ones, bathing the kitchen and both
of us with a rainbow of light which it catches, streaming through the huge windows.
“Forever,” he repeats. “I want you, Jules. Body and soul. If we’re gonna have a family, they’ll need a mommy and a daddy, not two high powered business executives too busy to sit and play with them, to teach them all about life, about love.”
I’m still shaking my head, speechless.
“I want you to be my family, Jules. I want you to be my wife. My best friend, my lover.”
He stares at me for what feels like ages. “Will you stop shaking your head and say yes woman?” he asks pleadingly, looking worried I might say no, or even run again.
“Can I make Karen work in the soup kitchen?” I ask quickly, watching his split-second recall without him even flinching.
“She already does. I put through her transfer over the weekend, she’ll find out sometime tomorrow.”
“Yes!” I say out loud, pumping my fist in front of me. “Yes, yes, yes!”
Mason furrows his brow in question, looking worried for a moment.
“I mean yes to everything! Of course, I’ll marry you, Mason. If that’s what you’re asking?”
We both repeat yes! Until we can’t keep ourselves from each other a second longer.
He picks me up, carrying me to our bed, promising to make good on his predictions for barefoot and pregnant.
Although, a little something tells me we might already be well on our way there.
EPILOGUE
SIX MONTHS LATER
Mason
With Jules in charge of overseeing the neighborhood redevelopment, it means she’s spends more time than I’d like down there. I head down every chance I get but she’s told me off already for butting in on several occasions. So I busy myself with other things.
The place is ancient, one of the last houses still standing from early settlers by the looks, feels like it anyway, but it’s perfect.
Will be perfect, once we fix it up.
My reflex was to either build new or just pay people to come fix it, but Jules is trying to keep me away from the office, retraining me to be a homebody, which is fine by me too.
Calling her up around noon to see how her day is so far, she only works a couple of days a week, but I get antsy not having her around. She doesn’t answer.
Nothing too unusual about that, last time I went down there she was dishing out hot meals and re-educating the architects about where the best place really is for the ladies bathrooms.
But something isn’t sitting right.
Something’s off. I can feel it in my bones.
I try to laugh at the memory of our favorite saying when I feel things in my bones, but this time I really do.
My phone chirps, and picking up I figure its Jules returning my call.
“I’m not checking up on you baby. I was just-”
But it’s not Jules.
“Mr. Thorne. Doctor Briggs, at the hospital…”
My stomach drops, the hospital.
Before he can even speak I’m rushing for the door, snatching up my keys. I know that tone doctors get. I know the calls they have to make.
Life and death calls, I used to make them every day… financial ones anyway.
“Now, don’t panic. It’s just a fainting spell. We have Jules in the best hands right now. I’m just calling to let you know-”
I hang up. I need both hands and all my senses to drive.
The hospital’s about forty minutes away. I get there in twenty, skidding to a halt out front and rushing straight into the emergency room.
Dr. Briggs knows me better than I think or at least understands my reputation. Maybe he reads the newspapers. He’s waiting not too far from the door, shaking his head with a grave look.
“How bad is she, Doc? Give it to me straight, don’t lie to me,” I stammer, rushing up to him, annoyed by his sudden smile.
“You really shouldn’t have driven like a maniac to get here, Mr. Thorne. As I was trying to explain to you…”
But I won’t hear it, I want my Jules and I want her now.
“Where is she?” I demand, practically grabbing his collar.
He’s a big guy, but I’m bigger, but both his hands are up in a calm and professional way, like when he has to deal with lunatics.
Or over-excited, newly engaged millionaire hospital owners.
And hopeful fathers to be.
“Slow down, Mason,” he says firmly, still smiling.
“I believe congratulations are in order, not hysterics. You can save that for when she goes into labor. And I don’t want you speeding in your car then either,” he smiles, patting me on the shoulder.
“She’s…? I mean… Are we?” I ask, still stammering.
“Now, she’s about six months pregnant, Mason. But there is no need to worry the new dad,” he adds seriously.
I feel the color draining from my face.
“Dad… Daddy?” I murmur absently, and I think the doc knows it’s me. He takes me by the arm, and like leading someone in a trance, he takes me through to Jules, who’s having an ultrasound.
Seeing her brings me to my sense and I rush to her side, stroking her hair back, kissing her so much she can’t speak for a few minutes.
The doctor and a nurse wait patiently, the whooshing sound of a strange electronic pulse filling the space between us as I realize Jules is holding something to her belly.
“Can you hear that?” she asks, her eyes shining with tears. “That’s our baby’s heartbeat.”
“Our baby,” I say softly, touching her stomach so gently, suddenly afraid she’ll break if things aren’t just right from now on.
“Baby’s a little small for our liking but healthy as a lamb,” the doctor says, coming over and adjusting the equipment slightly.
“Would you like to know the sex?” he asks, and we both shake our heads in the negative.
“No,” Jules says, speaking for us both as I take her hand in mine. “We want it to be a surprise… like today was.”
“You didn’t know?” I ask her, still in shock.
“Did you?” she says in her best tell me off voice. “Geez, Mason, I’ve been saying for months how I’m packing on the pounds and you’re all just like ‘Duh, more of you to love baby,’” she says in her best impression of me.
Doc Briggs backs away, trying not to laugh. “I’ll give you two a moment,” and he steps out with the nurse.
I don’t mind if she’s making fun of me. I don’t mind at all.
“We’ll move the wedding up,” I tell her. “I’m not having a child out of wedlock.” She laughs at me, thinking I’m being funny still, but I mean it.
“I said Jules, when I asked you to marry me, our kids were gonna have a real mommy and a daddy, right from day one. No, if’s, and, or but’s.”
She squeezes my hand, understanding how strongly I feel about this. It’s an unspoken thing between us, she never mentions her lack of family and I’ll always put my family first, no matter what.
“Alright, Mason,” she agrees.
“And no more construction sites. I want you to take it easy from now on, you can delegate from home to work on your projects.”
“Yes, Mason,” she chimes patiently.
I must list off about a dozen other things before she’s finally heard enough.
“Mason?”
“Yeah, baby?” I ask her, full of concern.
“Shut up and kiss me will you.”
“Yes, Jules.”
And I do, I kiss her, and I hold her and I tell her a thousand times how much I love her.
How much I’m gonna love her and our baby forever.
“And Mason?” she asks me after a time. “Maybe make a start on the baby’s room, hire a builder will ya? It’s been six months and you haven’t even finished starting the front porch.
“Yes, dear.”
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
TWO YEARS LATER
Jules
I’d never heard of a groom arrang
ing his own shotgun wedding, but that’s what it felt like. Almost straight from the hospital after we found out I was heavy for a reason that wasn’t bagels, we made our way to the altar with Mason’s vows.
It doesn’t seem that long ago, but baby Jack is already doing his own version of walking, and Mason’s got giant pails of blue and pink paint at the ready, asking me every time I feel even a little tired if I think I might be expecting again.
Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration. But he’s taken to being a daddy so well. He loves it so much, I can just tell he’s as clucky as I am.
Not that I’d tell him that to his face, mind you.
“Honey!” I call up the stairs.“We’ll be late.”
Damned stairs, the whole point of moving was to avoid stairs. ‘We might need the extra room honeybunch.’
Baby Jack’s hanging onto the gate at the bottom of the stairs, looking up and waiting for his daddy. Looking like he’s doing time.
Or filling his diaper.
Yep. Great.
“Never mind, I gotta change Jack, again,” I call up to Mason, who’s suddenly gone quiet.
I don’t think he’d have nerves about the opening… or is it because it’s been two years already?
The time, it’s gone by so fast.
I hear the heavy thumping of Mason sprinting across the upper floor and down the stairs, leaping over the baby gate and scooping Jack from me before I can get him to the changing table.
“I got it, honey. You go get ready,” he says, not even panting.
“I am ready, Mason. Have been for twenty minutes, same as Jack. What were you doing up there?” I ask, wanting to sound annoyed, but always loving to watch my man change his little man.
I take a step back, fanning myself with my hand, feeling faint.
“What’s he been eating?” I exclaim, suddenly wanting to heave.
“Only what we feed him,” Mason murmurs, the clean diaper between his pursed lips as he concentrates.
“We can be late anyway honey,” he continues. “It’s your building, project, neighborhood thingy, whatever you call it, you’re the boss,” he says with finality.
Bidding For Her Curves: An Instalove Possessive Age Gap Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 208) Page 12