by Lacey Legend
It wasn’t Kelsey who stepped out of the dark car, but a man that he didn’t recognize. Whoever the man was, he could tell he breathed money with his crisp suit that his fingers were deftly buttoning, the sunglasses that had to be several hundred dollars and, of course, the watch that had diamonds so large he could see them all the way in his yard. Whoever the man was, he knew that this wasn’t going to be a fun encounter.
“Mr. Craig?”
Mason stepped toward the man who was walking toward him to meet him half way.
“That’s me. Can I help you?”
“Hello, I’m Alan, Kelsey’s fiancé.”
Mason felt the wind get knocked out of him. Of course this was her fiancé, why hadn’t he thought of that before?
“Nice to meet you,” he answered with as much politeness as he could muster. “I’d shake your hand, but I’m a little dirty. What can I do for you?” Mason wanted to cut this as short as possible. He knew the guy was obviously going to be a part of Mason’s life, but he hadn’t expected him to just show up at his place unannounced that way. He thought he’d at least be showered when he met the man.
“I can see you’re busy so I won’t take much of your time. Do you mind if we step inside and have a talk? Man to man?”
Mason hated this already, but he didn’t have a choice. He knew he needed to play nice to make things easier when the baby was born. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t find it particularly annoying that the man clearly knew what part of town he was in and decided to flash his money in everyone’s face, especially Mason’s.
“Sure,” was all he said.
Alan followed him inside the house and Mason knew immediately that he was surveying the place and he was sure that it didn’t even come close to his standards.
“I’m fixing the place up to sell it,” he called over his shoulder as he led the man into the kitchen.
“I can see you’re working hard at it, so I don’t want to keep you for long.”
Mason gestured to a seat at the scarred kitchen table and he caught Alan look at it warily for just a second before he sat. Mason had to stifle an eye roll and sat across from him.
“It has come to my attention that you are in a tough way right now with your mother passing and the need to take care of your brother. Being thrown into a position like this can’t be easy right now and it’s commendable what you’re trying to do. I’d like to help you.”
Mason raised a brow at the man. “Help how?”
“I’d like to offer you some money. A lump sum to get you started and then make an arrangement to have money wired into an account that I’ve set up every month to ensure that you can give your brother the best possible life.”
“And why exactly would you want to do that?” Mason had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what came next, there was of course going to be a catch.
“In exchange you will sign a contract that states that you will not have anything to do with Kelsey’s child.”
There it was. He was trying to buy Mason and keep his perfect little life intact.
“No deal, but hey, thanks for stopping by.” Mason voice was hard and he was doing everything in his power to remain calm and cordial. He stood up to escort Alan out of his house, but Alan stayed seated.
“I don’t think you quite understand. The money I’m talking is quite significant, if you don’t believe me, you can read the contract that was drawn up and see the numbers for yourself.”
Alan took a folded sheet of paper out of his coat pocket and laid them in front of Mason who didn’t even glance at them.
“You can’t buy me away from my own daughter. Life doesn’t work that way.”
This time Alan stood up and the two men were staring eye-to-eye. “That’s where you’re wrong. This is how the world works. I’m not going to let Kelsey’s little indiscretion ruin our reputation. Now, I’ve already made a commitment to her and I intend to honor it, but I don’t intend to have you constantly hanging over us. So you will sign this contract and we will all live much better lives without each other.”
Alan had grabbed the papers off of the table and was shoving it into Mason’s chest. Mason knew he may be a lot of things, but he wasn’t going to be a fighter, at least not for a guy like Alan. So instead of hitting him back, even though his fists were balled and ready, he took a step away from him.
“There is no amount of money that you can offer that will make me stay away from my own daughter. Does Kelsey even know you’re here doing this right now?” Mason just couldn’t picture her doing something like this. He knew she’d lied to cover up her mistake with him, but he couldn’t imagine that she would do this to him.
“It was Kelsey’s idea,” he answered coolly.
Mason’s fist came flying up out of nowhere are hit Alan square in his jaw. Alan stumbled a few steps and then quickly recovered, rubbing his jaw. Mason didn’t know what made him more pissed, that he had let this guy get to him or that this was all Kelsey’s idea. All he knew was this guy needed to get out of his house in the next few seconds or there was going to be a matching bruise on the other side of his jaw.
“If you think for a second I’m going to let a street rat like you be a part of my life, you are badly mistaken.”
Alan straightened his jacket and walked through the kitchen to the front of the house and out the door, spitting in the doorframe as he left. Mason was seething with anger at the entire situation, and if she thought that she was just going to send her rich fiancé to buy him off, then it appeared she was the one who was badly mistaken.
*
The bruise had already bloomed across Alan’s jaw by the time he had arrived home. The moment he walked through the door, Kelsey’s eyes went wide with surprise as he went to the freezer to get some ice.
“What happened?”
Alan slammed the freezer door closed and put a frozen ice pack on his jaw, wincing when the cold touched his skin.
“I had a little run in with Mason,” he answered her gruffly.
“Mason? Why in the world would you have a run in with Mason?”
Alan went to his wet bar to fill a glass of scotch and Kelsey followed behind. He didn’t start to answer her question until he had swallowed a couple of sips and was visibly calming down.
“I tried to go speak to him man-to-man to try to find a way to work everything out so that we could all live happily. But clearly my efforts were wasted. I don’t want a man like that around you or the baby.”
Alan put his glass down to accentuate his point, but Kelsey’s mind was reeling. She couldn’t believe that Mason would actually do something like that. It had been obvious that he had been mad at her at the doctor appointment, but Alan was trying to be nice and he had just hauled off and hit him.
She was going to have to do something about it, but not until the following day. If Alan knew that she was going to go talk to Mason he’d obviously object. All she could do for the night was apologize for Mason’s behavior and try to show Alan how much she appreciated him.
Coming up beside him, she pulled the ice away from his jaw and placed light kisses on the spots she was sure it hurt. His eyes closed from her touch and she let her lips trail down his neck. She could feel his arousal against her leg and she knew he was hoping for more, and she wanted to give it to him.
He deserved it after everything that he’d done for her. Her hand came to rest at his waist, but she couldn’t make herself go any further. She wanted to want him, she wanted to desire him, but she just couldn’t force herself. Pulling herself away from him she looked up and smiled.
“Why don’t you go and rest and I’ll get you another scotch?”
Alan’s eyes flashed disappointment, but he smiled gently back at her. Guilt twinged inside of her, but what was she supposed to do? She didn’t feel anything for him and she wasn’t going to force herself to do anything she didn’t want to.
Luckily for her he didn’t even complain. As she fixed his drink, she thought about all of
the words she was going to spit at Mason. This had gotten out of hand—she couldn’t have fighting and animosity surrounding her life. If that’s how he was going to be, then she was going to take him to court and make sure he didn’t have anything to do with them, she’d do what she had to so that she could protect her baby.
The following morning, she waited to get out of bed until she had heard Alan’s engine roar down the driveway. The moment she knew he was gone, she quickly jumped out of bed and got dressed. She still had plenty of frustrations from the night before about Mason’s behavior and she had thought of plenty of things to say. So many words were filling her up that she thought she may explode with them all.
When she pulled up to his house she had to admit she was impressed with the new look. It was as if the broken down home had gotten a face lift and it looked quite decent, especially compared to the other homes in the area.
Mason was handy, she did have to give him that, but she had to keep her anger up so that she could let loose everything she’d been thinking all night. Getting out of the SUV, she slammed her door and stormed up the driveway to his front door and impatiently rang the doorbell.
He answered shirtless and in shorts that were low slung revealing his deep muscles and making her imagination travel far more south than it should have. She almost lost all of the words that she wanted to say until she looked up at his eyes and saw how much anger he had inside them. She then remembered the anger she had in her.
“I don’t know what gave you the idea to go off and hit someone when they’re trying to come and work out a sticky situation, but your behavior is ridiculous!”
She pushed him out of the way and stood, arms crossed, in front of him in his living room. He let the door slam behind her and turned to face her.
“Well I don’t know what gives you any right to send your fiancé to make disgusting deals with me! If you want me out of her life, you’re going to have to fight a lot harder than that!”
Kelsey’s face scrunched in confusion. “Why would I want you out of her life? I brought you to the doctor appointment and I haven’t even said anything like that.”
At that, Mason grabbed something off of the kitchen counter and shoved it in her face. “You didn’t have to tell me, Princess, your papers said everything.”
Kelsey took the papers from his hand, confusion taking over where the anger used to be. They felt heavy, like legal papers, so she unfolded them to see what it was that he was so angry about. It didn’t more than a minute for her to scan the papers and see exactly why Mason had punched Alan.
“These papers are…”
“Yeah,” he snatched them from her hands. “They’re paying me off to stay out of your life. But if you think that would be enough to scare me off...”
Kelsey cut him off before he could finish. “I didn’t come up with this,” she said quietly.
“What?”
“I didn’t do this. I didn’t even know about it.”
Kelsey sagged onto Mason’s beaten couch and took a deep breath, setting her head heavily in her hands. Every time she thought things couldn’t get more complicated, she was wrong. Alan was trying to pay off Mason to stay away from them.
How could he do something like that without even talking to her first? She could feel her anger rising again, but she knew she would have to handle the situation with Alan later; for the moment, she needed to smooth things out with Mason.
She looked up to find him skimming through the papers again, re-reading what she was sure he’d already read a million times since the day before. Her stomach twisted as she could only imagine how awful he had probably felt when he thought she wanted him out of her life that badly.
“You really didn’t do this?” he asked her. His eyes were cold watching her, calculating her response to see if she was telling him the truth or not.
“No Mason, I really didn’t do that. I really had no idea he would do something like that. He’s not that type of guy.”
Mason chuckled a bit and shook his head. “Well apparently he is that kind of guy.”
Kelsey felt embarrassed about the entire situation and how everything had happened. She couldn’t help but think just how awful it was that she had lied about the father of the baby, no matter what people had thought of her, she should have been strong enough to stand up to anyone who had questioned her choices.
She also couldn’t believe that she had been fooled into thinking that Alan was such a perfect guy when he would do something so despicable. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she couldn’t keep them in any longer. Nothing was turning out the way she hoped, and she didn’t know how to fix anything. She just wanted to run away and pretend that none of this was going on, but there was nowhere to run.
The couch sagged next to her and she could feel Mason’s strong arm snake around her shoulders. She fell into him as if she didn’t know anything else and she let herself cry, for once able to let herself completely come apart without having to worry what anyone thought of her. And Mason just sat there, rubbing her shoulders and trying to soothe the ache that she had inside.
“Shhh… It’s okay,” he whispered in her ear.
“No! Nothing is okay anymore. Everything has gotten so out of hand and I have no idea how I’m supposed to get it all back. I don’t even think I can anymore… I just want everything to stop being so wrong and hard!”
“Life’s hard, Princess; it’s how you handle it all that makes the difference.”
Kelsey looked up and Mason placed a kiss on her forehead. It was such a simple gesture, something that Alan did to her every day, but for some reason the kiss felt electric against her skin. He pulled back and they were the closest that they’d been in months. She could feel his breath hot on her cheeks and her stomach began to flutter with excitement. He was so close, close enough to kiss, and she immediately remembered the taste of him and wanted it desperately.
But she shouldn’t and she knew she shouldn’t. Her ring was burning against her finger with the promise that she’d made to Alan, and while she may be mad at him, that didn’t give her any right to break her promise.
But she could see that Mason didn’t care about her promises or anything else. She saw the familiar look of lust in his eyes and knew that he was thinking about her in exactly the same way. His eyes looked from her down to her lips and he seductively licked his own and he was salivating at the thought of her. Kelsey’s breathing came in quick, raspy breaths and she remembered the first time he kissed her that she’d felt almost exactly the same way. Except this time she knew what was on the other end and she knew she wanted it badly.
“Screw it,” he whispered and suddenly his mouth crashed down upon hers.
The taste of him was even better than she remembered and she put her hands on the back of his head to pull him in even tighter to her, closer, so that there was nothing in between them. Their mouths moved greedily against each other as if it had been a lifetime since they’d been together instead of a handful of months. He bit her lip and their teeth crashed together, it was unromantic and far from perfect, it was purely primal and needy, but she couldn’t stop herself.
Finally, he pulled himself away from her and looked deep in her eyes. His breathing was heavy and she could see his eyes had darkened in need, but he stood up abruptly and rubbed his hand through his hair.
“Listen, I’m sorry. That wasn’t right. You should go.”
Kelsey didn’t know what had happened. Hadn’t he felt what she felt? Didn’t he feel the electricity and the heat that radiated between them?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was a mistake.”
Her stomach twisted in pain. She was a mistake. That’s probably all she’d ever been. The whole time she’d felt guilty that he thought she was ashamed of him but the truth was he was ashamed of her. Without a word, she stood up quickly and practically ran out the door. It was just another case of her being foolish, just one more thing that she’d messed up in her life.
/> The Final Chapter
He shouldn’t have kissed her. There was no way he could get dragged back into her life. Not after everything that had happened. Especially since she was getting married. True, the guy might be a slimeball, but that was her decision to make. The last thing that Kelsey Roman needed in her life was a Prince Charming to come save her.
That woman had words that cut like daggers and never had any problems using them. But he hadn’t expected to see her cry, to see her walls start to crumble in front of him. Maybe if she’d done that when he’d told her he was leaving, he never would have left.
No, that wasn’t true and he knew it. He was so convinced that he needed to hurt her first, that if she had started to cry, he probably would have been very satisfied and thought he had won. He’d been so stupid to walk away, he should have fought for her or done something, even if he had thought she was going to dump him.
But he’d never been dumped before and he hadn’t had any intention then. On the other hand, a woman had never gotten as deep under his skin as Kelsey did.
His head was such a mess and kissing her had only made it worse. The moment his lips touched her, he felt something so much more than any other woman had ever given him. It felt electric, it felt like fire, but most importantly it felt like home.
He’d never felt like he belonged with any of the girls he’d ever been with before, but with Kelsey he did, even though he knew he didn’t really belong. That was made apparent by the ridiculous papers Alan had given him. He took the papers off the coffee table and crumpled them up and threw them across the room.
Checking the time, he saw that he would need to head into town soon if he was going to get Adam. Because of Kelsey’s intrusion, he hadn’t gotten a lot done around the house, but it didn’t matter much—truthfully, he was almost done with it. He could actually probably put it on the market as it was and sell it for a good enough amount of money that he could get a nice house.
