CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LEXI
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I’ve created a monster. A very sexy monster.
After a day of food and sex, the sun is going down, and I need to go home and change, then get to work.
Speaking of...Mason didn’t do any work. After we showered, the two of us collapsed back into bed and snoozed until breakfast arrived. I didn’t even notice him order it.
That’s when I got to see his home properly, and wow, it’s even better than I thought last night.
Mason led me, dressed in his pale blue button-down, back downstairs, where he’d set up a large glass dining room table with orange juice, eggs, bacon, pancakes, maple syrup, an arrangement of summer fruits and coffee.
There was enough to feed ten people. He pulled me onto his lap, where he ate while sliding his fingers inside my pussy.
This man.
My god, I had no idea it could be like this.
Turning on some music, we sat out on the balcony and swam in the heated pool for a few hours, then headed back inside and watched a movie.
Talk about the perfect day.
Sure, we had sex, but in between we talked.
“Have you been to Europe?” I asked.
“Yes. Not everywhere, but a few places,” Mason answered.
“What’s left on your bucket list?”
He didn’t answer immediately, then glanced out across the city as if he could see it all in front of him. Like a movie, or perhaps he’d been transported in his mind.
“Italy. I’ve been, but I want to go again and just spend a year in a small village eating cheese and drinking Italian wine. Grow a beard, walk miles every day, soak in the ocean.”
“I can’t see you doing that.” I shrugged.
“That’s exactly why I want to do it.” Mason turned his gaze back to me.
“Because it’s the opposite of who you are now?” I lowered my brow, confused.
“Staying in a comfort zone doesn’t allow you to grow. Plus...” —he mindlessly played with my hand— “I’m not just some billionaire city boy.”
“Well, you are.”
“No. That is where I live. That is my bank balance. It’s not who I am,” Mason insisted.
Tilting my head, I took in the incredibly handsome shirtless man before me and nodded.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Yeah, I did. I felt it. To me, he was just Mason. We could have been sitting in a dirty old apartment instead of this insanely beautiful and very expensive penthouse. He’d still be just Mason.
Saying that, showing him a hint of the feelings I had for him, would be a dangerous move. It would make me feel even more vulnerable than I already did. And force a conversation neither of us needed to have.
I was leaving.
And Mason was going to let me.
Tonight, however, he’d turned back into that protective monster and was trying to coerce me into quitting my job.
It’s six already, and I need to go home and get ready to start work in an hour.
“Stop putting clothes on. You are not leaving.”
Lord help me.
“Mason Kingsley, you’re not my boss,” I say, pulling on my pants.
“Swear to god, if you leave, Lexi, I will buy that fucking bar and fire you.”
“Well, why stop when you have a good thing going, huh?” I roll my eyes and search for my shoes.
Where the hell are they?
“I didn’t fire you. You quit.” Mason crosses his arms, blocking the doorway. “By the way, how’s that working out? Being Emily’s PA.”
I glance up at him, poke out my tongue, then duck my face under the bed.
“Ugh, where are my shoes?”
“You are not going back there, Lexi. Did you not see the number of men who looked like serial killers in that place?”
Three. But I’m not saying that out loud.
I find a shoe under the chair in the corner of the room, tug it out and slide it on my foot, then kind of hop around as I search for the other.
“You look ridiculous.”
“Then help me look. If I’m late, I’ll lose my job, Mason. I can’t!” I drop to the floor and look under the dresser unsuccessfully, then give up. I sit on my bottom and look up at him. “Please understand.”
He glowers at me, and that doesn’t help because he becomes a thousand times sexier, and I’m tempted to do what I’m told. Undressing and letting him have his way with me sounds far more enjoyable that going back to work and listening to Sam tell me to work my tits.
I decide to try a bit of devil’s advocate.
“Okay then, what about Colt’s bar?”
“Fuck no!” he growls. “It’s a sex club.”
“It’s just bar work. I bet it’s safer there. Won’t Colt have good security or—”
“No, no, fucking no.” His hands snap onto his hips.
There’s no arguing with this man, but he needs to understand that normal people have jobs, and that includes me.
“Fine. I’ll get an Uber and go home with one shoe.”
Mason crosses the floor, lifts me to my feet, and I think he’s going to shake me and continue telling me how much he’s going to pay for On The Rocks when he wraps his arms around me instead.
“This is stupid,” he grumbles in a rough, sexy tone.
“I’m sorry I’m not one of your rich girls.” I lean my head on his chest. “But this is who I am. We should probably...”
I can’t finish the sentence.
Say goodbye.
Not do this again.
“Never say that again,” Mason says, rubbing his hand over my hair. “Never fucking say that.”
I want to melt into his embrace and fall in love with this man. God, I want so many things. Like be the girl who goes to Italy with him and eats pasta, walks along the streets of some small town listening to the locals chattering in their language.
But it won’t be me. It won’t ever be me.
I’m leaving New York soon, and he’ll be that guy I met when Emily and Sebastian got married. I’ll smile privately, remembering today and how amazing it was.
He won’t remember me.
Mason will marry some gorgeous model or heiress, and have three beautiful, well-mannered kids who have their Harvard education and careers planned out.
They’ll holiday in the Hamptons and Switzerland and spend summers on their yacht.
If I’m lucky, I’ll put my employment situation behind me and finally get a job as someone’s personal assistant earning minimum salary. Emily and I will watch each other’s lives on social media, liking posts but realize more, year by year, how different our lives are.
I spot my shoe on the chair under his jacket. Ripping out of his arms, so he doesn’t see the emotion in my eyes, I grab the shoe and pull it on.
“I’ll take you home.” Mason rubs the top of his head.
Grabbing my phone and purse, I shake my head.
“No. I need you to let me do this.” I smile sadly. “Today, last night, was...I won’t ever forget it.”
Slipping his hands into his pockets, he stares at me with an unreadable expression. I hate it when he does that to me.
Ordering a car, I tuck my phone into my bag, walk over and tiptoe up to kiss him. “Walk me out.”
Wrapping an arm around me, Mason drops his mouth to mine, kissing me like I’m the love of his life.
I wish I were.
I wish he’d ask me again to stay. This time I might give in and agree.
I cling to his shirt, hanging on for dear life as he steals a piece of my heart. One I didn’t agree to give away.
“I’m only doing this because you asked me to,” he says, his voice rough.
Ask me again.
We walk through the penthouse quietly. The elevator finally opens, and then I’m standing inside it facing him, wishing for things a girl like me shouldn’t.
Like a fool.
“See you at the wedding,” I whisper.
The door closes before he says goodbye, and I want to cry.