by Inara Scott
His affirmation was enormously comforting. “I know it’s got a burned-out house on top of it, but that shouldn’t cost too much to remove, and then someone could build a really nice place there.”
“You loved your home, didn’t you?” Luke touched her hand. She wished she could have found it romantic. It would have been so much easier if she could have been interested in someone other than Mason. But it wasn’t, and she didn’t.
“I did. But that doesn’t really matter now, does it?”
“I think it matters. So what’s the big rush?”
“I need somewhere to live. I figure if I can get enough for the lot, I might be able to buy a little house somewhere. I know it won’t be much, and probably way outside the city, but something is better than nothing, right? And at least it wouldn’t be a fire hazard.” She tried for a smile, but Luke wasn’t buying it.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be nosy, but aren’t you staying at Mason’s place right now?”
She folded and unfolded the napkin she’d used to dry her tears. “He mentioned that too, did he?”
“We played basketball on Saturday. He’s pretty concerned about you.”
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t really change anything, does it?”
Luke held her gaze for a beat but didn’t challenge her. “If you say so. And why are we hiding this from him, exactly?”
“He’s going to try to do something stupid, like stop me from selling it, or get me some kind of special construction loan or something.”
“I can see how that would be annoying,” he murmured.
“I don’t take handouts,” she said fiercely. “Not from anyone.”
Luke held up his hands in surrender. “Look, I’ll be honest with you and say there seems to be some significant flaws in your logic, but I get the feeling this isn’t about logic. So I’ll tell you even though I don’t mind charging your friend Mason my extraordinarily high rates, I really couldn’t charge them to you. I’d do it for free, but I’m pretty sure, given what I’ve just heard, that you wouldn’t let me. And I’m not a real estate attorney, anyway. I could get a paralegal to do most of the work, but this isn’t our area of expertise.”
Tess felt utterly, completely idiotic. She had known it was a risk to contact him and had known he probably charged more than she could pay upfront. But she hadn’t even thought about the kind of law he practiced. “I’m sorry.” She started to rise. “I shouldn’t have called. It was stupid of me. I’ll figure something else out.”
“Hey, don’t even think about leaving.” Luke stood even faster than she did and caught her hand. “I’m here as a friend, not an attorney. And as a friend, it doesn’t matter what kind of law I practice, right? How about you sit back down and we can talk about what to do next.”
She softened. “I don’t want you to go out of your way for me. You barely know me.”
Luke pointed to the seat. “Sit.”
“But—”
The gleam in his eyes moved from lawyer to full-on pirate. “I get the feeling you aren’t particularly good at accepting help, so I’m going to be patient. But I’m not going anywhere until we talk this out, and neither are you. Now sit.”
Tess gave a short laugh. “You are way bossier than I realized.”
“Occupational hazard.” He smiled. “You don’t work with guys like Nate and Mason and Connor without developing a little bark to go with your bite.”
She slid back into the chair with a reluctant smile. “Okay, I can see Nate, but Mason? Connor? Seriously?”
“Well, Connor is different. He’s doesn’t argue with anyone or play games. I don’t think he knows how. He makes up his mind, tells you the answer, and waits for you to realize he’s right. And usually, he is.”
The night at the Aspen, Tess had only chatted briefly with Connor, but she’d gotten the impression of someone who was incredibly smart but wasn’t entirely comfortable in a crowd. “I can see that. But what about Mason? I thought he was just the guy who made friends for a living.”
“Don’t tell me you fell for it, too?”
“What do you mean?”
Luke shook his head. “You know the Pop-In deal that put Livend on the map? That was Mason’s pick. And their decision to move into the clean energy industry and artificial intelligence? He pushed them both. Right now we’re getting ready to close a deal for a company that makes a new virtual reality headset, and it’s all because Mason heard about it from a friend of a friend. The guy has connections everywhere, and very few of them have any idea how good he is at what he does.”
“I don’t understand,” Tess said uneasily.
“In this field, you’ve got to know spreadsheets and financial analyses, and Mason is damn good at that. He didn’t go to Harvard Business School for nothing. But just reading spreadsheets isn’t what makes you successful. Great investors have to be able to read people, too, and trust their instincts about who’s going to win. Like the old saying: you don’t bet on the horse; you bet on the jockey. You don’t invest in an idea; you invest in a person.”
“And Mason’s good at that?”
Luke laughed. “Mason’s not just good. He’s the best I’ve ever seen. But even beyond that, he’s got this incredible talent for getting people to want to work with him. That’s key in this business, especially for a bunch of young guys like Livend. See, most people, they hit a wall and they stop moving. Or if they’re Nate, they bring out a load of dynamite and try to blow a hole in it. It’s messy, but not always effective. Mason never does that. He finds the one weak spot in the wall and pushes his way through. Or discovers a way around it no one else saw. Or hell, he convinces the wall to open a door for him, and the wall does it with a smile.”
Tess struggled to reconcile it all in her mind. “He’s never said anything about that.”
“That’s not an accident. Mason always downplays what he does, and as a result, everyone underestimates him. They think he’s nothing but looks. I did the same thing when I started working for them. Sometimes I worry that he hears it so much he starts to underestimate himself. It isn’t easy to have everyone tell you that your job is to look pretty and make friends. Those of us on the inside know that’s not all it’s about. But we’re the minority.”
A tiny shiver ran up Tess’s spine. “I never thought about it that way. I mean, I knew he was smart, but all everyone seems to talk about is the four-date rule and how he spends all his time going to parties and schmoozing with people.”
Luke leaned in toward her. “Look, we joked about that four-date thing, but you have to know it’s different with you. In all the time I’ve known Mason, you want to know how many women he’s brought to drinks? Or forgotten how to play basketball because of? Or invited to move in with him? None. Not a single one. Not until you.”
Tess slumped forward, burying her head in her hands. “I can’t think about this right now. I just need to sell my lot. That’s all I can handle.”
“I’ll make some calls and find someone who can work with you. But I have to tell you that I think you should talk to Mason.”
“I will. Right after I close the deal.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tess had assumed something as complicated as the sale of a property would take time. She had counted on it, really, assuming that she’d have at least a week before she would have to make a decision that would change her life.
But that wasn’t how things worked. Luke had called a real estate agent he knew while they were still at the coffee shop, and they’d stopped by her office together on the way home. Tess liked her. Christine Burnsworth had been a lawyer herself but was now selling real estate, a job she’d found much easier to juggle with raising two young kids. She stopped by the property the next morning and had feelers out with developers by the afternoon.
The first offer had come in Wednesday morning. Two more followed Thursday. The agent suggested Tess wait until Monday before she made a decision, but then another offer came in Thu
rsday afternoon that was well above what the others had been, and above what Christine had expected the property to garner. The Thursday offer was also an all-cash, non-contingent offer, and they wanted a fast close. Christine said Tess could very well have the money in her bank account within a week.
She suggested that Tess take it.
Friday was one of the hardest days of her life. She drove out to the property in the morning with Astro, picking her way around the burned-out wreck, and then walking on the path behind the house into the green space. She didn’t tell Cece or Mason what she was doing, mainly because she wasn’t sure she could be strong enough to sign the papers if they argued with her.
It had rained the night before, and the sky was still heavy, the clouds low over the hills. Tess had already been back several times to poke through the rubble. The fire had started in the back of the house and raced through the upper floor before the fire trucks could even arrive, so nothing had remained of her bedroom or her grandmother’s old room. The collapse of the second story had made it difficult to retrieve anything from the front of the house, but Tess had been able to recover a few pieces of her grandmother’s china and one of her grandfather’s old glass ashtrays. She had placed them in a cardboard box and put them in the back of her car. She couldn’t bring herself to carry them up to Mason’s apartment.
Today, she stood on the concrete path and stared at the burned shell and wondered what her grandmother would think of the decision she had to make.
“What would you do, Grandma?” she whispered, fighting back tears as a light drizzle started to fall. “I know you never wanted to give up this land. They kept trying to get you to sell it and you held firm. But I can’t really do that now. Not and be independent the way you’d want me to be.”
Her hair grew damp, and she pushed it back behind her ears. “I guess you might be the only one who would understand, you know? You can’t get dependent on people. You can’t let them own a piece of you like that.” She gave a muffled laugh as she wiped her eyes. “You wouldn’t even put your money in a bank. At least I’m a little smarter than that.”
She kicked half-heartedly at a lump of something on the pavement that must have started out as paper but was now a dark, congealed mass. “Cece will be pissed at me. But you and I both know how shitty people have been to her because of her money. She needs to have at least one relationship in her life that doesn’t have money hanging over it. Mason will be pissed, too. But can you imagine how pathetic I would seem, if I didn’t handle this on my own?”
She thought for a moment about the hotel room, years ago, when she’d held up that pregnancy test to the man she thought she loved and admitted how scared she was, and how she needed his help. She’d asked him if he’d go with her to tell her mother, and maybe to the doctor. And he’d looked at her like she was crazy. Like she was some kind of idiot, and helping her was the last thing he wanted to do.
Tears threatened to close her throat. She swallowed hard. “Next year I’ll be graduating from college. I wish you could have been here to see it.”
There was no answer from the silent wreck that had once been a house, or the green hill beyond.
She took a deep breath. “I guess I better stop feeling sorry for myself, huh? That’s probably what you’d say. That, and it’s just a house, right? It’s just that sometimes it doesn’t feel like a house. It feels like a piece of me.”
After a few hours, she drove back to the agent’s office and signed the papers. Then she parked her car in Mason’s garage and walked down to a trendy, expensive bar a few blocks away. The last time she’d gotten really drunk she’d been in high school, and it had been on some cheap grain alcohol someone had mixed with fruit punch. This time, at least, she would enjoy the drinks along the way.
She asked the bartender—a soft-spoken hipster named Jasper with a sleeve of colorful tattoos and a man bun—to bring her something that would make her forget.
And then another one.
By the time five o’clock rolled around, she was only dimly aware of her surroundings. Her head was spinning nicely, and she was no longer picturing herself signing a sheaf of papers over and over again, so she figured she could call it mission accomplished. It occurred to her that she had no idea how she was going to get home, since her legs definitely weren’t working. But since she didn’t really have a home to go to, she figured that was probably okay.
“One more?” she said hopefully to Jasper, holding out her empty glass. It was tall and had held something pinkish, though she didn’t know exactly what.
“You forget whatever you came here to forget?” he asked.
She closed her eyes and considered. She could still remember the home she’d once owned, but the memory was foggy. “Just about.”
“Then maybe we could hold off on another drink.” He studied her as he took her glass. “How about something to eat, instead?”
She frowned. “Why in the world would I want something to eat? Won’t that interfere with the lovely drinks you’ve been bringing me?”
“Always good to pace yourself,” he advised. “Forgetting can be a long-term project.”
“That is very wise.”
He gave a small bow. “It’s a bartender thing. They give us a few lines to memorize before we graduate from bartender school. That’s one of my favorites.”
“Oh shit.” Tess caught sight of a familiar tawny head at the entrance to the bar and dropped her face toward the bar. “If that guy asks if you’ve seen me, say no.”
“Which guy?”
She gave a small nod in his direction. “The tall one that looks like he escaped from a banker’s convention.” Mason had on his usual work outfit—tailored charcoal trousers and white shirt, topped by a perfectly tied tie in stripes of blue. There was the faintest hint of a shadow along the hard line of his jaw.
Jasper gave a low whistle. “I’m not sure I’d say banker. He looks like he’s got a little more style than that. What is he? Lawyer?”
“Worse.” Tess motioned for Jasper to lean in toward her. When their heads were close, she whispered, “He’s a bad angel.”
Jasper straightened and nodded slowly. “Yep, I can see that.”
She felt the touch of his gaze the moment it landed but resolutely turned her head away.
“Can I get a Manhattan?” His voice claimed the stool next to her.
Of course he’d found her. Stupid Mason. Stupid deep voice. She refused to look at him.
“Sure.” Jasper shrugged helplessly at Tess. “I didn’t tell him a thing.”
She narrowed her eyes. “This is all your fault.”
Jasper leaned back in toward her, which was a little ridiculous now that Mason was sitting about a foot away, and whispered loudly, “He looks nice.”
“Everyone says that,” she snarled. “Try to be a little more original.”
“He’s cute?”
“That’s even worse!”
Jasper patted the bar. “I’ll try to think of something better.”
As soon as he had left, Mason cleared his throat. “Rough day?”
“How did you find me?”
“Your car was in the lot, Astro was home, but you weren’t in the apartment. I figured you were somewhere nearby.”
“So you went barhopping?”
He shrugged. “You want to tell me what happened?”
“Not really.”
He sighed. “You sold it, didn’t you?”
Tess felt a little of her pleasant buzz slip away. She waved at Jasper. “I think I need another drink.”
The bartender ignored her.
“I can pay for a decent place now, you know. Or I’ll be able to next Friday. That’s when it’s supposed to close. I have to go back and sign more papers then. I guess I should start house hunting.” She scowled at Mason. “And don’t think I’m going to let you come along this time. I’m doing this on my own.”
“Of course you are.”
“I mean it. No interference
from you. No crime statistics, or investigative reporting, or anything.”
“And just so we’re clear, no help in any other way either, right? When you’re upset, you’ll handle it on your own. When something important happens, you’ll take off. That’s how it’s going to go?”
“Jasper!” she called, as the bartender approached with Mason’s drink. “Bring me something pink.”
“One lemonade coming up,” he replied, setting the whiskey drink in front of Mason.
“If you’re sick, you’ll go to the doctor by yourself.” Mason took a sip of his drink. “But you’ll need to clarify one thing for me. Do I get to know about the good things, or is that off-limits as well? I mean, will I get an invitation to your graduation, or are you doing that one on your own, too?”
“Now you’re just being silly.” Her delightful drunken buzz had faded to a dull roar in the back of her ears. “Besides, that’s a year away. Plenty of time for something to go horribly wrong. Like the registrar’s office floods and they lose all my transcripts.”
“But I’d never know,” he pointed out. “You’d never tell me.”
She grabbed his glass and took a drink, then shuddered when the alcohol hit the back of her throat. “That’s gross.”
“That is very good whiskey,” he replied. “What are you drinking—cotton candy vodka?”
“I have no idea. Jasper picked it out.” She squinted at the bartender’s man bun. “But he doesn’t seem the cotton candy type.”
“People can surprise you. You, for example, seem relatively normal.”
“I am normal!”
“If by normal you mean ‘has a pathological aversion to letting anyone help you’ then yes, you’re perfectly normal.”
Somehow, this entire conversation felt like a trap, but the spinning room made it hard to figure out why. “You can come to graduation,” she said, gesturing with one hand. “Does that make you happy?”
“Oh sure,” he said. “Very happy. Will you also let me know when you’re moving out, or will I just come home one day and find you gone?”
