Chapter 20
The pain around my temple mimics Dave Grohl in his Nirvana drumming days.
Everything aches, and the rest is fuzzy.
Blinking repeatedly, I can’t seem to get anything to focus.
Light fixtures and wall decorations swim in and out annoyingly as I get a handle on what I’m looking at. How does Caitlin deal with this?
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty, glad you could join us.” I can barely make out the outline of a figure leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over a broad chest.
“Trys?”
“Yes, sweetheart, were you expecting Tom Holland?”
“If he’s here, send him through. Thanks.” Far out, my entire face is screaming.
“No Tom Holland, no Henry Cavill, sorry. Just me and Mas.” Wait, what?
As finer focus returns to my vision, I see pewter walls stretching up to a high ceiling. Is that twenty feet high? Heavy drapes in charcoal or navy block out all but a sliver of sunlight. I don’t have dark drapes…
“You’re at the penthouse. We brought you straight from the hospital. Do you remember?”
The hospital. Of course I remember; I was mugged, not lobotomized. My hand touches what must be a baseball-sized swelling around my eye, making me wince.
“You are still insanely beautiful. Under all that black and purple, of course.”
“She’s awake?” Mason’s panicked shout echoes down the corridor.
“She is,” Trystan replies softly, his mouth curling into the most adorable grin. “I’ll make some coffee now that Sleeping Beauty has awoken. You want a second cup?”
His voice drifts and diminishes. Caught in the chamber of the enormous living room.
“Fuck.” It’s a gasp, a whisper. A broken statement. Mason leans in the doorframe, almost mirroring Trystan’s posture from earlier. “Are you in pain? Your face.” He gestures around his own with a waving hand. “It looks painful.”
“I’m okay.” The lie croaks easily off my tongue.
The last person I want to look and feel vulnerable in front of is him.
It’s bad enough that I’m in one of his bedrooms. He swept in like a white knight, demanding I see his own physician before sequestering me to his castle.
All this after his muscles were worked free from any tension by the fucking Barbie massage twins.
I can only imagine what else they worked free.
I throw back the duvet and notice that I’m in a man’s T-shirt. It smells like Mason, and the buttery soft material is an indicator that it is his; still, I don’t want to make assumptions.
“If there are clothes for me to wear, I can shower and go home.”
“Your coat was torn and your dress had blood on it from your lip. It’s being laundered at the moment.” Right, well, I could be driven back to East Orange in sweatpants and a hoodie; I’m not picky. That’s if Mason even owns a hoodie.
He watches my progression out of bed. Every wince, every hesitation caught by his hawk-like eyes.
“You’re not going back there, Bri. Trys and two security guards went to your apartment overnight.
They brought back most of your things. You can go back with Trys and security later to pick up anything they may have missed. ”
“Mason…”
“This is non-negotiable.”
“Mason—”
“And you will have security with you from now on. Had someone been assigned earlier, this would not have happened.”
“Mason, I can’t stay here. This is lunacy. And security is not required because this had nothing to do with you, or the Mercer family. It was an opportunistic attack. The police said so.”
“Bri, I don’t give a fuck how it happened. It never should have, and that’s on me. You are my direct employee. I’m usually brilliant with asset management. Until this.”
The realization sank in my stomach like a stone. Asset management. Receiving party. This isn’t about empathy or welfare. This is about his asset being broken, and that affects him. My swollen eye and cut lip reflect badly on him. I want to scream, and not from the searing pain.
“You’re worried about me not performing?” It rasps out broken and bruised. Like me.
He scoffs, launching forward to assist me until I swat his hand away. Alerted by the raised voices, Trystan reappears, a frown blanketing his gentle features.
“The doc said she needed to take it easy for a while. That will not be possible if you insist on being a dick.”
“I’m not being a dick,” Mason snaps back. Yeah, he kinda is.
“If all three of us are here, Helen is the only one at work? How is that going to play out?”
“He went in early and sat through a presentation and the rest of the day has been shuffled,” Trystan clarifies.
“I’m staying here with you while he meets his lunch commitments, then he’ll fly out to the Warner event tonight.
” My hands fly to my face. I can’t go out looking like I’ve been mugged.
Heavy makeup can cover bruising, but swelling quietens down for nothing other than cold compresses and time.
Mason looks up, those frosty eyes that warm occasionally have no furnace today, however. “I’m going alone. Stay here, rest and recover. The doctor will be back tonight. As soon as I can, I’ll be back here again. We’re taking the jet, so I don’t have to wait around for commercial.”
Of course. Rich people problems. With one finger snap, cue a private jet. Fuck me.
Trystan is fun. Not a day out with your besties and a huge carb-laden dinner kind of fun, but a level-up kind of hysterical.
He’d skip the carbs altogether and insist on alcohol.
The more he drinks, and the more he tops up my glass, the weirder the conversations are getting.
He’s known Mason for over half his life; the two met at a prestigious boarding school for obnoxiously rich schoolboys.
Their field trips varied from hiking and making your own shelter in the woods with what you can salvage, to watching the Formula One Grand Prix on a superyacht in Monaco.
A chasm of classes, each one was an experience he treasured because it made him the man he is today.
He is the only son of some big old Texas tycoon, their riches weren’t from oil, only he wouldn’t expand on how the Hynds made their money.
He did, however, tell me that his dear old dad put a stipulation into his trust fund that made it almost impossible to access his trust fund.
That’s where Mason stepped in. He offered Trys a job as his executive, a position that Trystan turned down for almost a year.
“Why the reluctance?”
“Many reasons,” he begins, folding his feet under him on the sofa next to me.
His legs are so long that he’d be able to reach the table to rest his sock-clad feet on, if it wasn’t such bad manners.
“I was hesitant about hurting a friendship. I think Mason was too, but kept repeating the offer. Perhaps it was out of guilt that I was struggling on coupons and ramen; I don’t know. ”
“You were not struggling!” I shriek, aiming a tufted corduroy cushion at him for good measure. The eclectic throw pillows are a design masterpiece.
“I was. Maybe not for food, but for money and acceptance, absolutely.”
“That makes me sad for you, T.”
“I wasn’t sad; I just needed to sidestep, reassess, and go about achieving whatever new goal I’d set. Luckily, or unluckily for me, I moved in wealthy circles and knew many people, so I had options. For a lot of others out there, they aren’t so fortunate.”
The Warner Music and Modern Movement Dinner red carpet is on in the background of our conversation, a glittering gold carpet laid out among pockets of entertainment reporters and paparazzi. The Mercer cars aren’t due to arrive for another eleven minutes.
“What made you accept his offer? Was it a last resort?”
He chuckles, tapping me in the ribs with a toe. When I wince, he immediately comes to comfort me. “Fuck, Bri, I’m so sorry. I forgot.”
“Not sure how you could forget with my baseball eye and heroin addict lip scab!” When I first caught sight of my bruised and swollen features this afternoon, I wanted to cry.
I’m not vain, per se, but I look fucking awful.
There is no way Mason would want me next to him tonight.
No way in hell. I can’t see much anyway, so best I sit on his ridiculously oversized sofa next to his best friend of fifteen years and consume champagne from his personal cellar.
“I hate that this happened to you,” he mumbles, upset at the whole situation.
It’s New York, Trys. People get mugged; it’s life.
If I wasn’t so insistent on not letting go of the work cell, I might have noticed the other guy approaching from behind, grabbing the shoulder strap and escaping with his prize.
My neck was the casualty in that exchange.
“I am really sorry about the work phone. I know it wasn’t synced as recently as it should have been so there are dates that won’t be in there and things I—”
“Bri, it’s fine. You’re fine, sort of. Now, let’s enjoy Mr. Mercer in Armani, shall we? Even with one eye, I’m sure you can still appreciate his form.”
“Why didn’t you go with him? To the awards night?”
His eyes meet mine before his turning head catches up to the process.
“You are joking, right?”
No, I think the idea has merit. They have a great relationship at work, often jovial and personal when it’s just the three of us in an office, or four if Helen sits in to update the twice-weekly calendar sessions.
“You think two men, one of whom is a Mercer, walking a gold carpet and broadcast to the world is an idea worth entertaining?” A shudder takes over his body, brief and subtle. Had I not been looking at him, it might have gone unnoticed.
“I just thought that you two are pretty close. You get on so well that it—”
“Stop right there. Do not let another soul know your thoughts on this, and Bri, please for the love of God, don’t mention the idea of Mason and me attending anything together.”
“Would Aydra be upset?” I inquire, thinking of the beauty I’d met weeks earlier, but hadn’t heard a word about since. My question is met with a cumbersome silence.
On cue, a valet opens the door of a white stretch Rolls-Royce.
The vision switches to a presenter in a knockout sequined gown that hugs every curve.
Wisps of soft chiffon dot around her like a cape sways as she explains how integral the Mercer family is to the media and entertainment industry.
She recites the prestigious family’s generous donations to charities and causes like pediatric programs and youth on the streets.
Michael and Alice Mercer appear, both regal, polished, and poised. The woman doesn't walk; she floats.
“Love the Givenchy,” Trystan praises. “And Valentino is an excellent choice for old Mikey boy.”
I almost spit out champagne. The aloof prick with the twin coal lasers for eyes would lose his ever-loving shit if anyone, let alone his son’s executive, referred to him as “old Mikey boy.” Michael answers the questions, a hint of a smile ghosting his lips when the presenter touches his arm.
Alice remains stoic and graceful, smiling and waving before continuing along the carpet. She looks like an ethereal Grace Kelly.
“Ooh, ooh, turn it up,” Trystan hisses, folding himself in half to reach the remote.
“Mason Mercer, it wouldn’t be a Warner Awards night without your family here. What does this mean to you?”
I try to take in his reply, no doubt as polished and precise as the man himself. But a woman has just sidled up to him and taken his arm. The reporter with the microphone blanches, and then recovers, her gaze never faltering from Mason’s neatly clipped beard and incredible jawline.
“The fuck?” It’s half squeal, half shriek. Trystan’s hand covers his mouth.
“Is that?” My chest seizes with panic. I can feel the tightening pressure cloaking each lung like a crashing wave. No, no, it can’t be. Breathe, just breathe, horizon line, and count.
“Nooooo!” Trystan declares, his hand making a slashing motion.
“It is, Trystan, look!” The words fly out of my mouth unrestrained and dripping with caustic acid.
As Mason continues forward, he shakes off and divests himself from his parasitic guest. Before they are out of shot, the toss of hair and wide, fake-as-fuck smile tells millions of viewers the sad realization that Mason Mercer just walked the Warner Industries gold carpet with Juliette fucking Nasta-Vrees.
She didn’t get a directive not to touch him, walk three paces behind, or what dress to wear.
No, she choreographed this whole thing perfectly.
Part of me, some desperate, depraved part, wonders if she set me up to be mugged in the first place?