The Big Mistake

by Lexie Ray

  And yet here I was, in New York actually at his beck and call, basically kidnapped by two of his employees to parts unknown.

  Soon, though, we pulled up in front of one of the many, many skyscrapers New York had to offer — and I realized it was the flagship Mason Hotel and corporate headquarters.

  “I know this place well enough,” I said grumpily to the driver. “You could’ve told me we were coming here and I would’ve had a pretty good idea of where we were headed.”

  “No use in wasting any breath,” the driver said. “We’re here.”

  “I can see that,” I muttered, taking the man’s hand as he more or less hauled me bodily from the back of the car.

  Leaving the driver with the car at the curb — I’d have asked him where he was going, only he was an asshole and I didn’t care — I followed the man who’d collected me at the airport through the glistening, glittering lobby. Businesspeople marched through the marbled interior, all busily poking away at their tablets and yacking away on their phones. This was a serious world, one where problems popped out from every corner and you had to do battle with them in a business suit while carrying a briefcase for a shield.

  This was a world I’d never dreamed of belonging to, one where your horse and chariot were a three-by-three cubicle and an uncomfortable desk chair, where you commuted for an hour on a stinky train to get from your hateful job to your shoebox apartment.

  I’d done well to remain out of the corporate world, out of the nine to five grind of the office job. These people looked so self-important that it made me sick, and they didn’t even have to make life or death decisions. They worked for a hotel chain, basically. Sure, one of the nicest and most elegant hotel chains in the world, but a hotel chain, nonetheless. It wasn’t as if they were heart surgeons or something.

  “This way.” The man took me by my elbow and basically steered me through the vast floor of hotel guests and hotel employees alike, toward the bank of elevators against the wall. Then, we turned the corner into another hallway, dimly lit by sconces that dripped crystals down the walls, and approached an elevator with a digital screen where you would’ve pushed the button.

  “Taking me up the service elevator?” I joked, uneasy and self-conscious.

  “This is Mr. Mason’s private elevator,” the man said, obviously offended by my lack of knowledge and decorum. “It can only be accessed by select members of his staff, and it leads directly to the penthouse suite at the top of the building.”

  My stomach churned at the mention of “penthouse.” I’d teased Greg about having the penthouse at the hotel he’d stayed at in Miami. If he was just a single pawn in the Mason family’s vast army, staying in a place as nice as he was staying, I couldn’t imagine what the penthouse that kept the king comfortable looked like.

  The man held his thumb up to the digital display and the doors to the elevator rolled slowly open. It was all very James Bond. I followed him inside the car, wondering whether a secret valve would open and I’d be knocked out by some kind of gas filling the place the moment the doors shut, but we just hissed upward, smooth and fast.

  The inside of the elevator didn’t have any buttons at all, and there was no way to tell how far or fast we were going up. It was a little claustrophobic, too, but dizzying at the same time. Every surface was darkly reflected, even the ceiling and floor, and I wished that maybe we’d get stuck in the elevator without seeing Nick or anyone else. Anywhere else, at any other time, I’d look at my reflection and see myself as fierce and beautiful. But now, at the center of a world I didn’t understand, I wished I would’ve worn one of the wrap dresses I’d flung on to work at the club, and maybe a pair of heels borrowed from Sol.

  Instead, it was just my usual uniform — jeans and a T-shirt, not even a pair of clean underwear. I had the distinct fear that I didn’t smell fresh, and rooted around in my purse to see if I had a spare stick of deodorant or, at the very least, a mint.

  Nothing. Just my luck. All there was in my purse was my wallet, my cell phone, my apartment keys, the bag of makeup, and a forest of crumpled receipts.

  “This thing ever get stuck?” I asked as casually as I could, but before the man could so much as roll his eyes, the doors slid open.

  Opulent was a word that I didn’t ever use in my day-to-day dealings. The only time I’d probably ever used it in my entire life was in a high school English class on a vocabulary quiz, or something.

  But opulent was the only word that came to mind when I stepped out of the elevator, the man still at my elbow, as we approached an ornate entryway and closed door. It was marble like the lobby below, but different somehow. I’d thought the lobby had been nice, but it was obvious that they’d saved the really nice stuff for up here. The door itself was carved wood, intricate patterns crisscrossing the entire expanse. As we got closer, I realized that it was some sort of relief work, a wooden canvas displaying many figures and patterns. I wondered if there was a story there, examining it as the man escorting me held his thumb to another digital display, but the chandelier cascading down from the high ceiling above did little to lend useful light to the scene.

  The door unlocked to admit us and I walked in. Just when I thought I couldn’t be dazzled any more than I was, I saw something else. It didn’t feel like we were in a hotel — or New York City, for that matter. I imagined that we were on an estate way out in the country, or in a castle, even. There were rich tapestries covering the walls of one room, thick carpets unfurling in front of us. There was wood and stone and marble everywhere — not the building materials I was used to in Miami, where most everything was tile.

  You could forget about the snarled traffic and crush of people in the streets below in a home like this, I realized, insulated away from the world. My keeper opened yet another set of doors, and from the bank of flat-screen televisions embedded in one wall and the broad, silky desk facing them, I could tell we were in some kind of high-tech office. This was the kind of office that anyone with an office job salivated over. There was a fireplace on one end punctuated with a leather couch and pair of chairs, with a bar cart resting beside it, ready to dispense spirits contained in cut glass decanters. There were several interesting pieces of art hanging on the walls — old advertisements for Mason Hotels. One in particular was incredibly gorgeous, done in art deco style. Could it really be that old? I realized that I actually knew very little about the history of this chain of hotels.

  And that’s when I saw Nick, bent over that fine desk, looking for all the world like he was in charge of a multi-million dollar endeavor.

  Still, it was the same old Nick. I wasn't sure what I had expected. He was clean-shaven and dressed a little nicer than what I was used to seeing, but it was my neighbor all the same.

  Then why did I feel so different?

  I paused in the doorway, yanked my elbow out of the grasp of the man trying to forcibly march me into the room, and put my hands on my hips.

  Nick looked up from whatever papers he was studying at his desk, and his face went through a rainbow of emotions that started at happy and ended at pensive. He opened his mouth and shut it again, clearly unsure of what to say, where to begin, what to do now that everything was out in the open after all these years together.

  Or maybe that was just me.

  "I don't understand what I'm doing here," I said finally, only it was exactly the same time that Nick said, "I bet you want to know why I asked you to come."

  That was a coincidence that should've made us laugh — would've made us laugh if it had only been a month prior. Everything was so much simpler just a month ago. If only I could go back in time, warn that stupid, naïve Jennet against leaving the apartment and running into Greg, and bypass all of this awful heartache.

  "Go ahead," I said holding my hand out. "You're the man of the house. You can go first."

  The man beside made a disapproving sound in his throat, but neither of us acknowledged him.

  "I just wanted a chance to explain ever
ything," Nick said, holding his own hands out in what I thought was a placating gesture. I didn't want to be placated. I wanted to be angry, but I also wanted answers.

  "Then explain," I said, curt. I'd been hurt too often recently. I needed to lock down my emotions and let everyone know that I was going to be untouchable from now on. Mostly, I needed to convince myself of that fact. I didn't want to hurt anymore. It stung too much. It drained my soul too dry.

  Nick sighed, and he briefly pressed his hand into his forehead. Oh, he was frustrated? I was frustrated. I was frustrated and angry and hurt and just so done with all of this stupidity that it was all I could do to stand still and wait instead of turning on my heel and leaving all of this behind me. I remembered what Faith had said about maybe not wanting to know the reason why Nick lied to us about his true identity all these years, and began to regret coming to New York City. Maybe I really didn’t want to know. Maybe I just wanted to preserve what we’d had while we were still friends, those happy memories before things got twisted and complicated and stupid.

  “The thing is, it’s kind of a long story,” Nick said. “I want to be comfortable telling it, and I want you to be comfortable listening to it. If you want to listen to it.”

  “I guess I’m here, aren’t I?” I said, throwing my hands up in the air. “Lead me to your truth, then.”

  “I’ll lead you to the sky lounge,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half smile. “There’s plenty to look at up there, plenty to see if you’d rather not look at me.”

  “I like a room with a view,” I allowed, but I didn’t have any idea just how gorgeous this particular sky lounge was. It was exactly what Nick described, but with wall to ceiling glass, a gorgeous view of the Big Apple. There were several posh white couches and loungers and poufs dotting the room, and a matching white bar in the corner.

  “Want to see something really crazy?” he asked. “This always used to terrify me as a kid.”

  He took me to one area of the lounge, and I looked out the window. It didn’t look scary to me. I studied the different buildings, wondering if maybe they would look like a monster to a child. What would it have been like to grow up in this kind of opulence?

  “I don’t see anything really scary,” I said. “It’s a beautiful view, though.”

  “Look down,” he suggested.

  I followed his gaze and gasped, feeling instantly dizzy and sick to my stomach. The portion of flooring I was standing on was clear, meaning that I saw straight down to the sidewalk — far, far, far below. I swooned a little, my head jerking backward, and Nick caught me before I could do any danger.

  “You okay?” he asked, concerned. I noticed that his arms were around me. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t handle this. I took several steps backward, away from that glass floor, looking for somewhere to sit.

  “Here, here,” he chanted, shoving a pouf toward me with his foot. “I’m sorry, Jennet. I should’ve warned you.”

  “You warned me enough,” I said with a breathy laugh. “You said it had scared you as a kid. I didn’t take it seriously. Didn’t know.” I ducked my head between my knees for a brief moment to make sure I’d be okay, then looked at Nick. “Does it not scare you anymore?”

  He was still standing on the clear part of the floor. He looked down, as if he’d forgotten, and shrugged.

  “It’s one of those things you get used to,” he said. “You cry about something enough, you eventually run out of tears about it.”

  I hoped it was that easy with my separation from Greg. I hoped that one day, I could just run out of tears about it. I looked forward to that day very much.

  “Come away from that,” I urged. “I don’t like to watch you stand there.”

  “It’s perfectly safe,” he said, but he walked off that clear portion of flooring all the same. I found I could breathe better, and felt even closer back to normal.

  “Tell me,” I said, and he began.

  Chapter 12

  Nick was born the only child into a family of woe. It wasn’t the type of woe that any normal person might be used to — meaning, the woe of lack of money, of divorce, of anything normal.

  Nick was born into a house of woe that expected him to shoulder its burdens from the moment he realized them.

  His mother was a handful of decades younger than his father, and as soon as Nick was born, she started using him as leverage for her very pricey divorce and seven-figure alimony. But pricier lawyers won out, and Nick was taken from his mother and his nearly 70-year-old father was granted custody.

  My first impressions of 70-year-olds were doting grandfathers, but Nick’s father wasn’t like that at all. Nick’s father was a businessman, first and foremost, and everything else beyond the Mason Hotel dynasty was secondary, including the son his lawyers had fought for.

  Nick was raised by indifferent nannies and tutors and keepers, people paid to ensure his health and relative happiness, and to groom him to accept the weight of his family name.

  “I remember messing up once,” he told me. “I couldn’t have been much older than kindergarten. Walking home, I called my nanny ‘mommy,’ and she was very quick to remind me that she wasn’t my mother and there was no amount of money that anyone could pay her to become my mother.”

  I wondered just what kind of effect that would have on a five-year-old, being told that someone couldn’t be paid enough to be his mother.

  “Did you ever see your mother again?” I asked. “Your real mother?”

  “I don’t think I ever really had a real mother,” he said. “Sure, I had someone who gave birth to me, but I was only ever a bargaining chip for her. After the divorce, my father’s lawyers got a court order that she wasn’t to see me again. I wouldn’t be able to pick her out of a lineup, honestly.”

  Masons kept everything and everyone at arm’s length. Nick saw his father once a week, if that, and even less when the old man was traveling, maintaining his army of employees and fleet of hotels. Nick had grown up in this very building, these very suites, educated by tutors and raised by hired help.

  “I’ve never called my father by any sort of name even related to Dad,” he admitted. “It hurts me to say so, but it’s the truth. You asked for the truth, Jennet, and I’m giving it to you. I’m trying to help you understand why I lied.”

  I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. Nick and I had more similarities than I realized, but that was only because I’d never truly known him. He’d had parents he desperately wanted in his life, whom he’d actually desired relationships with but never had. My family situation was similar, but still somewhat different.

  “I never…” I began, then trailed off.

  “You never what?” he asked, leaning forward and offering me a mug of coffee that had materialized out of nowhere. I looked around and saw a woman carrying a tray out of the sky lounge. Was that how people ate around here? Servants and staff members just walking in with trays of food and drink?

  I accepted the mug nonetheless, the heat of it in my hands providing comfort.

  “Never mind,” I said, smiling briefly before taking a sip of the excellent coffee. “Please, continue.” This was Nick’s day to come clean, not mine.

  Nick grew up unloved but necessary, a wheel in the cog of the company. He was expected to take over managing the vast empire of wealth when he came of age. When he was of schooling age, beyond the necessity of care from the hired help, he was sent away to boarding school.

  “It was a blessing, actually,” he said. “I met friends in, more or less, the same boat as I was, and I figured out what it was to have true relationships with people — not relationships bought with money.”

  Anytime that Nick could avoid returning to his upside down home, he did, opting to go on trips abroad during school holidays, remaining on campus with those boys living too far away to make multiple trips home during the academic year. He loosened the hold that the Mason dynasty had on his heart and soul, and graduated as an 18-year-old w
ith his eyes wide open to the problems with the family he’d been given.

  His father was very old by that time indeed, and confined to a wheelchair that squeaked obstinately through the marble hallways of the Mason family suites, reminding staff that he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I told him I didn’t want to be in charge of Mason Hotels,” Nick said. “That I wanted a life different from the one he wanted me to have. I wanted to travel. To explore my options. To be my own person.”

  The elder Mason had flown into a rage, blaming Nick’s weak-willed, scheming mother for all the shortcomings in his heir. He’d stood from his wheelchair — a medical miracle, all had agreed later — to beat the young Nick, trying to make him submit. Nick had withstood the blows until his father had collapsed with exhaustion, then lifted the old man back into his wheelchair and pushed him to his own wing atop the tower.

  “I never forgave him,” Nick said. “I went to college for business administration, hospitality, everything that would give me the skills to take over this entire operation, but my heart was never in it.”

  In fact, college had the same effect as boarding school. Away from the insular suites at the top of that building, from the expectations and threats, Nick was able to cut even more ties with his identity as the Mason heir. He started adopting the surname of Madison on campus as cover. He hated people asking him if he was that Mason, the Mason who shared a last name with hotel marquees throughout the world, so he simply stopped being himself.

  As Nick Madison instead of Nicholas Mason, Nick felt like he could be the man his heart wanted him to be. He wasn’t beholden to the heavy burden of his heritage when he shed that pesky Mason. He was just another guy on campus, and he appreciated that sacred anonymity.

  “And so when I graduated from college, I didn’t dress in a cap and gown, I didn’t walk across the stage to collect my diploma,” he said. “I took that to mean that I was at a fork in the road with only two paths to choose from. I could pick the path that my father and everyone else was expecting me to pick. I could take on Mason Hotels and live up to my father’s legacy.”