Broken Heart

by Laura Browning

  Stacey’s entire body had throbbed. Her purse and her briefcase had dropped to the floor as Mason’s hands grabbed her hips and pulled her to him. His erection pressed hot and hard along her stomach and her body reacted, swelling and melting for him.

  “I’m not doing this for business,” she’d mumbled.

  “Good,” Mason had growled against her mouth right before he kissed the daylights out of her. In what had seemed no time, she’d been on her back on the dining room table, her skirt pushed to her waist. After covering himself with a hastily produced condom, Mason had held her butt in his hands and pumped his hips between her thighs. As their coupling intensified, he’d bent over her to kiss her again. “You are so fucking hot. Do you know how often I’ve watched you and wondered what you would feel like wrapped around me?”

  Stacey couldn’t have answered if she’d tried. She was too busy arching her hips in an absolutely mind-blowing orgasm. Before he’d reached his own climax, she’d come yet again. In the aftermath, they’d simply stared at each other.

  He’d adjusted his clothes and offered her a hand off the table before surprising her by helping her straighten her own clothing. “How about lunch now, only I’ll buy?”

  It was like he’d flipped a switch, knocking her completely off guard.

  The next two weeks had been amazing. Stacey had never reacted to any man the way she did Mason. They’d both had commitments that made going out in the evening impossible, but they’d managed to meet at clients’ homes, once even in the storeroom at Mason’s. The sex had been hotter than hot. They couldn’t get enough of each other, but time hadn’t been on their side. Right at the point when he’d finally asked her out on a legitimate date, the pictures had arrived at her parents’ home.

  She shook her head and sighed, staring at the abstract work he’d chosen to decorate his house on the bay. So many mistakes she’d made because she had lacked the guts to stand up for herself. And look what it had gotten her.

  * * * *

  When Mason left the shower, he’d pushed through the anger and pain at what had happened to Stacey so he was fairly certain he could keep himself under control. She definitely didn’t need to be dealing with him going all weepy and unmanning himself–or the reverse, letting his anger out. He was afraid what might happen if he got his hands on her husband.

  After pulling on clean shorts and a shirt, he padded along the hallway into the living room. She was curled on her side, her arm snugged protectively around the ribs he knew had to be badly bruised. As quietly as he could, he covered her with a lightweight throw and continued on into the kitchen. After checking the fridge and the cupboards, he put together a list and called a local grocer who would deliver for a fee. He decided to order in pizza for dinner. With a soft chuckle, he wondered if Barlow-Barretts even ate pizza or if there was some social rule barring them from such a middle class activity.

  Mason grabbed a beer and headed to the dock in the backyard. He left the back door open with only the screen shut so he could hear Stacey if she called him. Pulling out his BlackBerry, he called his assistant at home and told her he was going to be taking a few days off to handle some personal business. She would be in charge in his absence, but he told her if she needed anything to call him.

  “Everything okay?”

  He sighed. “It will be. Look, if any clients call asking for Stacey Winchester while I’m out, tell them she’s out of town for a family emergency.”

  “Mason? Does this have anything to do with what the intern saw?”

  “Yeah, but I can’t tell you more. Just feed people the lines I’ve given you.”

  “You got it.”

  After slipping the phone back in his pocket, he hefted the beer bottle and tilted it. The yeasty flavor of it slid over his tongue and down his throat. There was so much he wanted to ask Stacey, and didn’t dare. As he stared at his dinghy bobbing in the water next to the dock, he also admitted he had a few things he would have to tell her, like hiring John Smith to check out Worthington and Winchester. There were so many obstacles standing between them he wondered if they could overcome them. He wanted to. He wanted her. And for the first time since she’d dropped the bombshell of her engagement, Mason began to believe a future together might be possible.

  He’d just polished off the beer when he heard her scream. Flipping the bottle around so he clutched it like a weapon, Mason raced across the yard, taking the steps two at a time. As he burst into the kitchen, his gaze automatically zeroed in on the great room. She was huddled on the couch, her face pale. No one else was there. He set the bottle down, rubbed his hand over his hair to smooth it while he caught his breath, then walked toward her.

  “What’s wrong, honey? You were sleeping. Bad dreams?” She nodded, obviously struggling to calm herself. “I could sit next to you if it would make you feel better.”

  “Please.” The request was made in not much more than a whisper.

  He eased next to her and stretched an arm along the couch behind her. She sat, tension radiating off her like heat off a stove and the cover still clutched in front of her like a shield. “It’s okay. You’re safe. The front door is locked, so are the windows. I had the back door open, but I was right out in the yard where I could hear you. I won’t let anything happen.”

  Some of the tension left her shoulders. She closed her eyes and sighed. “I don’t want to be like this, Mason, afraid of everything, jumping at every sound or bad dream.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  She looked at him from the corner of her eyes. “Yes, but I don’t know where to start.”

  He held his hand palm up and simply waited. She slipped her hand in his and he squeezed to give her encouragement. “You know you’ll probably have to go through most of it again tomorrow. You can practice on me.”

  She smiled slightly and rested her cheek on her drawn-up knees. “You make it sound like rehearsing for a play.”

  He kissed her knuckles. “No, not that, but maybe a chance for you to get yourself together like you said you wanted.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “Aw hell, honey. I don’t want to make you cry.”

  She swiped at her eyes. “I wish…” She stopped and shook her head.

  “What…what do you wish?”

  “That I’d been strong enough to tell my parents to go to hell, strong enough to stand up for what I felt for you.”

  Everything inside him stilled. He sensed a lot more behind her brief statement, so much going on beneath the surface that he’d never actually known. He’d wrapped himself in his anger and hurt after she’d announced her engagement, so rather than press her for answers, he’d simply walked away with his heart broken but his pride intact. He stroked her hand with his thumb. It was getting to be a habit, but it seemed to comfort her, and it sure as hell steadied him. He could use that now because he had a feeling he was about to find out what had happened between them had layers he’d never suspected existed.

  She turned her head and rested her chin on her knees. She no longer looked at him, but she didn’t pull her hand away. “I remembered the day I met you before I fell asleep today.”

  “I hope it wasn’t what made you scream.”

  Stacey actually chuckled, which was what he’d hoped to achieve. “No. You were right that day, Mason. I was a stuck-up bitch and I did look down on people I thought weren’t my social equals. It was what I’d been taught all my life, but I’m not casting complete blame on my parents. I readily accepted the brainwashing, internalizing it like it was a gospel handed down from the mountain. And even though you were the most amazing thing that had ever happened to me, I couldn’t shake the belief you weren’t up to Barlow-Barrett standards. Mother and Father would never look at you with the same approval they gave to Jace.”

  Mason couldn’t help the growl that erupted. Just the mention of his name made his gut tense and his temper heat.

  “He had called me the night before and made arrangements to take me to dinner. I went out wit
h him because we’d known each other since we were kids. Sure, we’d drifted apart, but he had been a friend through high school and on into college. He asked me out again, and I went, but I realized pretty quickly it was a mistake. The only thing occupying my thoughts was how much I wanted to be naked with you.” This time she squeezed his hand, worrying her lower lip with her even, white teeth. “I had never done anything against my parents’ wishes before you pushed me down on that table and fucked me silly.”

  Mason’s eyes widened. It still surprised him with her aristocratic looks when she popped out with anything vulgar. He looked away to hide the slight smile he couldn’t help.

  “Yes. Laugh if you must, Mason. Here I was, an adult, and all I could concentrate on was trying to make my parents’ happy. Jace made them happy. You wouldn’t have, so I kept the two things separate, but the more I was with you, the more I realized it was you who occupied my mind. There was nothing official between us, so it was easy to keep playing the game of using him to hide you. Jesus, even when Jace kissed me, I thought of you so I could drum up some response. As soon as I acknowledged that fact, I knew I needed to end it with him. And the whole idea scared me to death.”

  “Because of your parents?”

  She shook her head. “No. Because you didn’t seem to be interested in anything more than sex. You never made an attempt to see me outside work hours, and I wasn’t assertive enough to demand to know why. I’d always been taught it wasn’t ladylike, so I waited when what I wanted to do was ask you out, drag you out, force you to be a bigger part of my life.”

  Mason frowned as he stroked her hand. “I never realized, and you wouldn’t have had to force me into anything. You were almost aggressive in dealing with vendors who weren’t getting the job done to your satisfaction, and never hesitated to give clients your opinion, so the idea you might be hesitant about us, about any of your personal relationships, never even occurred to me.”

  He blew out a puff of air. “I have to admit to being guilty of my own brand of snobbery. I hesitated to ask you out because I’d already convinced myself you’d say no. Then when I finally did and you agreed, everything went to hell. The next day you arrived at the gallery with that damn diamond on your finger and a phony fucking smile on your lips. I wanted to kill you.”

  “I know you did. I wanted to do the same thing...kill myself, that is.”

  “Huh?” Mason felt as if the world had somehow shifted, or at least his perception of it.

  “The evening after I agreed to go out to dinner with you, I got a call from my parents. My presence was requested immediately. If you knew my family, you’d realize that’s like being asked to come to the principal’s office or being served a summons. Choice doesn’t factor into it. So I headed to their house in Virginia, the whole time wondering what I might have done wrong. I never did anything wrong. Anna might have screwed up, but not me. I was the good child. I’d kept my association with you out of the public eye…or so I thought.”

  She turned her head and looked at him with her sad tiger eyes. “They had pictures Mason…of you and me…in my client’s house…in their kitchen.”

  “Fuck me.”

  He remembered that day. He’d made an excuse to leave the office and meet her there. He’d no sooner gotten in the door than she’d dragged him back to the kitchen, pulling off his clothes as they went. Of course, he’d been doing the same thing to her. There was a window seat looking out onto the backyard. The secluded backyard. They’d taken turns going down on each other.

  Mason could never get enough of her. She was like a drug in his system and he’d sworn he’d find some way to make it permanent. Deep inside, he knew her lady of the manor act wasn’t all act. At her core, it was part of who she was, who she’d been raised to be. But right then, holed up in their client’s still-vacant home, with his lips trailing across her stomach and into the nectar between her thighs, he forgot all that and simply lost himself to the God-awful lust he felt for her. He didn’t even need to see her. Just the sound of her voice drifting to his office had been enough to make him want to drag her away from whoever she was with, drag her into his office, a closet–wherever he could get her alone and get his hands and mouth all over her.

  He’d sat her on his lap there on the window seat of the house and loved her until she’d come again and again. He loved the way her long, blond hair tumbled over her bare shoulders, the way she arched backward with her eyes squeezed shut in pleasure so overwhelming she almost looked like she was in pain. He’d been right there with her every step of the way.

  Still naked, they’d fed each other from the food they’d brought with them, and he’d taken her one more time, her long legs wrapped around his neck.

  Then their fledgling relationship had exploded, leaving him wounded, angry and wondering what the hell had happened. At the time, all he’d been able to deduce was her inner core of arrogance had finally pushed her away from him, away from the guy with no pedigree, the guy with no true parents or really any family at all.

  He stroked her hand now, realizing they had both become victims. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry.”

  She shook her head. “How could you know? It was bad enough my parents saw pictures of the two of us, but there was a note with them too. It demanded money or copies of the pictures would be sent to rival newspapers. I know now where those pictures came from.”

  “Winchester?” At her nod, Mason’s rage stepped up another notch. “So what happened?”

  “I guess my parents took care of paying off the money, but what concerned me was the demand they made of me in return. They would only make it go away if I dumped you and found someone of my own background. They wanted a committed, settled relationship, pronto.”

  “And Jace happened to be waiting in the wings with the family diamond.”

  She nodded. “I didn’t love him. I never did, but I liked him. I thought it would be enough. Our mothers were friends. We’d known each other forever. I’d seen a couple of my sorority sisters turn social alliances into decent marriages. I thought I could do the same. I kept telling myself I was doing it for you, I was saving you and your business from a scandal that could ruin you. But the truth was, Mason, I was too weak to fight for the man I–” She stopped.

  “The man you what?” he prompted, his voice hoarse.

  She looked him straight in the eye. “The man I loved. I told myself it was lust, I would get over it, but I haven’t,” she whispered. “And every time I saw you I died a little more inside. I realized on my wedding night what a colossal mistake I’d made. Jace…”

  “You don’t need to tell me this.”

  She rubbed her hand over her forehead. “I do. I need you to know, please? I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. I want you to understand. Is that okay?”

  Mason chuffed, then nodded. He couldn’t deny her, if this would help her in some way.

  “He would never look at me. It makes such revolting sense to me now. He tried to talk me into cutting my hair, but failing that, he wanted it in a bun or a twist. He barely touched me, and when he did it was as if he was getting it over with as fast as possible, never like it was with us.”

  Mason couldn’t stand it any longer. She had been so passionate with him, and he could only imagine how such coldness would have shut her down on so many levels. The past year and a half were now so much clearer. He needed to be able to offer comfort, and he hoped she could accept it.

  “Come here, honey. Let me hold you.”

  She curled into his side, her cheek against his chest and her hand clenched on his shirtfront. With a deep sigh, she continued, “I thought there was something wrong with me, so I started faking it. He seemed happy, my parents were happy, so I tried to ignore the fact I wasn’t. I was pretty good at it too, except when I had to see you. Then a few months ago, you started dropping these cryptic remarks. What was with that?”

  “Just a feeling. I wish like hell now I had acted on it sooner. I’d seen him around t
own with Worthington. Then that day at the wedding, I didn’t have any proof, I just knew. It’s a guy thing. But I got proof.”

  Stacey pulled away a bit, studying him. “What do you mean?”

  “After you came in with the bruise on your wrist…” Mason hesitated, but they were being honest, and she certainly wasn’t holding anything back, so he needed to do the same. “I hired a detective. Not to follow you–Smith was getting information on Worthington and your husband for me. I was worried about you, honey.”

  She was silent for so long, her gaze focused straight ahead, that he began to get nervous. “What did you find out?” she finally asked.

  “Background, mostly on Worthington. How the two met. That sort of thing.”

  “So, tell me.” She turned her face back to him, and he was relieved to see her expression didn’t hold any condemnation.

  “They met in summer camp, attended the same camp for years, visited in between summers and eventually became college roommates. Neither one ever had a serious relationship with a woman until Jace and you. There were a couple of other things.”

  “Those were?”

  “The weekend Jace bowed out of sailing with you to go fishing with Justin–they weren’t fishing. They both visited a male fertility specialist in New York.” He stopped abruptly as she began shaking again. “Stacey?” Mason tilted her face to his, and what he saw in her expression made him want to commit murder.

  “That was why…” she mumbled, stopped and then continued to tremble. The control he thought he’d built crumbled like a tower of children’s blocks tumbling under the onslaught of a careless hand.

  “Oh God! Something else happened?” She didn’t answer, but he saw it in her expression. Mason pulled her onto his lap, careful of her bruised ribs, wrapped his arms around her and simply rocked her.

  “Jace wanted a baby,” she whispered.

  Mason remembered her telling him they were trying to start a family.

  “I was uneasy with Justin in the house. I felt like the outsider when the two of them were together. I was not sleeping well, and I started drinking. One night… I thought Justin had made love to me twice, but that wasn’t true. He told me this morning… It was Justin the second time.”