by Inara Scott
“Because I knew you’d call him back before me. Listen, I assume you’re enjoying a leisurely morning, but we’ve got two client issues blowing up and we need you to actually pay attention to your job today.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he called to the phone over the sound of the water, “I thought I worked more than eighty hours last week and got home last night at two after having drinks with Harold Singerman and getting an invitation for lunch with him next week. But go ahead, tell me how much of a slacker I am.”
There was a brief pause. “Singerman?”
“Yes, Singerman.” Mason took enormous pleasure emphasizing the name of the elusive billionaire, who they had been hoping to attract to their fund for years. “He’s interested in working with us. You still pissed?”
Nate cleared his throat, clearly not ready to let go of his irritation. “I sent you the Nivium deal sheet two days ago to review.”
“That’s what this is about?” Mason vaguely considered whether he could shoot one of his best friends. “A deal sheet you sent two days ago?”
“We need to close that deal. Now that we don’t have the fuel cell in our portfolio, we need another big win. I want to call them back today on it.”
“You’re overreacting. I know our portfolio as well as you do, and we didn’t need the fuel cell tech and we definitely don’t need this new deal to be signed today.” He measured the coffee as he tried to keep his temper from blowing up. Nate made a habit of pissing him off, but it was unusual for him to start so early in the morning. “What’s the other client issue?”
“Hanley Insurance is getting cold feet about the new green fund. They want to meet with us at ten to go over the portfolio in more detail.”
“Fine.” Mason glanced at the clock on the stove. “I can be in by then.”
“You need to be here now so we can go over things first.”
“Nate,” Mason said, fighting for calm, “I can sell the green portfolio in my sleep.”
There was a pause. Then, “Connor and I made a few changes we need to tell you about.”
“Changes?” Mason picked up the phone and turned off the speaker. “What the hell is going on? Since when do you make changes without me?”
“Come to work and we can talk about it.”
“Last time I checked, we were partners.” The surge of fury was so strong, his hand curled into a fist. “Now you and Connor are meeting without me? Making decisions without me?”
“We didn’t think you’d mind.”
“You didn’t think I’d mind?” Mason stepped away from the counter and stared blindly at his living room. He couldn’t make sense of what Nate was saying, and fury and disbelief raced through him in equal measure.
He could almost hear Nate’s shrug through the phone.
“We didn’t think you’d mind.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“Mase, come to work. We can talk about it here.”
“Fine.” He cut off the call and slammed down the phone. There was one rule they’d all agreed on when they first started in business together, and that was that they worked as an equal partnership. Nate had bankrolled their initial investments, but Mason had quickly become adept at finding new sources of funds. He’d been the one to convince their first institutional clients to take a risk with them, and the one to conceive of Livend’s unique mix of high- and low-risk investments. And neither Nate nor Mason understood the technology like Connor. They all played different roles, but they’d always respected each other’s judgment and worked together seamlessly. Though each of them had the authority to accept or reject a deal on their own, they rarely did, unless it was something egregious like Elijah’s sleezy behavior around his contract. Never in Mason’s memory had two of them met and agreed to something without the third.
Twenty minutes later, Mason stalked through the doors of the Livend Capital offices and went straight to Nate’s office. He slammed the door shut behind him. “You want to tell me what this is all about?”
Nate looked up from the pile of papers on his desk and gestured to his computer. “You and Tess made the morning news.”
“What?” Mason moved around the side of the desk so he could see what Nate meant. The article was a fluffy society Who’s Who piece on the gala. Someone had snapped a picture of Mason with his arm around Tess, looking adoringly at her, and tagged it Mason Coleman and Unidentified Woman—Love at Last? He skimmed the article. A few lines near the end speculated about who Tess might be, describing him as “obviously smitten with the raven-haired beauty.”
Nate smirked. “Smitten. Very cute.”
“I swear to God, you make one crack about Tess—” Mason could feel his head ready to explode. “You didn’t bring me in here to look at that, did you?”
“God no. Luke just forwarded me the link, and I couldn’t help but think that you’ve got to be past the four-date rule.”
“There is not now, and never has been, a four-date rule,” Mason snarled.
“Fine. Whatever you say. But look, Tess seems like a nice person. I really do like her. And I hope you understand that Cecilia Kerr would not hesitate to ruin us if she thought we treated her best friend wrong.”
“Tess is also an adult,” Mason bit out. “And anyway, according to her, we’re not dating. We’re just friends.”
“Who sleep together?”
He inclined his head in acknowledgment.
“So you’re not serious about her?”
“I don’t see how I could be. She’s not interested in a relationship.”
Steel gray eyes contemplated him from across the desk. “That must be a big relief.”
“It is.” Not. “But I’m pretty sure we’re here to talk about the green fund, not what my intentions are toward Tess.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
Nate stood up slowly and walked around to the front of his desk. Casually, he leaned back against the polished wood. “When we started this company, how often did we disagree on things? Like, really disagree. Argue into the night about which direction we wanted to go, or where we wanted to put our money.”
“All the time, and what the hell does that have to do with—”
“All the time,” Nate agreed. “We’d go back and forth for hours. And eventually we’d convince each other. Sometimes we’d go my way, sometime yours.”
Mason ran his hand through his hair. Some of the anger leached out of him at the memory of those late nights. “And sometimes we’d arm wrestle for it.”
“Connor stayed out of the way when we got into it. He’d tell us about the tech, and we’d look at the market, check the comparables, and try to decide where the industry was headed. And fight, because sometimes smart people just disagree, and you have to trust your partner to make the right decision.”
Mason sighed and slumped into a chair. “What’s this really about?”
“You don’t argue anymore. You just take my word for it. Or you give up if I push you on something. It’s like you checked out. And I want to know why.”
Something vibrated in him, leaving a chill in the pit of his stomach. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We argue all the time.”
“Really? When’s the last time you went to the mat for something?”
Mason didn’t like the way he struggled to come up with something. All he could think of was the way he’d folded over the fuel cell boys, and then regretted it later.
“I work hard for this company,” he snapped. “I spend hours that you never see finding prospects, assessing them, and figuring out where I think we should go next.”
“And then, when it comes to making the final decision, you step back. Let someone else make the call.”
“Maybe that’s because I got tired of arguing with you. You are a dick, you know.”
Nate rolled his eyes. “Of course I am. But that’s not the point. This has nothing to do with me. I think the problem is that you don’t trust yours
elf anymore.”
Mason slouched deeper into the chair.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” Nate crossed his arms over his chest. “Why didn’t you push back on the fuel cell guys that day in the conference room? Why didn’t you tell me and Connor that we were wrong?”
“Because I didn’t have anything concrete. All I had was my gut.”
“And since when did that stop being a reason to push back?”
Mason closed his eyes. The silence in the room was deafening.
“Look, ever since you fired those guys, I’ve been waiting to see what you would do next. I thought maybe you’d turned a corner or something. But you’re just coasting again. I had a glimpse of the old Mason, and I want him back.”
Mason cringed. Was Nate right? Had he stepped back?
“I’m just doing what you all expect me to do,” he said, rejecting the direction of his own thoughts. “I’m the looks of the operation, right? The guy with the four-date rule. And thanks for telling Tess about that, by the way. She walked out on me the next morning.”
“And that’s my fault?”
“That you told her that? Yeah, I’d say that’s your fault.”
“Not that I told her. That she walked out. You sure that’s because of something I did?” When Mason did not respond, Nate continued, even more softly, “Just because other people repeat that bullshit doesn’t mean you have to believe it.”
“Look, we are what we are. I haven’t changed. It’s just that we’ve gotten bigger, and the roles are more defined. I’m the face of the company. No big deal.”
Of course, it was a big deal, and he’d been noticing it for a while now. The way he didn’t get excited to go to work anymore. The way his role seemed to have narrowed. The way he’d started to give up on making the tough calls.
“You are what you tell yourself you are. If you want to be just a pretty face, go right ahead. But that’s not the guy I want to be partners with. That’s not the guy I am partners with.”
A surge of something—was it shame? Anger at Nate? At himself?—brought Mason back to his feet. He rubbed his hands together and paced over to Nate’s enormous window overlooking the bay. The morning’s mist had mostly burned off, and now he could faintly see the white caps on the water, the cars crossing the bridge in a slow line.
He pictured the four-square farmhouse he’d grown up in. The flat, endless roads lined by farms. Roadside stands spilling over with fresh tomatoes. The dusty heat of summer. Pickup trucks and cool nights filled with stars.
“I was never supposed to be here, you know,” he finally said. “I was supposed to play football. Maybe be a coach someday. When I got recruited to play at MIT, everyone worried I wouldn’t get in. And once I did get in, they wondered when I’d flunk out.”
“And now you’re trying to prove them right?”
“The numbers keep getting bigger, Nate. The stakes are getting higher. We aren’t just a bunch of friends in a dorm room anymore. We’ve got billions of dollars on the line. Doesn’t that intimidate you at all?”
“I lost my first million when I was eighteen,” Nate said. “Shitty real estate deal. I bought a small apartment building that turned out to have bedbugs, asbestos, and about two hundred pending housing code violations. My dad called me down to his office. Scared the shit out of me. When I got down there, he shook my hand. Said, welcome to the real world. Probably the only time when I was growing up that I didn’t hate him.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Your dad is insane, Nate. And probably ought to be in prison.”
“Oh, that’s absolutely true. The point is that it’s just money. Everyone makes mistakes. Bank tellers sometimes hand out too much money. Quarterbacks in Superbowl games fumble the ball. Doctors cut off the wrong leg. Our mistakes cost a lot, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do the job unless you turn into some infallible prophet. You just have to trust your instincts that much more. Do your homework. Rely on your friends. Know you’ll screw up and figure out how you’ll recover from it. And for God’s sake, grow a pair.”
Mason stared down at his hands, slowly clenching and unclenching his fists. “I can’t tell you how badly I want to punch you right now.”
“Get in line.” Nate walked back behind his desk and sat down.
“I’m not saying you’re right.”
“I would hope not. I’m conceited enough as it is.”
“And I’m pissed at you for calling me in this morning.”
Nate picked up a silver pen from a display box on his desk. He turned it over in his hands. “So Tess walked out on you? I knew I liked her. How’d you convince her to come back?”
“I promised her we wouldn’t date.”
“Thus avoiding the four-date rule? Very crafty.”
“She’s got some commitment issues.”
“No wonder you get along so well.”
“I don’t have commitment issues,” Mason snapped. “And the next time you say four-date rule I swear I’m going to punch you right in your perfectly smug face.”
“I would enjoy that. But just to clarify, what exactly are you doing, if not dating?”
“Jesus, what is this, twenty questions?” Mason rubbed his hands through his hair. “I have no idea. We’re just friends. Friends with benefits.”
“You sure about that?”
“I am.” Mason’s tone allowed for no questions.
“Because from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t look that way.”
“Shut it, Nate.”
Nate’s lips turned in the barest hint of a smile. He set the pen down and turned to two separate piles of manila file folders on his desk. He picked them up, one stack in each hand. “These are the companies I want to move into and out of the fund. I want to know what you think about it.”
Mason looked down at his watch. “You want me to review all these files in the next half hour? Before Hanley gets here?”
“It’s up to you. I’ve already made my decision.”
“Fine.” Mason grabbed the files and headed for the door. “I’ll review the files and tell you what I think. But you’re going to call back Hanley and reschedule the meeting for one. I’m not doing this half-assed.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Nate inclined his head. “All right.”
“And we’re not talking about Tess.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“But someday we will talk about you and Cecilia.”
Nate froze, and Mason smiled with satisfaction. “Never underestimate a pretty face, partner.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mason hesitated outside the door to his apartment, unsure for the first time in years what to say to a woman. He’d brought home a bouquet of flowers, a bottle of wine, and a whole lot of doubt. But it was time for things to change. Tess might be willing to let them drift in this pretend no-relationship relationship, but he wasn’t. Not anymore.
It had been a hell of a day. He hadn’t realized just how rusty he was at making tough decisions, but once he’d started, it was like opening the floodgates. He’d been arguing with Nate nonstop. They’d almost come to blows at one point, and then laughed afterward. It was like there had been a cloud building over him for months, maybe even years, but it had been so gradual, he hadn’t even noticed it getting dark.
What was that old saying about the frog that didn’t jump out of the hot water because the temperature increased so slowly? Somehow, his life had been like that. Thanks to his fear of making a mistake, and worry that he’d somehow stepped into a position he didn’t deserve, he’d checked out of his work just like he’d checked out of his personal life. And he wasn’t going to accept that anymore. He had no idea what to say to Tess, but he knew they were lying about the way things were between them.
Would she admit how she felt, or would she keep pretending? Tess’s past had left a legacy in her heart, and he’d could understand why she found it so difficult to t
rust. But she was also one of the bravest people he’d ever met. If anyone could look a demon in the face and spit in its eye, it would be Tess.
That was one of the things he loved about her. Her mix of strength and softness, fear and courage.
The thought caught him by surprise.
Loved about her?
He shook his head. An expression, of course. There were a million things he liked about her, was what he meant. Cared about her. He was going to convince her to start dating him, that was all.
He forced himself to push open the door. He was overthinking this. He just needed to see her and everything would make sense again. He forced a smile. Not so big that he seemed like an ass, just slightly self-conscious, with a hint of apology around the edges.
And then he braced himself.
“Tess?”
Wick met him at the door, tail wagging. He bent to pet the dog’s head. Alli seemed to have forgotten she’d ever owned a dog, and for the first time, Mason thought that that seemed okay. He wasn’t counting the days until she retrieved the giant dog anymore. It felt natural to have him there when he came home. A way to beat back the emptiness when Tess wasn’t around.
“Tess?”
Of all the things he had imagined, it wasn’t this quiet. He glanced around the room, trying not to panic.
There was no sign of her. Not on the couch. Not in the kitchen.
Her jacket wasn’t draped over a chair. Her bag wasn’t on the carpet or by the dining room table. Her books weren’t spread across the kitchen counter.
The house was empty, pristine white surfaces untouched, just like it had been all those weeks ago when she’d entered his life and disrupted his perfect, shallow existence.
“Tess?”
It was almost seven. Normally he was home earlier, but he’d gotten caught up with work. Tess got off at two on Fridays and usually worked at his place until he came back from work. They’d developed a habit of going for a walk together after work, and then having drinks and dinner out. He loved taking her out. Loved finding hole-in-the-wall restaurants that neither of them had tried and convincing her to let him occasionally pick up the tab.
