Chapter 7
7
PIA
“Morning, Pia.”
“Good morning, Beck,” I said as he opened the door.
“Dude, Mason is a lucky guy. You look amazing.”
“Beck,” I said, stepping inside, “you are aware I’m Mason’s employee, right?”
“Right. But not mine, thankfully.”
Mason was nowhere to be seen. He had said nine o’clock, and Mason didn’t strike me as the kind of guy to be late. I pulled out my phone. Eight fifty. Oops. I’d overestimated how long it would take to walk here. Just the fact that I could walk to work was a huge change from any other job, and one I was going to enjoy.
“Are you insinuating that because I’m not your employee it’s okay to hit on me?”
Beck plopped down onto a couch. “Yep. Exactly. Glad we’re on the same page.”
This guy was something else. “We’re actually not on the same page at all. The only thing I’m interested in here is making Heritage Hill the premiere Cedar Falls destination.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“If I were to ask you out?—”
“I’d politely decline.”
“Beck. May I speak with you?” a voice called from the hallway.
If I remembered correctly, this one’s name was Cole.
“Sure, go for it.”
Since Beck clearly wasn’t moving, he stepped into the room. “Beck?”
Sighing like a wayward child, Beck didn’t move. “Is this about the dishes in the sink?”
Cole cleared his throat. “Yes, it is.”
“Then you’re gonna want to talk to Parker. Those are his.”
“Please ignore both of them,” a deep voice said from the entranceway.
Mason. My heart had no business thumping as if my current crush had just entered the room. Yet that’s exactly what it did. Though Mason was not—I repeat, not—my current crush. In addition to being borderline brash and smiling too rarely, with a few exceptions at dinner last night, he was also my new boss.
“Do they live here?”
“Nah, they’re just staying temporarily.”
“We do live here,” Beck said.
“Speaking of.” Cole crossed his arms, still glaring at Beck. “I have to head back in a few days. No time like the present to clean out the basement.”
“We did say we’d tackle that today.” Beck didn’t seem pleased by the prospect, though I didn’t blame him. It sounded like a daunting task.
“You guys don’t have to—” Mason started, but Beck cut him off, standing.
“Not listening.” He breezed by Mason and Cole, presumably to tackle the basement. Cole looked like he was heading to a polo match and not at all ready for the task at hand. As they left, Mason shook his head.
“Are they really cleaning the basement?” I asked.
“Apparently. Though I have no idea how they plan to accomplish that. Not even I would be able to make heads or tails of what’s good down there.”
“That’s actually really sweet of them.”
Mason pushed away from the doorframe where he’d been standing. With a fitted pair of navy sweats and white tee, he was more casually dressed than I’d seen him yet. Unsurprisingly, it was a good look on him.
Not that I noticed.
“Sweet isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I think of those two.”
“I’d say what they’re doing is pretty nice. But don’t they have jobs? Or at least, Cole. I guess Beck works at night.”
“Come take a tour of the property,” he said. “Like you said, Beck bartends. And Cole is a professor at Columbia. Tenure track.”
Mason sounded proud of his friend.
“Isn’t he a little young to be a tenured professor at Columbia?”
“Cole’s not tenured yet, but he’s on his way. His father is a Yale professor, so it runs in the family. He was pretty much groomed for this. In case you hadn’t figured that out already.”
“He does look the part.” I followed Mason through the kitchen to a back door. We stepped outside onto a wraparound deck that ran the length of the place. The lake view took my breath away. “Pictures don’t do it justice.”
With the leaves changing color, the property couldn’t possibly look any more picturesque.
“It’s so beautiful.”
“Agreed,” he said.
I could tell from the corner of my eye that Mason had been looking at me, not the property. But obviously he was talking about the landscape. There was not a hint of interest there, which was more than fine, of course. Since that would be inappropriate.
So why are you wishing he fawned all over you like Beck?
“This was my father’s favorite spot,” he said, hands gripping the railing in front of us as we looked out. “You can see most of the property from here.”
“He clearly loved this place. That was obvious when we spoke.”
“It was his life.” Mason paused. “My mother died when I was eleven from breast cancer. After that, he poured his heart and soul into Heritage Hill. The people who stayed here were his family.”
Though I didn’t want to ask, I got the sense Mason’s father never remarried. “Do you have any siblings?”
“No.” Mason shook his head. “Mom got sick less than a year after I was born. The cancer came back twice and… no, I don’t have any siblings.” He looked at me. “Do you?”
“Three sisters, all younger.”
“Four girls. Sounds like fun for your dad.”
I laughed. “Five with Mom. And yeah, tons of fun. He’s married to his work, but I think the restaurant is more of an escape than anything else.”
“I don’t blame him.”
Was Mason teasing me? I didn’t think he was capable of it.
“We’re all close,” I added, almost uncomfortable with nice Mason. “But I fight more with the middle two. They drive me crazy sometimes, but I’ll keep them.”
“Are they still in Oregon?”
“Yep. One lives on her own, the others are still at home.”
“You don’t mind being out here with your family all out west?”
Good question. At first, I had been resistant to the idea of moving so far away. But the job had been a perfect fit for my skill set, and I needed to get away, so I took it. “It’ll take some getting used to but…” I waved a hand in front of me. “Working with this was too hard to pass up. There’s so much potential here.”
Catching myself staring at the veins in Mason’s forearms, I quickly looked away.
He pushed himself up and started down the back porch, all business now. “So as you know…” He began retelling the history of Heritage Hill. I’d studied before interviewing with his father so already knew all of this, but I listened carefully to him. We toured the grounds first and then the inn, beginning with the family and friend rooms and ending with the guest ones. “So, eight rooms, each named after a female in my family, starting way back with Elizabeth, my great-grandmother. The first Heritage Hill matriarch.”
“Three lakeview guest rooms, one village view with the fireplace, and the others are all village views with no extra amenities?”
“Yep.”
We stood in the Eliza room, considered the best of all eight. It boasted both a view and a fireplace but was definitely outdated.
“What are your thoughts on updating the rooms?”
“That we need more money to renovate than Heritage Hill’s coffers will allow.”
“So you’re on board with some updates?”
“I am, but we need to work within a budget. I’ve thought about asking Parker to handle some of the bigger renovations—he’s in construction—but he’s still in building season.”
“So maybe over the winter, weather allowing?”
“Maybe. If we sectioned off some of the rooms while renting others, it could work since the winter is less busy anyway. But the main rooms downstairs? I don’t see how to get that done without closing. The outside is tricky too. No one wants to pull up to scaffolds on their romantic getaway.”
When he said the word “romantic,” our eyes met. And for the first time, something in his look set off alarm bells. And fluttering in my stomach. I wanted to look away but found it impossible. He was so damn sexy.
When his jaw flexed, I could tell Mason was annoyed, probably with himself for showing any kind of interest in me.
“Hey, oops, sorry.” Beck leaned against the doorframe. “Didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
“You’re not interrupting anything,” Mason said, his tone annoyed. “We’re touring the property.”
“Uh huh, okay.” He put up his hands as if giving himself up.
Beck was one of the only people who had more animated hand gestures than me.
“I think it’s really incredible, what you’re doing,” I said, my meaning clear. He was dusty as hell and actually had a cobweb in his hair.
“You realize I heard that as, ‘You are incredible,’ right?”
“Ugh,” I asked Mason, “is he always this impossible?”
His answer was automatic. “Always.”
“Now that we’ve established I’m pretty incredible and impossibly magnetic?—”
“That’s not what I said.”
“There’s a lot of shit down there. Cole and I are putting it in good, trash, and ‘ask Mason’ piles. Does that work?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll come down after I get Pia settled.”
Beck’s grin meant he was about to say something spicy. “Want me to get her settled for you?”
Mason looked pissed. “She is my employee, asshole. Keep it professional.”
The irony of that statement wasn’t lost on either Beck or me; we both laughed. But I stopped immediately as I turned back to Mason. He was not laughing. In fact, he looked even more off-put than the first time we met.
“Good luck with that one,” Beck said, walking away.
“It’s okay,” I assured Mason. “I don’t offend easily and can handle him. Honestly, it’s no big deal.”
“You shouldn’t have to handle Beck. I’ll talk to him later. I don’t know how long he’s staying but he won’t make you uncomfortable in the meantime.”
“I’m not uncomfortable at all,” I reassured him. “Seriously.”
Mason looked like he was going to argue. Instead, he nodded toward the door. “Come on, I’ll take you to your office.”
Without looking back to see if I was coming, he took off down the hall. I’d have to convince him it really wasn’t a big deal, but if there was anything I’d learned spending the morning with Mason, it was that he didn’t convince easily of anything. Once his mind was made up, it was an uphill battle to unmake it.
Especially concerning me.