Chapter 26 #2
“Pix,” he answers on the first ring.
“Hey.”
“Are you okay?” he asks, his tone laced with concern.
“Yeah, you’ll never guess where I am.” I bite my lip, unsure as to whether I should have called. I hope he doesn’t get mad again.
“I presumed you were at Lucy and Megan’s?” he questions.
“Promise me you won’t get mad.” I toy with a loose thread on the blanket.
“Nina.”
“I’m in your bed. At Lowerwick.”
“Fucking hell.”
I start to giggle.
“Why are you there?” he asks.
“I was helping your sister decorate. And, maybe I feel close to you here.”
“You could be close to me, like really really close to me,” he groans.
“You were being an ass. I didn’t want to actually be with you.”
“Thanks,” he deadpans, but I can hear the smile hidden in his voice.
“I’m going to look at a studio tomorrow.”
“Yeah? Tell me about it.”
I start to ramble on about the studio and all that it has going for it, and he sits and listens, only answering when I allow him the chance to ask a question.
I’m midway through talking about the exposed piping when my phone vibrates in my hand. I put Mase on speaker and open the message.
“Oh, wow.”
“What?” Mason asks.
I stare at the picture Joey has sent me, one I haven’t seen yet.
It’s my profile, and I’m reaching out to squat him away. It was when he was messing about and took photos of me randomly. The shot looks like I am reaching out to the person on the other side of the camera. It’s incredible, and I love it instantly.
I decide to test the waters; he seems to be in a good mood. “So, you know I had those photos taken. Joey, he took them?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I went to look at them today. They’re incredible, Mase, and he just sent me this photo now, and I think you’d love it. Can I send it to you?”
“You met with Joey today? I thought you said you needed to find a studio?”
“I do, I am. Joey called and asked if I could go over the pictures.”
He snickers down the phone, and my eyes close in regret—not for meeting Joey and not for telling him I did, but regret that I ever believed he would be okay about it. “Sure, send the photo. I’d love to see it. I mean, if I can’t have the real thing I will take the scraps,” he says flippantly.
I run my tongue against the front of my teeth. “Grow up, Mason. You do realise if you weren’t such an ass this week, I wouldn’t be away from you right now.”
“I will add that to the list of endearments, angel.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap.
“Angel?”
“Yes! You don’t get to call me that right now.”
“What does Joey get to call you?”
I hang up, fuming at the infuriating idiot. My phone starts to ring instantly, and I decline the call, then I turn it off and drop it onto the bedside table.
Sitting up, I note how empty the room is, and I wonder if he cleared it or Scarlet. Either way, it’s as cold as he is right now.
I poke my head around the sitting-room door, finding Anthony sat up in a chair watching a rugby game on television. “‘Morning!” I smile, stepping into the room. “I’m off now, but thank you for having me.”
“Of course, give me a second.” He stands and rounds the sofa.
Leaning down, he pulls me into a hug. “Don’t give him too much hell, love. He doesn’t mean it.” He winks as if he knows his son is a complete asshole.
“Maybe,” I mumble, rolling my eyes and giving him a smirk.
“Is Scarlet driving you home?”
“Yes. Thank you again for having me. This place is a dream.”
He smiles thoughtfully down at me. “You’re always welcome here, love, with or without Mason.”
“Well, I promise the next time I come out, I’ll bring him with me.”
“I’d like that.” He nods.
The studio is awful.
It barely looks like the pictures, and the work that needs doing to it to fix it up is colossal.
I’d never afford it. Maggie is being her super polite self and entertaining the salesperson.
I wish I could be so classy, but I zoned out twenty minutes ago.
Disappointment fills me, knowing I will have to keep looking.
I just need a room, close to the city and at a reasonable rate, it doesn’t even have to be fancy, but water leaks and broken floorboards? This place is borderline dangerous.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and I look down, noticing a number I don’t know.
“Hello?”
“Miss Anderson? Nina?”
“Speaking?”
Please be a potential studio.
Please be a potential studio.
“My name is George. I work for Mr Lowell—Mason.”
“Oh, hi.” I frown, and then my stomach drops. “What’s wrong?”
“Elliot asked that I called. Mason has just left for Lowerwick Estate.” I close my eyes, panic making my legs sway. “Mr Lowell, not Mason, Mr Lowell senior. He has been taken unwell.”
“Oh, god, which hospital?”
“I don’t think they’ve gone, the doctor was coming to him.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. That’s good. If it were serious, they would take him to the hospital.
“Would you like to go? To the estate?” George asks.
“Uh,” I pause. Would Mason want me to be there? “No, that’s fine. I’ll make my way over later this evening, thank you, though.”
“Of course, just call if I can be of any help.”
“Thank you.” I smile, not missing the fact Mason’s receptionist is now in fact, a male.
Once I hang up, I think about Mason at the estate and how much he hated it the last time we went. The image of him at the door, not wanting to even enter past the threshold.
“Maggie!” I interrupt in a panic.
“Yes, darling?” She frowns as she spins around, both her and the estate agent looking at me in wonder.
“I need your car. I have to go.”
The gravel seems to crunch louder than usual under my trainers as I jump from the car.
I don’t bother closing the door, my feet carrying me subconsciously past the ambulances and multiple vehicles littered around the circular drive.
I take the steps two at a time and push open the main doors, propelling myself into their hell.
Soft purple locks lay in a curled mass against Elliot’s chest. It’s all I can see. And it has tears springing to my eyes and falling to my cheeks within a split second.
“No!” I shake my head, my voice barely above a whisper. “No.”
“Nina,” Charlie mutters, putting himself in front of me and trying to pull me into an embrace. I look around him: Scarlet, Elliot, his parents, Charlie and Lance.
Everybody but my Mase.
“Where is he?” I ask to anyone and no one, my eyes a blur.
“He needed some air, but I don’t know where he went,” Vinny mutters, stepping out from the kitchen and into the hall.
When did Vinny get back?
“Scar?”
Her sad eyes meet mine, and her head tilts to the side as her body rocks into Elliot’s.
More tears start to fall as we look between each other in understanding. “I’m so sorry, Scarlet.”
“Go find him.” She sniffs, before hiding her face back in Elliot’s chest.
I turn and leave through the open doors, taking off on a sprint around the house and across the first field.
He hasn’t made it to the meadow when I catch sight of him, still trudging toward the last gate.
I start to run faster, my limbs aching, knowing I need to get to him.
I reach the meadow and climb the gate.
“Mase!” I call, watching as he walks toward the hill.
“Mason!” I cry, my tears falling without restraint. He either can’t hear me or he’s not listening, too inside his own head. And I know how that feels—wanting to run away and shut the world out.
I continue running for him, knowing I just need to hold him, be with him.
I’m almost to him when he crumbles, falling to his knees onto the damp grass in his immaculate grey suit. “Mase, baby.”
I round on him, dropping to my knees in front of him as he lands. “Mase.”
Grasping his head in my hands, I try to pull his face down to mine, but he holds it firm, his body too powerful to control as he stares up at the sky.
“He’s gone.”
“Baby,” I whisper, standing so I can see him, cradling his face in my hands.
His eyes search my face, a lone tear rolling across his temple and into his hairline.
“He’s gone, Nina.” More tears start to fall, and I wipe them away with my thumbs.
“He hasn’t. Mason, he hasn’t. Feel him. Let him leave and then breathe him in. He’s here, I promise.” My own tears stream down my cheeks and drip from my chin.
“He didn’t know,” he sobs.
I hold him close, leaning down and kissing his forehead as he cries. “I’m so sorry.”
“He didn’t know.” His head falls to my breastbone, and he breaks down in my arms, our tears merging into one as they stream down my chest.
My beautiful, broken man.