Forgotten Stranger: A Billionaire Boss, Single Dad Mystery Romance

by Peters, Liz

  The contentment carried her all the way through the next day, right up until she answered a knock on the front door around mid-afternoon and was confronted with another bouquet, this one with flowers in vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows.

  Stunned, Raine signed for the delivery and took the flowers to the kitchen. She didn’t have to guess who had sent them this time. But why? The other bouquet, the one that had said “thank you,” still sat in the middle of the kitchen table. So what were these flowers for?

  She retrieved the card and opened it.

  Raine,

  I’m glad you’re staying with us after everything.

  Mason

  She raised an eyebrow. That was it? It was a nice sentiment, but did he have to send another bouquet to express it? He could have just texted her.

  Raine shook her head, not even noticing the affectionately exasperated smile on her face. Mason was really weird sometimes.

  * * *

  The next day, at almost the same time, Raine received another bouquet from the same exasperated delivery man. This one’s flowers blushed all shades of pink. She took it to the kitchen, confused, and opened the card.

  Just because.

  Okay… that was a little weirder. She wondered if she should say something to Mason. But they were just flowers, right? And his appreciation made her happy, even if it made it hard to forget that there was a part of her that wandered as she lay awake at night, reliving the memory of his body moving with hers.

  She rolled her eyes and went to look for somewhere to put this newest bouquet, ignoring the voice in the back of her mind that insisted she put an end to this. She was sure it was fine.

  * * *

  When Mason’s phone rang around mid-afternoon, he glanced at his watch and noted that the delivery man would have just stopped by. If he was honest, it surprised him that it had taken her three days to question his actions.

  “Hello?” he said into the phone.

  “What’s with all these flowers?” Raine demanded. She didn’t sound angry, just bewildered. “You didn’t even leave a card today!”

  He ignored her question. “Did you like the colors?”

  “What? Yes, the blues and pinks went well together. Mason, what’s going on? Why are you sending me flowers every day?”

  Because I can’t stop thinking about you, he thought. Because all I can think about is being with you. Because I burned with jealousy when I saw the way Joshua looked at you, and I’m not selfless enough to let you go anymore.

  “No reason,” he said aloud. “You’ve done so much for us. I just thought I should show you how much it means to me.”

  “Well… that’s nice, but I’m running out of places to put them!”

  “Fine, I’ll stop,” he chuckled. “Oh, my mother invited us out to dinner tonight. She wants to see the family. And she wants you there, too.”

  She paused.

  Mason held his breath; his mother hadn’t actually issued an invitation, but it would be easy enough to get one.

  “Okay,” she finally agreed. “Why does it feel as if you’re up to something?”

  “I’m not,” he lied. “Listen, I better get back to work, Raine. I’ll see you later tonight.”

  “Right… bye, then.”

  She hung up, and Mason released a slow breath. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He knew he was playing with fire.

  But he didn’t care anymore. He had lost the battle against his feelings for her, and now, he was determined to make Raine stay. Which meant that he would somehow have to get her to give in to her attraction and fall for him.

  He opened his eyes. He had a phone call to make.

  * * *

  When Mason invited her to a spontaneous get-together for his entire family the night after dinner with his parents, Raine begged off, telling him she was sick.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t feel well,” she said, watching as Mason’s face fell. “But why don’t you guys go? I told Oliver he would get to see his cousins today, and he was very excited.”

  Emotions flitted across Mason’s face. Raine turned away so she wouldn’t reveal what she was feeling, busying herself with the coffee she was making.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay here by yourself?” Mason finally asked, concern winning out over frustration and sadness.

  “I’ll be fine,” she laughed, surprised that her voice sounded so normal. “I’ll go straight to bed and be fine by tomorrow morning.”

  She ushered them out the door, Mason dragging his feet and Oliver cheering, and waved to them as they left. When the car turned out of the driveway, both her smile and her hand dropped.

  Mason was courting her.

  She had noticed it last night at dinner with his parents. Mason might be good at disguising his true intentions, but his parents were not. His mother had watched Raine with thinly veiled interest and had asked her very pointed questions while her husband ran interference with his son.

  That dinner hadn’t just been a simple occasion. Mason had been introducing her to his parents as his potential… something.

  The thought was sweet. And horrifying. Mostly horrifying, because she didn’t want Mason to court her. Hadn’t they agreed to put this behind them? Why on earth would Mason change his mind?

  Something must have happened. Maybe someone had said something, or he had discovered something…

  Raine froze mid-step.

  Had Mason discovered that Oliver might be her son? After all, Oliver was enough like her that Mason would have to be blind not to see it at this point! Was he courting her just because he wanted Oliver to have a mother?

  He hadn’t given her any indication that this might be the truth… but what if it was? Raine should have felt relief at finding a reason for the weirdness, but all she felt was an odd pang at the thought that Mason might not be acting like this because he genuinely liked her.

  If he had noticed the similarities between Raine and Oliver, or if he did suspect she was Oliver’s mother, why hadn’t he said anything? Maybe he didn’t realize she knew?

  Her thoughts were all over the place. All she wanted was to go home to her parents, curl up in bed, and never face the world again. Everything that was happening was too confusing, and she didn’t know how to make sense of any of it.

  Although, at least she knew where she might get some answers. She had found a small cabinet while she was cleaning up after Oliver earlier today. It stood next to the couch in the living room, covered by a handmade blanket. She wouldn’t have realized anything of interest was there if one of Oliver’s cars hadn’t rolled under the blanket.

  There was no lock on it, and a quick peek inside, right before she’d heard Mason walk in the door, had told her it was full of documents of some sort. She didn’t know if she would find anything there, but she had to try. She needed to know something before she could move on from the confusion that plagued her.

  Now, with both Mason and Oliver out of the house, it was the perfect time to look in that cabinet. She hadn’t planned it like that, but she was glad that something was working out for her. She straightened her shoulders and marched to the living room.

  The first few documents that Raine lifted from the pile were business degrees that Mason had gotten a few years ago. There were a few papers explaining the insurance policies for the house and the cars, and she put all these aside without looking, uncomfortable with prying too deeply into Mason’s life.

  It wasn’t until she got halfway through the pile that Raine found something. She saw Oliver’s name first, and she scanned the document, realizing she was holding Oliver’s birth certificate.

  It was just as Dr. Gates had told her; Oliver had been born on the same day—at the same time, even—as her son. His doctor had been the same as hers. But that wasn’t possible. Dr. Monroe couldn’t have been in two places at once.

  This birth certificate was proof she might not be crazy. How could Dr. Monroe have delivered Oliver if he was in her room, d
elivering her stillborn son? He couldn’t have been.

  It wasn’t possible unless Oliver and her son were actually the same child.

  She couldn’t look anymore. Raine gathered the documents and shoved them back into the cabinet. She ran upstairs; her chest was tight and her eyes felt hot with tears. Sharp betrayal raced through her. Her doctor and Mason… the two of them had done this.

  They had stolen her son and allowed her to think she had lost him. It was the only possibility. She didn’t have all the details… but she was finally certain she wasn’t wrong.

  Chapter 11

  Mason was still a little disappointed when he got home, carrying a sleeping Oliver. He had hoped that Raine would have fun at the family gathering his aunt had decided to throw out of the blue. He knew, from her stories, that her parents were her only family, and, one day, he hoped she would be open to accepting his far larger family.

  Still, she hadn’t looked well when he left, so her claims of illness were most likely true. Resolving to check on her, Mason carried Oliver upstairs, lowered him into bed, and tucked him in. He pressed a kiss to the top of Oliver’s head and stepped back, smiling down at his sleeping son’s face.

  It was funny how much Mason saw of Raine in Oliver these days. His son had started copying some of her mannerisms, and Mason had even noticed that Raine’s hair, underneath the black she’d dyed it, was the same chestnut brown as Oliver’s when he’d seen her roots the other day.

  It was probably because Raine was fast becoming Oliver’s second favorite person in the world. Laughing to himself, he closed the door of Oliver’s room. He wondered what Raine would say if he told her that. He imagined she wouldn’t take it as well as he would have hoped right now.

  Raine’s door was ajar. Hoping he wasn’t crossing a line but needing to know she was okay, Mason knocked and pushed the door open, wondering if she had fallen asleep.

  He frowned. She wasn’t in her room.

  Was she downstairs? She hadn’t come out to greet them, but Mason had come in quietly, not wanting to wake Oliver. Maybe she was reading in the living room and hadn’t heard them enter the house?

  He padded down the stairs in his socks and looked down the hall toward the living room. The light was off, so she couldn’t be in there unless she was sitting in the dark. There was, however, a light on in the kitchen, so he changed direction and headed there instead.

  Sure enough, there she sat on a stool at the counter, a glass of water in front of her. She had a melancholy expression on her face, and he hesitated to disturb her. Still, he stepped toward her, clearing his throat.

  She looked up in surprise. “You’re back,” she said, her voice strangely flat.

  “Yeah, just now,” Mason said with a smile. He searched her face. Her eyes were cold and showed no evidence of the smile on her lips. It made him nervous. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Much.”

  He didn’t know what was wrong with her, but he knew he didn’t like it. He didn’t really want to spend any time with this Raine—who didn’t look like she wanted any company anyway—but he also didn’t want to leave whatever this was unresolved. Plus, he got the impression that, if he walked away now, he would ruin any potential relationship they might share.

  “I was thinking of having a glass of wine before bed,” he said. “Would you like to join me?”

  Raine watched as he pulled down a bottle, a complicated myriad of emotions playing over her face. She nodded. “Just a small one.”

  Mason nodded back. He had noticed how she had avoided alcohol at the club, and she hadn’t drunk anything alcoholic the entire time he had known her. He wondered if there was a reason for that, but he let the question fade. Now was not the time to ask.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked as he brought two glasses over.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You seem down about something,” he said with a shrug.

  She glanced at him.

  Mason considered how little he knew about Raine. He knew very little of her past, or of that “tough time” she’d cited as the reason for her unemployment. How tough had that time been? Could it still be affecting her now? He wished he knew the details so he knew how to comfort her.

  Minutes passed in silence as they sipped their wine, and Mason had given up on Raine saying any more when she spoke.

  “Just memories.” She sighed. “I told you that things went bad for me for a long time?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Seven years ago… I lost a child.”

  She took a long drink of her wine, and Mason’s eyes widened in horror. He’d had no idea she had gone through something so traumatic. When she’d said “tough time,” he’d thought she meant a broken leg that took a long time to heal or the death of a close friend—both awful experiences, but nothing compared to losing a child. Mason ached to wrap her in his arms, but then he noticed the suspicious look on her face and reigned in the impulse.

  “How old was your child?” he asked instead.

  “He was stillborn,” she said, looking down at her glass. “He would be the same age as Oliver now.”

  A stillborn child… a son that would have been the same age as Oliver… Mason tried to imagine what it would have been like if he had lost Oliver like that. But he couldn’t bear to imagine it. He didn’t want to imagine what his life would be like without Oliver.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. He knew it was seven years too late to say the words, and he knew they couldn’t ease her pain, but he wanted to give them to her anyway.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “It was seven years ago, but it still hurts. It took a long time to get back on my feet. The loss of my son… that was the beginning of a dark period in my life; I went off the rails, and my friends disappeared one by one until all I had left were my parents. We even moved from my childhood home because the area held too many memories, too many reminders of what could have been.”

  “Your childhood home was around here, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Raine slumped against the counter with a heavy sigh and glanced at him. She was searching for something, but Mason didn’t know what it was. He tried to make his expression as open as possible, and she frowned, dissatisfied with whatever she was or wasn’t seeing.

  “I can’t imagine losing Oliver,” he offered. “He’s my entire world.” He drew in a deep breath. “Before, I was happy you were here because you’ve done so much for the two of us, but now, I’m happy you’re here for your sake, too.” Unable to help himself, he picked up her hands in both his, making her start. “I know it won’t fill the hole your son left, but if loving Oliver can help at all, I’m glad to see how much you love him. And how much he loves you.”

  Her eyes went wide. Then, finally, her expression cleared, and her whole body relaxed. “Thank you,” she said, her voice cracking.

  Reluctantly, Mason released her hands and picked up his glass. He wasn’t sure what that had all been about, but he had the strangest feeling he had just passed some sort of test.

  “Since you shared something so big, I will, too,” he said. “You know Emily left me?”

  “Yeah?” Raine said, tilting her head.

  Mason looked away; the view of her neck reminded him how he had pressed kisses down it the other night.

  “I don’t think I told you why. Emily and I married for convenience. I needed my parents off my back about families and grandkids, and she wanted to marry into money. We were fond of each other, but I was a huge flirt. And… one night, I went too far. It was an accident, and I was drunk, but it was no excuse.” He laughed bitterly. “She tried very hard to forgive me, to her credit, but we were never quite right after that. When Oliver came along, I thought it might fix things, but she could never look at Oliver like he was precious to her. I think her anger with me contaminated her love for him. It wasn’t much of a surprise when she left, just that she did so in secrecy.”

  “But Oliver is her son. He had no
thing to do with what happened. Why would she let her anger at you affect her love for him?” Raine asked, frowning.

  Because he wasn’t her son, Mason wanted to say, but he swallowed the words. “That might be a story for another time,” he said. “Anyway, losing Emily was harder than I expected. Oliver was only two years old when she left, and I wasn’t prepared to be a single father. I loved Oliver so much, but that first year on my own was the hardest. After a few months, my mother stepped in to help me. It’s still hard at times, but we’re getting there.”

  “Do you think Emily will ever come back?” Raine asked cautiously.

  “Part of me hopes so, for Oliver’s sake,” Mason told her. “She was still his mother, and I think she did love him. But the rest of me hopes she doesn’t. She’s stayed away this long; it wouldn’t make any sense for her to return now, especially now that we’ve settled into a comfortable routine without her.”

  Especially now that he had found someone else with whom he wanted to share his life. Emily had left a large hole in his life and his heart, and he hadn’t thought anyone would ever fill it. He hadn’t realized how much he had really loved his ex-wife until she had left.

  Then Raine had come along, filling the void he’d long since accepted as permanent and settling into the space in his heart beside Oliver. Mason didn’t want to lose her.

  “It’s fine, anyway,” he said to Raine. “Emily left a long time ago.”

  She pursed her lips in a frown. “Just because it happened a long time ago doesn’t mean it hurts any less.”

  Mason smiled sadly. “No,” he agreed. “But look at us. We’ve gotten back on our feet and we’re finally making something of our lives.”

  Panic crossed Raine’s face so fast that Mason thought he might have imagined it. He didn’t, however, imagine the way she blushed.

  “It’s harder than it looks to let go,” she muttered.

  “Yeah, but we do our best.”