by J. S. Scott
But he’d never once even come close to asking me out.
Yes, he’d claimed to be attracted to me at the rehearsal dinner, and I’d believed it at the time. It was possible that he liked me enough to get me pregnant. Problem was, I knew myself. I’d never felt quite this way about any guy before, and I was going to want…more. Sex just for the purpose of creating a life would leave me…empty.
So I needed to stop holding on to that stupid weekly phone call.
“That ends now,” I said in a low, firm voice as my nails dug nervously into the envelope in my hand, leaving tiny crescent marks on the paper.
Brynn had been right when she’d said that I had a thing for Mason. I did. But it needed to stop. Hanging onto a weekly phone call wasn’t going to magically make a guy like Mason decide that he wanted…more.
In reality, I was tormenting myself, even though I hadn’t faced up to the truth until very recently.
I took a deep breath as the elevator came to a halt and the doors whooshed open.
The air I’d taken in suddenly left my lungs as I saw Mason’s tall, bulky, gorgeous form standing right in front of the open doors.
God, he looked so damn handsome, but I was a bit taken aback to see him in a pair of jeans and a button-down white shirt.
I was right. I knew he hated wearing a suit. If he didn’t, he would still be all buttoned up, even on the weekend.
Unfortunately, Mason wasn’t smiling, so I was pretty sure he wasn’t all that happy to see me.
It doesn’t matter. I need to get on with it.
“I need to talk to you,” I said, trying to gather up my resolve.
His frown deepened. “Are you okay?”
Nope. Not okay at all. But I’m going to let you think that I am.
I nodded as I stepped out of the elevator. “I’m fine. I just needed to talk in person today.”
He looked relieved. “Let’s go to my office.”
I followed him until we reached an enormous private office. He sat down in a large chair behind his desk. I dropped the big envelope onto his desk in front of him before I sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk.
Now or never. This is my chance to come clean, and I’m taking it.
No more Sunday calls.
No more half-truths.
No more hoping that Mason might eventually ask me out.
“Did you read my information?” he asked gruffly, before I could get a single word out of my mouth.
“Some of it,” I admitted. “And then I realized I couldn’t continue. I’d be prying into your business for no reason at all except for a promise I made you to read it. I wasn’t seriously considering your offer, Mason. I’m sorry. I guess I just wanted to end the whole discussion at the rehearsal dinner, so I agreed to take the packet and look at the contents. But I really had no intention of using you as a donor. I’ve already made my decision.”
His head jerked up, and his eyes were suddenly searching my face. “You chose another guy?”
There was hurt in his voice, and I immediately felt even more guilty than I already had before I’d arrived at Lawson Technologies.
His gaze was solemn, and I wondered how a guy could look so ferocious, yet so injured at the same time.
“No. It’s not that.” I took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. “The truth is, I decided not to go through with the whole process. I don’t think I wanted a baby for the right reasons. I think I realized that a year ago right after I visited the clinic. I didn’t want a baby; I wanted someone of my own, a child to love. I guess I realized how selfish those actions would be. You were right. Someday, that kid was going to want to know where he or she came from, and who the father might be. Sperm donors are anonymous, so he or she might never know. I guess if I had a strong maternal instinct to be a mother, I could justify doing it, but that wasn’t my reason. Not really. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be a mom, but I think I’d be doing it more because I didn’t want to be alone anymore.”
I felt tears well up in my eyes. It hadn’t been easy to admit the truth to myself, but I’d had to think about my reasons for considering artificial insemination once I’d visited the clinic, and decide whether those reasons were good enough to justify getting pregnant from the sperm of a man I’d never meet. In the end, they weren’t rational enough for me to go through with having a biological child just so I had a kid of my own to love.
I knew my motivation was more about being alone than an overpowering maternal instinct that I couldn’t ignore. Honestly, I was pretty happy with my life. My work. My friendships. I didn’t need to be a mother. For me, my actions were completely selfish ones.
Until I’d actually gone to the clinic, I hadn’t thought about how my actions and their unconventional birth might affect any child I had.
I’d grow up without parents who loved me. I had a few old memories of those years they’d been alive, but mostly, all I’d experienced was rejection. Even though I had plenty of love to give a child, I had to consider if they’d still feel rejected by not having a real father. I’d come to the conclusion that there was absolutely no reason I needed to risk it.
Mason was silent, so I continued. “I decided my motivation was completely selfish. There are so many kids in the world who need a good home. Somebody to love them. And I can do that. Eventually, I’m going to adopt from the same system I came from, Mason. I was a foster child. I know what it’s like to need to feel loved. I have that to give to a child or two who really needs it. And I’d be able to relate to the problems they’ve faced in a broken system.”
“You were a foster kid?” he asked huskily.
There was empathy in his gaze, and it almost broke me. “Most of my life,” I told him. “My parents died in an accident when I was young, just like yours, and I was an only child. None of my extended family wanted me. I was around seven years old when I went into New York City foster care, and I bounced from home to home until I was seventeen. When I was a teenager, I’d already been starving myself to fit into the modeling world. But nobody really noticed since I never stayed in one place for very long. I started trying to make contacts and get modeling gigs while I was still in high school. I caught a good break before I aged out of foster care, so I was one of the lucky ones. I was at least able to make enough money to keep a roof over my head with a bunch of other roommates once I turned eighteen.”
There was a tense silence in the office before Mason finally said, “Don’t cry.”
I raised a hand to my face, and swiped at the tears that had been pouring down my face as I spoke. “I never cry,” I said in a tearful voice that actually shocked me.
Okay. I did cry occasionally. But I rarely let anybody see those vulnerable moments. I’d learned to keep my emotions in check a long time ago.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked hoarsely.
When my face was finally dry, I lowered my hands to my lap as I explained, “I didn’t tell anyone that I’d changed my mind about having a biological child. Not even Brynn. I felt like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” Mason said, defending me, which only made me want to cry again.
“But I let you keep calling me every week, thinking that I was going to do something stupid when I really wasn’t. Aren’t you angry about that? It was a waste of time.”
He shook his head slowly. “No. And calling you was never a waste of my time. I wanted to call you, Laura. I wanted to know how you were doing. If I hadn’t wanted to, I wouldn’t have called.”
I felt something flutter in my belly as I finally met his eyes. “I guess I kind of liked the fact that somebody cared that I was about to ruin my entire life. Not that having a child with a sperm donor would have really done that, but I guess I’ll never know how it would have turned out, but I’m okay with that.” I took a deep breath because I knew I was running on about nothing. I finished with the truth. “It was nice to have you show some concern every week.”
Really, I’d gotten addi
cted to those weekly calls, even though Mason pissed me off sometimes. It was pathetic, but for a woman who had no real family and had never had a guy show a lick of protective instinct toward me, it was gratifying.
He grunted. “If I’d known that, I probably would have called you every day.”
I couldn’t help the way my lips curved up in a small smile. How was it that Mason always seemed to say something sweet when I felt uncomfortable? “So you forgive me for not telling you before?”
Mason shrugged. “Nothing to forgive. I was pretty much doing exactly what I wanted to do. And you really didn’t owe me the truth. But you did leave me sweating over whether or not you were going to pop up pregnant with another man’s baby for a whole goddamn year.”
My heart skittered, leaving me almost breathless. “I’m sure you were concerned because there was some kind of family connection between us. Because Brynn is my best friend, and she’s married to your brother. Actually, that’s kind of sweet.” Maybe I’d always hoped more would come from his calls, but I was done pretending that it might.
“The way I felt about you having someone else’s baby has never had anything to do with family, Laura. Or about friends. I didn’t want you to get pregnant from a sperm donor. It was pretty much all about me.”
His words were blunt, and I didn’t know what in the hell to say. Eventually, I murmured, “I don’t understand.”
His intense, broody stare made me squirm as he answered, “I think it should be fairly obvious. I offered to fuck you until you ended up pregnant with my child. I’m attracted to you, Laura. I always have been. That’s the bottom line. If some man was going to knock you up, I wanted it to be me.”
I was almost certain my eyes were bulging out of my head as I gaped at him. “You just wanted to…be with me? No sympathy or obligation involved?”
Everything Brynn had been trying to tell me about Mason having a thing for me suddenly came into very sharp focus.
Was he trying to say he’d wanted to…fuck me? Really?
“Is that so hard to believe, Laura?” he asked in a husky tone. “That I just want to get you naked for no reason other than my desire to fuck you?”
I had to open and close my mouth a couple of times before I could get the word out. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“For God’s sake, you’re Mason Lawson, billionaire and genius leader of one of the biggest tech companies in the world. Not only are you smart and rich, but you’re probably the most handsome guy I’ve ever seen. You could have nearly any single female on the planet. Why in the hell would you want to screw me?” I blurted out the whole truth without even thinking about it. I was too stunned to do anything else.
He shot me a small grin. “You think I’m handsome?”
I rolled my eyes. “Me, and every other woman who sees you.”
He acted like he had no idea how appealing he was, which was kind of hard for me to swallow. Maybe that was just as difficult to choke down as his insistence that he wanted to get me into bed so badly that he’d called me once a week for an entire year.
Sure, he’d told me that I was beautiful, and that he was attracted to me. Maybe it was just now starting to sink in that he really meant it.
I’d blown off what Brynn had said about how she thought Mason felt.
I’d blown off the look of desire I’d thought I’d seen in his eyes Friday night.
I’d blown off the fact that he’d offered to father the biological child I’d wanted.
I’d blown off every single thing he’d done or said that might lead me to believe that he just wanted to…be with me.
All because of my own hidden insecurities.
All because I couldn’t even fathom the idea that Mason found me attractive…in any way.
All because he seemed like an unreachable guy, even though I’d been attracted to him, too.
As I continued to gawk at him, I finally realized the absolute truth.
Mason Lawson did lust after me, and all the proof I needed was staring me in the face right now.
“Why didn’t you just ask me out instead of calling on a pretense every week?” I asked.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be interested. And I really didn’t want to lose contact with you,” he said stiffly.
Oh my Lord.
Mason had no idea how attractive he was, or how he could melt the panties off nearly any female.
In fact, he didn’t seem to know that most women would kill to go out with him.
You think I’m handsome?
Hadn’t he asked me that?
In reality, he hadn’t wanted a stroke to his ego. Not at all. He really had wanted me to verify that I wanted him, too.
He just didn’t get that most women would see him as the most desirable but unattainable guy on the planet.
My heart squeezed inside my chest as I looked at his confused face, hating myself for the fact that my fears had blinded me to his insecurities.
Mason Lawson wasn’t a billionaire playboy. In fact, I didn’t think he had all that much experience with women…at all.
It made sense, in a way. He was a workaholic. Did he even have time to date?
It was at that very moment that everything that had happened between Mason and me in the past came to me with very sharp clarity.
He was insecure.
I was insecure.
And we’d been dancing around each other in uncertainty because we were both attracted to each other, but neither one of us could believe the other could feel the same way.
It seemed pretty ridiculous that somebody like Mason could feel that way, but he obviously had the same thoughts about me.
As what had been happening became clearer to me, my nervousness started to fade away.
I’d nearly missed the chance to know Mason because of my fears.
I wasn’t willing to let that happen again.
I needed to get out of my own way.
He stood as he asked, “Have you eaten?”
I shook my head. “No.”
He was hesitant before he asked brusquely, “Do you want to go get something? I’m starving.”
I had to shake myself out of my musings to realize this was my second chance. “Sure. I’m hungry.” I paused for a second before I asked, “Are you asking me out on a date? I’d just like to clarify exactly what we’re doing here.”
I was willing to be bold to make sure we were on the same page.
“Do you want it to be a date?” he asked gruffly.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I think I do want it to be a date, but I need to figure out how to start all over again with you. Everything I thought before was…wrong.”
“Then it’s whatever the hell you want it to be for now,” he answered. “Friends, a date, just two hungry people eating together. I don’t really give a damn right now as long as you come with me.”
He held out his hand, and I let him pull me out of my chair.
I shivered as our bodies brushed together.
Suddenly, Mason Lawson, one of the most eligible bachelors in the entire world, didn’t seem all that unattainable at all.
Laura
“This place is amazing,” I told Mason as I took a break from feasting on Kung Pao chicken.
We’d ended up settling on Chinese because we both liked it, and he’d suggested we just take it back to his place since there was very little seating inside the small restaurant.
His home was a remodeled old mansion that sat right on the edge of the water. Not at all what I’d expected, but I was learning to stop making quick judgments when it came to Mason.
Even as I sat cross-legged on his couch in the living room, I had breathtaking Elliott Bay views. I doubted there was a space in the large house where a person couldn’t see the water.
He reached for an eggroll and devoured it in two bites. Between us was a large coffee table full of food. When we’d first carried the mass quantity of Chinese cuisine into the house, I was certai
n we’d barely make a dent in the pile.
I’d been wrong.
Mason was capable of demolishing a whole lot of food, and I’d been so hungry that I’d put down my fair share as well.
“I’m not here all that often,” he mused. “It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the house while there’s still any natural light,” he informed me as he leaned against the back of his chair again.
In the summer, the sun didn’t set until around nine o’clock, so it was still light outside. “Really? God, I think I’d love to spend every moment I had here if I owned a place like this. I think I had you pegged as the downtown penthouse type like Carter and Jett.”
The home was perfect. It was serene, but still close enough to the downtown area.
“I wanted a house, but it probably would have been more convenient to be right near my offices,” he answered.
I smiled. Ever since I’d realized that Mason wasn’t a womanizer and had his own insecurities, he’d been so much more approachable to me.
Not that the man was exactly an open book, but he was easier to talk to.
And my heart ached to really know him, and not just the handsome, arrogant billionaire façade.
Mason had wanted me to ride with him, and we’d talked like friends on the way to get the Chinese food.
Not that he wasn’t still bossy and blunt, but I could live with that. He wasn’t my boss, so I could tell him off when he got overbearing. After all, I had dealt with him every single week on the phone when he was being an ass.
“I think it’s so much nicer here,” I finally answered. “Who doesn’t want to be right on the water? I would love to be on the waterfront, but my budget didn’t stretch quite that far. So I settled on a downtown condo.”
We ate in companionable silence for a few minutes before Mason requested quietly, “Tell me about growing up in the system.”
I shrugged as I reached for my soda on the coffee table. “I survived it. There isn’t much more to say. I wish I could say that there was a foster family I bonded with, but there wasn’t. Most of them had kids of their own to worry about. When I was younger, I just wanted a family to adopt me. By the time I hit my teens, I just wanted out.”
