Billionaire Unattainable

by J. S. Scott

“It’s my decision to make. Yeah, I get the fact that a child might ask about their father someday, and I wouldn’t have all of the answers I’d like to have. And even if I did, the sperm donor might not be honest. I get it, but nobody’s life is perfect. I really don’t need you hammering the bad parts of taking that step into my head anymore.”

  Really, I should just tell him the truth, what I’d decided. I wasn’t quite sure why I didn’t.

  Was it because it was none of his business?

  Or did I just love to torment myself every single Sunday?

  “Are you okay, Laura?” he asked.

  “Yes. Why?” It was an odd question for Mason to ask. Our Sunday call was usually brief and regarding only one subject: my possible decision to become a mother with artificial insemination.

  His query about my personal well-being was…abnormal.

  “I know the online startup of Perfect Harmony got pretty crazy. You looked kind of tired at the pre-wedding party Friday night,” he explained. “Is it all getting to be too much? Do you need more help?”

  “No. I’m okay. You and Carter have already helped me enough. Everything is calming down. To tell you the truth, I’ve just started to think about the possibility of being a mom again now that I have time to breathe.” Since he was actually being nice, I figured I could do the same.

  I heard Mason let out an exasperated breath before he spoke, which wasn’t normal for him. For the most part, he kept everything in check. “What I don’t get is why there isn’t some man taking you to bed every damn night and trying like hell to get you what you want.”

  I snorted. “Sorry. But Prince Charming never arrived.”

  “Does he have to be Prince Charming?” he asked huskily. “Can’t he just be a regular guy?”

  Mason had never gotten quite this candid. Not even close. He generally just reminded me not to do something I’d regret, and then hung up. I had to admit, I was surprised enough to hesitate a moment before I answered. “He could be,” I confessed. “In fact, I’d really prefer it that way. The whole Prince Charming thing is a joke. I’ve never found anyone who just wants…me. And maybe a family. I’m a loser magnet. I’m a plus size woman who just happens to have a lot of money and a small amount of fame. As of yet, I haven’t found a man who doesn’t care more about those two things than the actual woman in front of him.”

  “Then you’re looking in the wrong places,” he said hoarsely. “You’re a beautiful woman, Laura. Intelligent. You care about other people through your charities, so you’re compassionate. What else could a guy want? There has to be a million guys who want to knock you up.”

  Even though my eyes were moist with tears, I had to hold back a surprised laugh. “One,” I corrected. “All I’ve ever wanted was one guy.”

  The right one.

  “What are the requirements?” he asked in a husky voice that sent a shiver down my spine.

  “For what?” I frowned. I didn’t know exactly what he was asking.

  “To be that guy you want.”

  I sighed, not quite believing that Mason and I were having this conversation. “He has to be breathing.”

  “So I assumed,” he answered dryly.

  “He has to have a job and be able to hang on to it full-time. I don’t care what kind of job. I don’t care how much it pays. I just want somebody who has his own income, and doesn’t expect me to completely support him.”

  “Of course.”

  “If he cooks or does occasional laundry and cleaning, that’s a bonus,” I pondered, starting to get into the game of naming off the qualities I wish I’d found in a guy I was dating a long time ago.

  “What if he can afford to take those tasks away from you by hiring someone?”

  I nodded, even though Mason couldn’t see me. “Even better. That means he has a really good job that he probably loves doing.”

  “What else?” he prompted gruffly.

  I nibbled at my bottom lip. Did I really want to spill my guts to Mason? There were probably a million things I could have said to appease him, but for some reason, I blurted out the truth. “He has to be attracted to me,” I said in a rush, before I changed my mind.

  “That would be most of the male population, married or unmarried,” he scoffed.

  My heart skittered. Did Mason really believe that every guy on the planet wanted me? “No, it isn’t,” I corrected. “Mason, I’m taller than most men out there. And it’s not like I’m down on myself, because I’m not. I’m a realist. I’m not a tall, slender model. I’m a very tall, big-boned female with a lot of meat on my bones. I’m a bigger woman than most men really want to see in a mainstream swimming suit advertisement. People try to fat-shame me in this profession all the time. I’ve fought for body diversity for most of my career, but it’s been an uphill battle. Men, and sometimes even women, really don’t want to see me flaunting my larger body in ads that were previously dominated by very thin women. If I’m doing work for a plus size company, nobody complains. But if I start to step outside that particular niche, I get hammered by people who don’t want things to change or to be more realistic.”

  “You’re gorgeous, Laura. If any man’s dick doesn’t get hard every time he looks at you, he’s a moron,” he replied hoarsely.

  I rolled my eyes. “Then there are a lot of moronic males in the world.”

  I tried to keep my tone light, but I was still trying to get over the shock of Mason talking about anything sexual. He never had before.

  “Those are pretty simple requirements.” He paused for a moment before he added, “Even I’d qualify to be that guy.”

  Is he kidding?

  For God’s sake, Mason Lawson was probably every woman’s fantasy guy.

  He was filthy rich.

  He was powerful in the business world.

  He ran one of the biggest tech companies in the world.

  He was in-your-face big, bold, and handsome enough that my panties melted every time I saw him.

  Sure, he was bossy, but it wasn’t intimidating to me. It was just part of his personality that I’d learned to blow off—most of the time.

  For some reason, my instinct told me that there was so much more to Mason that I almost ached to find out just how much more.

  No human being could be a machine one hundred percent of the time. I knew there was a personality and emotions beneath Mason’s businesslike façade.

  Unfortunately, even Brynn didn’t know what went on in Mason’s head, and she was married to Mason’s brother.

  I took a deep breath. “Yes, you would definitely be a contender,” I said simply, not even willing to entertain the notion that what he’d just said was anything more than a casual observation.

  Men like Mason could have any woman he wanted, and they generally didn’t pick a plus size woman like me.

  Like I said, I was a realist.

  “I’ll see you Friday night,” he said, his voice back to his usual matter-of-fact tone.

  It was almost a relief that he’d gone back to the Mason I recognized and had grown accustomed to.

  I’ll see you Friday?

  It took me a second to realize that I’d see him at Jett and Ruby’s rehearsal dinner. “Good-night, Mason.”

  I waited for him to hang up.

  “Good-night, Laura,” he said in an unreadable tone.

  The phone went dead before I realized that, for the first time, Mason had actually responded in kind by wishing me a good-night instead of just hanging up like he normally did.

  I shrugged off his unusual behavior as I put my phone down on my desk and got back to work.

  Laura

  “There was something not quite right about Mason last night,” I told Brynn the next morning as we met in a new café for breakfast.

  The unusual conversation I’d had with him had been bugging me since I’d hung up with him last night. Yeah, I’d tried not to think about it. It was probably a fluke. But he had been different, and I couldn’t put a finger on why it w
as so damn disconcerting.

  I took a bite of my veggie omelet as I watched her roll her eyes.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she answered wryly. “I like Mason. But when is he ever normal? The guy is like a machine. I’m not even sure he’s human sometimes.”

  I put down my fork and grabbed my coffee. “Yeah, that’s just it,” I said thoughtfully. “He normally doesn’t ask questions; he issues demands. But he was actually asking me stuff about what kind of guy I’d like to find when he called last night.”

  Brynn coughed like she’d momentarily choked and reached for her water glass.

  Nobody even noticed that she was distressed. The restaurant wasn’t terribly crowded, but it was breakfast time, so everyone was bustling around to get to work on time.

  We’d seated ourselves in a quiet booth in the corner so we could chat.

  “You okay?”

  Brynn took a few more sips of water, and then replied, “I’m fine. Don’t do that to me. Are you serious? Mason asked you that during your usual Sunday night call? I thought it was generally a bossy two-minute conversation.”

  I nodded. “It usually is. He tells me not to get artificially inseminated and hangs up. But he was different last night. He stayed on the phone a little longer and asked some bizarre questions. Well, bizarre for Mason, anyway. He never really asks me anything except whether or not I’m pregnant.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  I shot her a smirk. “I said I’d like a man who worked, was breathing, and who was attracted to me.”

  “He wanted to make sure he was baby daddy material,” Brynn said with a satisfied smile right before she dug into her own breakfast. “I’ve always known that he had a thing for you.”

  Oh, God. Let’s not go there again. Brynn had been trying to convince me that Mason was hot for me for a long time. She’d been adamant, like it was really possible for something like that to happen.

  “He doesn’t have a thing for me,” I denied. “He just seems to think he knows what’s best for every person on the planet.”

  “That’s not why he calls you every single Sunday. Laura, he’s always been attracted to you. Why in the world is that so hard for you to believe?”

  I snorted and reached for my coffee. “Mason Lawson is not attracted to me. He’s concerned because his brother is married to my best friend.”

  Brynn wrinkled her nose, which looked adorable on her, but would have made me look like a plump rabbit. “Mason,” Brynn drawled, “absolutely does not waste time on anyone he doesn’t like. He calls you every single week. Granted, it’s a short call, but I think he does it because he’s afraid you’ll end up pregnant by someone other than him.”

  My eyes flew open wide and I gaped at her. “He does not want to be my baby daddy,” I said firmly. “Brynn, that’s crazy.”

  “I thought you said you thought you heard him say that he did at Jett and Ruby’s engagement party,” Brynn argued.

  “I said I thought he might have said it. I was hammered, Brynn. You know I don’t hold my alcohol well. Honestly, I remember very little about that whole night. After a couple of days of sobriety, I knew I’d probably imagined it. God, I hate myself for every single thing I did that night. I still don’t even know how I got home.”

  Brynn looked at me quizzically. “Mason hasn’t mentioned the incident? At all?”

  I shook my head. “Never. Not once. Other than the fact that he reminds me every Sunday with a phone call that he was listening to me ramble on while we were on that patio together—before I apparently passed out.”

  I shuddered. I was still mortified by my behavior that night. I’d been upset because I’d been to the fertility clinic that day and started thinking about all of the reasons why having a baby with an unknown father might be problematic.

  Not to mention that the whole process had felt like something that could be done just by swiping my credit card.

  It was impersonal—like any normal type of shopping transaction.

  Not that I considered myself a romantic, but picking a guy to father my baby like I was buying a new dress just felt…sad to me.

  And then when I’d gotten to the engagement party, I’d just felt…lonely. Not that I hadn’t been happy for Jett and Ruby, but the party was an in-my-face reminder that I’d never managed to find a guy who was crazy about…me. Which was why I’d decided to resort to artificial insemination. Alone.

  Hell, I’d never had a decent boyfriend, and I’d certainly never come close to being a bride.

  “I think Mason took you home,” Brynn replied.

  “I don’t,” I said. “I think he would have mentioned it.”

  Her expression got less teasing and more serious. “He was there on the patio with you, Laura. The Lawson men might have their faults, but they’d never leave a woman defenseless. He took you home.”

  “Why wouldn’t he mention it? Somebody took me home, definitely. I had to take an Uber to go get my car the next morning at Jett’s place. But it wasn’t Mason.”

  I had to keep convincing myself that my good Samaritan hadn’t been Mason Lawson. If it had, it would be way too mortifying to digest.

  Brynn raised a brow. “Has anybody else ever mentioned taking you home?”

  “No.”

  “I rest my case. Anybody else would have mentioned it,” Brynn reasoned.

  Okay, I’d definitely considered that not a single friend had ever revealed the fact that they’d taken me home that night. But maybe it was somebody I hadn’t really known that well. Or maybe, if it had been a friend, they hadn’t wanted to embarrass me.

  “I always hoped it was a female since somebody got me out of the dress I was wearing that night before they dumped me into my bed.” Truthfully, it would have taken more than one female since I wasn’t exactly a lightweight.

  “Why don’t you just ask Mason?” Brynn asked curiously.

  It was a valid question, but I didn’t really have a solid answer.

  “I don’t think I really want to know,” I confessed with a groan. “The thought of Mason stripping my clothes off down to my underwear isn’t exactly something I want to think about.”

  Brynn shot me a questioning look. “Laura, you did a swimsuit shoot, for God’s sake. Millions of men saw it. Who cares if one more guy sees you like that? You’ve certainly never been shy.”

  Actually, Brynn was wrong. Maybe I put on a good act when I was modeling, but in my personal life, I had plenty of insecurities.

  I had to push myself to be bolder, to step outside of my comfort zone. But I did it for every woman who wasn’t a size zero or a size two. However, it sure as hell hadn’t been easy for me.

  “I don’t know those men,” I said tersely. “And you know I got fat-shamed all over social media for doing that particular assignment.”

  “You looked absolutely gorgeous and sexy,” Brynn said, her tone defensive.

  I held up a hand to stop her, so she didn’t feel she needed to keep justifying my swimsuit shoot. “I’m not ashamed of it, and I’m over the social media trolls. I know I’m fit because I exercise every day, and I’m healthy. It’s just kind of uncomfortable to think about some unknown guy undressing me up close and personal when I’m not even conscious.”

  I was being honest with Brynn. I couldn’t change my genetic makeup. I was taller than most guys, and I was healthier when I had some meat on my bones. Honestly, I looked good in most of my photo shoots because it was impossible to see exactly how big I actually was in pictures.

  However, I wasn’t about to confess that in the flesh, I felt a bit like the Jolly Green Giant—minus the pea-colored skin.

  Being a regular size model, Brynn was tall, too, but I had a couple of inches on her, and her frame was delicate, dainty. Mine…wasn’t.

  Brynn frowned. “I think you should ask Mason—just so you can be certain something bad didn’t happen that night.”

  “If it did, I don’t remember it. I didn’t get pregnant, and I didn’t c
ontract any kind of STD.” There had never been any sign of me being sexually assaulted, but I had done a visit with my doctor to make sure nothing weird had happened.

  Still, there was that lost time…

  It was disconcerting that I’d completely lost my memory of what had happened that night after I’d spilled my guts to Mason on the penthouse patio.

  Not knowing what had occurred during that blacked-out time was the thing that bothered me the most.

  Somebody had gotten me safely home.

  Somebody had driven me in their vehicle.

  Somebody had somehow gotten my substantial, limp body up to my condo.

  Somebody had taken most of my clothes off, covered me up, and left my place after they’d made sure I was in bed.

  It was more than a little creepy that I had no idea exactly who had done all that.

  “Ask him,” Brynn insisted. “At least you’ll know.”

  “Maybe I will. I’ll see him at the rehearsal dinner this week.” The whole conversation reminded me that I really did need to know what happened, even if it meant that I had to ask the embarrassing questions. “Usually, our conversations are so short that I don’t have the opportunity.”

  “Until last night, right? Things changed. What else did he say?” she prompted.

  I dropped my fork on my empty plate. “He did mention that he fit my qualifications for what I wanted in a man. Which doesn’t mean he wants me. I think he was just trying to say my standards weren’t all that specific. I swear, he thinks every guy in the world thinks I’m irresistible.”

  “He’d be right,” she said stubbornly as she leaned back in her bench seat and crossed her arms.

  I raised my brows as I took a quick sip of coffee. “Really? Then tell me why every boyfriend I’ve ever had was a complete jerk.”

  “Because you’ve never demanded more,” Brynn answered immediately. “They were selfish. None of them cared about you. Every one of them wanted something you could give them. Let’s take Justin, for example. He was so stuck on himself that he wasn’t capable of giving a damn about somebody else.”

  I cringed. It had been a couple of years since Justin, and I hadn’t had the desire to be with another guy since. Not because my relationship had been so good with him, but because it had been so bad.