Mason: The Lost Billionaires, Book 1

by Allison LaFleur

  Finally, he pulled the plug and the dirty brown water swirled down the drain. Mason lifted me out, wrapped me in a warm plush towel, and carrying me into the bedroom.

  Lovingly laying me on the bed, he rolled me onto my stomach. Starting at my shoulders, he began massaging my back, kneading the muscles, and working out any lingering tenseness.

  “Kinsey, love, we did it. We made it.”

  Turning my head, I looked into his eyes, “We made it, but what about the others.” My voice choked with tears, and I turned back, burying my face in the sheets. Shaking all over, I let out an uncontrollable sob. Rolling onto my back and sitting up, I waved Mason away.

  I rest a shaky hand on forehead and slid off the bed. I couldn’t take it anymore, I got up and ran. I didn’t know where I was going, but I just had to get away.

  My legs still sore and my gait unsteady, he caught me before I even reach the door and pulled me close until my cries were buried in his broad chest. Wrapping his muscled arms around me, he held me there until I stopped shaking.

  Gently rubbing circles on my back, he crooned, “It’s all right. It’s over. You’re ok. You’re safe now.” As we stood there in the middle of the suite, he rocked me, swaying back and forth, and soothed me until my sobs subsided to whimpers, and my whimpers slowed into the occasional hiccup.

  Suddenly the mood changed. The room felt warmer. The air turned from friendly and consoling to something… more.

  Mason

  Kinsey tilted her head back and looked up at me. Her big blue eyes were teary and pleading. Those soft, pouty lips parted slightly as she exhaled. Every inch of her begged for my kiss.

  The feel of her warm, naked body, still damp from her bath, was too much. I pulled her closer. My growing hardness nestled perfectly in the cleft of her legs. With one hand cupping the curve of her ass and the other holding her against me, I lifted her and carried her back to the tangled sheets. We didn’t speak as our bodies came together again, a perfect fit, as if we were meant to be one.

  Later, lying in a sexual stupor, Kinsey’s head on my chest and her fingers playing in my chest hair, I wondered if what we had was real. Were my feelings the result of the plane crash? Was I confusing forced togetherness for love?

  The real world was intruding, and our time alone together was coming to a close.

  Have I made a terrible mistake? Noah was my friend and mentor. Kinsey was my employee. I never should have crossed that line.

  Throwing back the covers, I stood and walked to the window. Standing there, looking out at Managua, I recalled the many times I’d stood just that way, looking out over New York City.

  Kinsey didn’t really love you. She’s grateful for the job and protection in the jungle. She’s too young to be this serious. My stomach turned. I needed to step back and let her explore life.

  Ring… Ring…

  Picking up the phone before it could disturb her sleep, I whispered into the receiver. “Hello?”

  “This is Carlos at the front desk,” a man said. “Some newly arrived guests are asking for you.”

  “Oh, yes.” I’d forgotten our friends and family were on their way. “Please tell them I’ll be right down.”

  “I will, sir, but…” his chuckled nervously, “there is a Mr. Noah Hendrix who is most insistent we allow him to come up. Could you please come speak to him? He’s causing quite the commotion.”

  The clothes I’d had the concierge send up when we arrived felt uncomfortable. It was the first time I’d worn a suit in weeks. The collar felt too tight even though it was my standard size, and I could see in the mirror how loosely the outfit hung on my gaunt frame. I didn’t have a scale, but I knew I’d easily shed 20 pounds trekking through the jungle.

  Tugging my shirt cuffs to the perfect length beyond my coat sleeve, I inserted a new set of cufflinks and reached up to straighten my tie one more time. I wrote a quick note for Kinsey and left it on the nightstand next to her. With a kiss on her forehead, I tucked the blankets more securely around her. She was sleeping so serenely I didn’t have the heart to wake her. It was her first peaceful sleep in weeks, and she needed it. Alone, I left to greet our families.

  As I exited the elevator, I was overwhelmed by the crowd that rushed to greet me. Holding up a hand to stop the onslaught, I cautioned everyone to calm down. “Woah, woah! Everybody, calm down. Back up.”

  “Mason, I can’t believe it’s you!” my mother cried. Ignoring my plea for space, she enveloped me in a giant hug, or as giant as it could be from a 5’2” woman hugging a 6’4” man.

  “Mom, I love you. Yes, it’s me and yes, I’m fine.” Patting her back, I tried to move us away from the elevators, but I didn’t get far before Mark came for his turn at me.

  “Where is my daughter?” Noah interjected, squeezing between me and my family.

  “She will be down in a moment, Noah. She needed a little more time to compose herself. These last few weeks have been hard on her.” I shook his hand with my right and gave him a man’s hug with my left arm before turning back to my clamoring relatives.

  Mark was there in an instant. He pounded me on the back with one hand while the other juggled a twin. He couldn’t stop talking. “It’s so good to see you. I can’t believe you’re here. Here,” he said, passing me the baby, “hold Lily.” I took the baby, and Mark’s wife moved close to give me a neck hug. I was never going to make it across the lobby.

  Giving up, I held up the one hand not holding an infant. “Everyone! Everyone! Guys, I love you all, but we’ve got to move this reunion somewhere else. Let’s go get a table in the restaurant. I made a reservation when I got here.”

  I think my volume finally got through to them. Holding Lily, my mother glued to my side, our procession made its way into the restaurant. The maître d' wisely seated us in an empty room.

  It took a while, but I got most of the story out. While I spoke, the table fell silent. They all sat there, staring at me. “And that’s the all of it,” I said when I was done. Then the questions started again, a relentless train of curiosity broken only by Kinsey’s arrival.

  Noah stood, and pulled out a chair for her, suddenly the solicitous father. Of course, he seated her at his side, far away from me. The protective father had come out. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the distance he put between us cut like a knife.

  His behavior reminded me why we couldn’t be together. I’m Noah’s protégé. Kinsey is his daughter. He will never let us be anything to each other.

  From the far end of the table, Kinsey tried to talk to me, but Noah cut her off every time. “Were you able to find out about the China factor—”

  “Don’t worry about that now, Kinsey,” he ordered. “Just take care of yourself and let Mason will deal with his business.”

  Kinsey

  “Listen, Kinsey.” Mason pulled me aside as we left the dining room. “Your dad is getting you your own room. Now that you have family here, he thinks you should be with him.”

  Opening my mouth to protest he placed a finger on my lips to quiet me. There was an odd distance in his eyes that I hadn’t seen in weeks. “Don’t worry. I explained how anxious you were about being alone when we got here, so he doesn’t think we were sharing a room to sleep together. I told him I’d been planning to sleep on the couch.”

  Blinking, I just started at him, stunned. He’d just dismissed our relationship as a kindness to ease my anxiety. Was that all it was? Had I imagined every loving caress? Was his declaration of love just a favor?

  “Kinsey…” He paused as if changing his mind about what he was going to say. Then, straightening his spine, he continued. “I’m so sorry, but this thing between us. It isn’t going to work.” Scrubbing his hand over his face he kept apologizing. “Ahhh, God. Kinsey, this is so hard.”

  I couldn’t speak.

  His face twisted in pain, he whispered, “Please forgive me. I knew Noah wouldn’t accept this. I’m not good enough for you.” He stepped back, putting a distance b
etween us that extended far beyond any physical space. He severed our connection. It crushed me, making this return to civilization even harder than it already was.

  I don’t know if my father knew what was going on, but suddenly he was between Mason and me. “I’ll come up and get Kinsey’s things,” he told Mason. “Kinsey,” he faced to me, “here is your room key. Go ahead upstairs. I will be there to help you settle in once I collect your things.”

  “I don’t have anything.” I said. Taking the key, I turned and walked away. There was nothing in that room I wanted anymore.

  Lying alone in my sterile hotel bed, the 250-thread-count sheets felt scratchy. The hum of the air conditioner was irritating, and every voice in the hallway grated on my nerves. Why did we come back? As awful as the jungle was, at least we were together there. Maybe I did imagine it.

  Rolling over, I automatically moved to snuggle next to Mason and then had to remind my traitorous body that he wasn’t there. I really did feel alone, bereft. My father, in the room on the other side of the connecting door, was no comfort to me.

  “What changed, Mason?” I asked the empty room.

  The year was really starting to suck. First I crash Adele. Then my dad writes me off. Jason breaks up with me because I’m too needy. I had to get that awful work-study job in the cafeteria. When Mason offered me the office assistant position, I thought things were looking up, but if this is the result, I would have been better off bussing tables and cleaning trash cans.

  I believed him when he said he loved me. Now I wished we’d never run into each other that day in my father’s lobby.

  My heart hurt.

  Chapter 25

  Kinsey

  Slouching against the bulkhead in first class, I stared vacantly out the window of the jumbo jet taking me back to New York. Leaving Nicaragua, I felt like I was leaving behind a life I had only just glimpsed. I hated being on a plane again, but at least this one was a jumbo jet—huge compared to Mason’s tiny tin can.

  “Would you care for something to drink?” The stewardess with her beverage cart stood smiling expectantly. She reminded me so much of Marie I could feel the tears welling behind my eyes.

  “No, thank you,” I whispered. Turning back to the window, I stared out at the nothingness of bright white clouds stretching to the horizon.

  I sat silently by my father’s side for the rest of the trip. He must have felt my anguish because he remained mute for the entire flight.

  I felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest. The physical reminders of the crash, the scrapes, bruises, weight loss, and exposure—all those would fade with time. I had no idea how to put my heart back together after Mason smashed it to pieces.

  I emailed Peter and asked for his father’s contact information. Then, making a quick phone call, I feigned happiness and chatted gaily with Ambassador Zao. Mason may have been done with me, but I wasn’t done with our work.

  It was nice to catch up with the ambassador. I hadn’t seen him in several years. We always seemed to miss each other at my father’s events. I explained the problems Mason was having with the factory in China, and called in a favor. The ambassador agreed to visit the factory on his next trip and to work with the local representatives to solve the production problem.

  “He should be back up and running at full capacity within a week,” the ambassador said. “Tell your boss he will meet his deadlines.” I thanked him and told him how I hoped to see him soon.

  Before working at Mason’s company and the subsequent crash, I never would have had the confidence to call Ambassador Zao. But I was a different person now. And this was business. One thing I had learned was that business was built on connections, and raised as I was, I had connections. It was time I learned to use them.

  Returning to college in the fall was bittersweet. I had one semester left at Columbia before graduation, and I was getting everything I wanted. I went through the motions, working in the lab, completing my assignments, smiling and chatting, but nothing felt real. There was a gray cloud over life.

  I wanted to keep working and insisted on it, much to Dad’s chagrin. To appease me, he had called in a favor with another of his protégés, Damon, and found me a job.

  Damon owned an energy company in Miami that had a small satellite office in New York. I wasn’t exactly working in the BioTech field, but focusing on the business side of things meant I was still learning a lot. More importantly, it kept me busy. The last thing I wanted was time to think.

  “Kinsey, have you seen my notes on the Synergy merger?” Damon asked, walking into the office.

  “No. Sorry, Damon. Did you take them home with you last night?”

  “Probably.” He sighed, slumping at the shoulders and running his fingers through his hair. “They’re fighting the buyout hard. I’ve got to go talk to the owners again and get them to calm their employees down. I don’t know why they’re fighting so hard. They’ll never survive the way things are going.”

  I nodded. “Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.” I said, looking at him with a critical eye. Damon was gorgeous with deep brown eyes, curly brown hair, and a chiseled physique. I should feel something. He was my type, but my heart just couldn’t get past Mason. He was the only man I thought of. Even presented with a virile specimen like Damon, I could feel nothing for anyone else.

  I was empty.

  Chapter 26

  Mason

  Sitting alone in my condo, back in New York, I booted up the new laptop Mark brought me in Nicaragua and logged in to the Phantomfire Media servers. Encrypting my signal, I accessed the secure areas and started working. It didn’t give me the same satisfaction it used to, though.

  I was lonely. I missed Kinsey.

  Noah would never forgive me if he found out about us. I couldn’t believe I’d made love to Kinsey, and I couldn’t believe I would never get to again. She was like a drug I couldn’t get out of my system.

  My eyebrows flew up, eyes widening as I read an email from the Ambassador to China. I had no idea how he found me or how he knew about the situation. He said he would be in Beijing and wanted to know if I would like to join him for a sit-down meeting with the local authorities and factory representatives. The fantastic news made my heart race for a moment, but then it stilled again.

  I should be happy. Business was booming. In addition to the email from the ambassador, there were four more contacts inquiring about our chip. I had almost everything I ever wanted. What I didn’t have could never be mine.

  It didn’t matter. I didn’t have time for love, anyhow. While I was gone, Mary had returned to work, and my calendar was full. I added in the new meeting requests, and blocked out time to return to China with the ambassador. Still, it wasn’t enough to keep her out of my thoughts.

  I know what Kinsey and I had wasn’t real, but I missed it. I missed her closeness, her laugh, her wit. I missed the chess games in my office after hours. A relationship isn’t something I ever wanted, but now that it was gone, it left a hole. She chose Noah and college, a path I wasn’t on. I chose Phantomfire Media. Our lives were not compatible. It was a fluke that we met in the first place.

  Now that she had patched things up with her father, she didn’t need me anymore.

  Time passed. Grief and pain became my constant companions. I lost even more weight and moved lethargically. I made excuses, turning down every offer from Noah to play racquetball, and locked myself in my office when I was at work. Ignoring phone calls from my family, I dark circles settled under my eyes, and instead of sleeping, which I couldn’t do anyway, I worked online long into the night.

  Our stock was off the charts.

  BANG!

  BANG!

  BANG!

  Jumping, up from my chair, I knocked over the empty glass sitting by my right hand. I gazed around my study, realizing I had once again passed out while working. A puddle of drool defaced my keyboard, and running my hand over my face, I realized I had a keyboard shaped imprint on
my cheek.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” I hollered at the closed front door. The person on the other side was still hammering to come in.

  I threw the door open, and Mark practically fell in, his hand still raised to bang again.

  “It’s about time! Where the hell have you been, Mason?” he said, striding in and squinting at the mess.

  “I gave the cleaning lady a month off,” I told him. “I didn’t want to be bothered by anyone.” I shot him a resentful glare.

  “Why’s that?” he asked, still taking in the magnitude of my housekeeping disaster.

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Too busy to call Mom back? She thought she lost you when your plane went down. She’s a little fragile right now. Cut her some slack and call her back so she knows you’re still alive.”

  “Yeah… okay.” My voice was flat and I barely looked at him. Running my fingers through my hair, I was surprised how tangled it was. Haircuts were another thing I didn’t want to be bothered by.

  “She expects you at dinner tonight.”

  “Tonight? What’s tonight?” Squinting at Mark, my brain was still foggy. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Mom’s birthday dinner? You told Laurie you were coming last week.”

  Sweating, I looked around the front room as if I’d find an excuse not to attend hiding behind the couch. I really didn’t want to see people, especially not family. They could see right through the bravado I projected at the office, and I couldn’t stand to be exposed like that.