Chapter 8
EIGHT
Nina
“Nina?” Rochelle’s eyes are sharp and zeroed in on me. She’s standing over Mason with a jug of water clenched in her hand.
Mason stands and buttons his jacket, a deep frown marring his handsome face. “Nina, I didn’t know you were working today.”
My nostrils flare as my body flushes hot. “I bet you didn’t.”
“Excuse me a moment, gentlemen.”
My eyes flick around the room, noting the three men and a young girl in the corner who looks to be taking minutes. Unease suffocates me, but I’m too angry to allow my mind to catch up and put all the pieces together.
“Mr Lowell, I’m so very sorry for this interruption.” Rochelle’s lip curls as she looks at me. “She’s new. I’m sure we can offer some kind of compensation to you and your team, and rest assured she will be dealt with.” Her eyes scan me up and down in a judgemental stare and I snap.
“Oh, will you just fuck off!”
Mason’s head snaps to me, and Rochelle’s face drops, quickly losing all its colour.
“I beg your pardon?” she stammers.
“You heard me! This whole month you’ve been coming at me, telling me how much you hate me, how I could lose my job, and how tardy I am.
Well, fuck you! You can shove your job up your arse.
” I step up to her, knowing I should stop but not being able to.
“You’re a piece of work, Rochelle. You must have a magic vagina or something to bed a man like Elliot. Good luck with that now.”
“Nina—”
Her hand connects with my face moments before Mason steps between us. I chuckle as I welcome the sting. I needed that.
“Nina.” She instantly panics.
“What the fuck do you think you are doing!” Mason’s voice is like thunder, vibrating through the entire room. My eyes drift closed as I turn and leave them. “You do not lay your hands on her!”
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as I round the threshold. If I didn’t know Mason, I’d be afraid of him right now. His voice is deadly yet controlled.
“Mr Lowell, I’m…” Rochelle’s voice falls quieter and quieter the farther away I get from the room.
“Nina!” Mason snaps, and I turn, his tone leaving no room for me to do anything but submit.
He steps up to me, taking my face in his hands, and I melt under his dark stare.
I hate being so open and easy to him. My body doesn’t care though.
Like it doesn’t know any better, it craves something inside of him.
Our eyes lock and find the perfect focus, as if we are looking through the same lens. He’s all I see—feel—breathe in the moment. Why can’t I take him back, why can’t I unlearn that look. Unlearn him.
My voice is hoarse as I lift my chin. “If I could make you a stranger to me I would. I’d go back to that first night and I’d—” My mind drifts to Ellis and I close my eyes, regretting my words immediately.
His hands fall from my face as I step back and out of his reach.
“Nina,” he warns, as my feet lead me backwards three steps. “Nina.”
I shake my head, clenching my hands at my side. “Not now, Mason.” Not ever. “I’m not doing this today,” I tell him.
Anger steals his features, his jaw tightening into a sharp line as he watches me. He knows I’m going to go. It’s the way it’s always been.
I make my way into the back office and get my things, grabbing everything I can that’s mine. Rushing through the reception and out onto the street, I spot the Audi parked at the curb.
Vinny spots me, smiling wide as he slides down the window. “Nina, I didn’t know you were working today.”
My eyes fill with tears before I can stop them. Vinny has become more than a friend to me over this past year. “Of all the people, I never believed you’d lie to me, Vin.”
“Nina!” Mason shouts from the hotel entrance.
I move quickly, stepping into a waiting taxi. “Please just drive,” I tell the driver.
He turns in his seat, looking me up and down before casually righting himself again. “I have a client.”
“Please!” I plead, not bothering to wipe my tears, knowing I must look ridiculous.
He huffs and pulls out onto the road. I twist in the seat to find the Audi following right behind us.
“Where to?” the driver asks me, bored.
I swipe at my cheeks, feeling like the vilest human on earth for using it against him. “Lowerwick Estate.”
There’s something so peaceful about the dead.
Maybe it’s the quiet that surrounds me as I sit between the two headstones amongst Ellis’s garden.
Or maybe it’s the unknown of what awaits us all.
It could be anything really—we’ll never know until it’s our turn.
But from my spot right now, with the sun on my face and the smell of fresh lavender blanketing me in the breeze, it seems like the most tranquil place on earth.
I only ever come out here with Scarlet or Ellis, but today, when I realised that Scarlet was working and wouldn’t be home for a while, I knew this is where I’d wait.
There’s safety in silence.
Mason Lowell is so damn loud. A man of many words—yes.
Yet his presence, his ability to consume my thoughts and drive my fears, smothers me.
My anger towards him in the hotel was raging, so pent up from seven months of no contact, that when I rushed through the door and asked what he was doing, I said it with so much conviction, you’d think he was mine.
I feel stupid.
He isn’t mine.
And yet he stood in front of me. He stood up for me, held my face in his hands and told me with his eyes that it was okay.
“Why can’t this be easy?” I say aloud, looking up at the cloudless sky, then back to Ellis’s grave on my left.
“He’s so difficult but so perfect. It’s impossible.
” I sigh, dropping back to the grass so I’m lying flat.
“It’s not that I don’t want anyone else to have him.
He deserves to have someone. It’s just… I don’t know—”
“This is super weird.”
I startle and sit up, coming face-to-face with Elliot. “Ell, hey!”
He dips his head to the side, reading me as if he can see every page that plagues me. “You okay?”
The girls are good for a lot of things, but I’ve grown close to Elliot this past year. His love for my son and the way he’s stuck by me through everything isn’t something I will ever forget.
I nod my head, taking his outstretched hand and slipping into his open arms as he pulls me up.
“Mase called me. Said you lost your job,” he says into my hair. “What happened?”
“I thought he was meeting the stripper. The one from the photos. I walked in on his meeting.”
“What?” Elliot retorts. “You mean Jasmine?”
I want to be sick. “Her name’s Jasmine?”
“It’s not what you think. He’s helping her.”
“Helping himself more like.” I pop a brow, stepping away from him and walking towards the house.
“Mason’s never been with her. It really isn’t what you think. You two need to talk it out. It’s time,” Elliot tells me as he falls into step beside me, making our way through the iron gate.
“Don’t defend him, Ell, please.”
“He’s mad at you still. He doesn’t admit it, but he is.”
“I know.”
“And you know he never slept with her—”
“I thought that was the truth, but then I saw the invoice with Vinny’s name on it. I had photos delivered to me with her in his lap. You think it’s easy for me to believe that nothing has happened when all I get are reasons not to?”
“You had photos delivered to you, Nina.” He looks down at me, knowingly. “It’s bullshit. He was set up and—”
“I know,” I snap, cutting him off.
“I know you know.” He smiles, flashing me his teeth.
“You’re an idiot.” I lean into him as he throws his arm around my shoulders and chuckles.
“I don’t know what to do anymore, Ell. What do you do when you want something you can’t have?
” Because as much as I miss Mason, I know we aren’t going to be together again.
Too much has happened. It would take a lifetime to repair the mess we made.
“Honestly? I go out and get laid.”
Rolling my eyes, I push out from under him and jog up the steps to the front door. “How come you came here anyway?”
“Mase was worried.”
I tut, fighting another eye roll.
“Luce is going to bring Ellis out here. Thought you might want to stay now you’ve come out.”
I nod. “Yeah, I will stay. Thank you,” I tell him sincerely.
“You just have to wait, Pix.”
My brows furrow as I turn to face him. “Huh?”
“One day you’ll have the answers you’re looking for. You just have to trust me when I tell you nothing’s going on, okay?”
Ellis is slumped in my arms as I carry him through the house and up the stairs to his cot.
I stand and watch him as he nestles around in his sleeping bag for nearly twenty minutes before I leave him to sleep.
I’d never take him back. I’d never wish for a different life.
The fact I threw that in Mason’s face today disgusts me.
As much as Elliot’s reassurance should put me at ease, I can’t seem to stop my mind from reeling.
Mason once paid Cara off to keep a secret, and now he is paying for this woman’s hotel stays?
I don’t understand what they expect me to think.
Maybe Elliot is right and it’s time we sat down and talked about it.
Lucy is standing waiting at the bottom of the stairs when I reach the landing. I look down at her as she looks up at me with a judgemental stare.
“What’s that look?” I ask.
“We need a chat,” she tells me.
I join her at the bottom and sit on the step.
“Where’s your head at, Nina? Concerning Mason?” She gets straight to it, choosing to remain standing.
“I thought I made a mistake, leaving him.” My gaze lifts to look at her, my eyes prickling. “I started to believe he might not have done it. I thought maybe I got it wrong.”
Lucy drops down beside me, smoothing her hand over my back.
“He had a room booked, and they used it. I was cleaning opposite and saw her going inside. It was that day I told you.”
Lucy recoils, frowning. “What?”
“Then today I saw him at the hotel, and I thought he was meeting her again. I made a complete fool of myself. And then I ran.”