Chapter 49
My life is correlated into two distinct boxes.
BM, before Mason, and AM, after. Everything comes back to black and white, or shades of gray.
I thought I’d yearn for the carefree, peaceful days of life before the masculine man and his baggage of toxic predations, but I don’t.
Far from a lesson or life mantra, like one of those stupid memes that states, “What you eat in private shows in public,” crap, I believe that both of us needed the time we spent together.
Perhaps pulled like magnets into the life force of the other, inextricably wound so tight, we were doomed to snap, and snap we did, in spectacular fashion.
I realized the immersion era bookmarked between BM and AM was a time of discovery.
I’d gained a wonderful friend in Trystan, not knowing that he too, was in a prison of his own making.
Long, tedious days spent staring at monitors or pouring over data only to be berated afterward for an omission or error.
I’d overheard Magnus Mercer talking to his son, whom he believed was a grandson, about the importance of perception and keeping things real.
The sour old fuck who caused as much damage to the famous family as he did folding them into prestige and an abundance of wealth others could only envy.
Magnus was more than a cranky homophobe, though.
He was the devil himself, tailored in the rich fabrics he rewove all on his own.
After admiring his stature on the couch, posed next to his wife for the Mercer family Christmas shoot all those months ago, my next impression of the man was a bitter vetch of covert hatred.
“Good to see you knuckling down and focusing on your work,” he’d said while nursing a scotch or cognac in Mason’s office.
I was in the hidden bedroom suite, clad only in one of Mason’s shirts after passionate post-lunch coitus in the bed meant more for executive resting than assistant fucking.
“Doing what is expected,” my boss had replied.
“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and I can tell you’re keeping your dick in your pants, which is even better. A wise plan keeping on someone like Helen, she conveys that homely, maternal care. Not like you’re ever going to go there, is it?”
From my position at the easel, I froze with a blender in hand, one knee pulled up to my chin as I worked.
“And a male PA is good for optics. Shows no gender bias and such. That’s even better. He may look effeminate with that long hair, but there’s no chance you’d fuck him now, is there. You’re no fucking poof.”
My hand flew to my face, heart aching for both Trystan and Mason, and the poison pouring from that hateful man’s mouth.
“And when I think I have you all figured out, you surpass my assessment by putting on that chubby lass. While she may have those big blue eyes and a healthy set of tits, you would never tap that either. Not in a million years. Old, male, and fat. Perfect. Every time Michael and Mitchel moan about company structure and you being a liability, I point to what support you have behind you, and the lessons both of them could learn. From you.”
Mason never mentioned the exchange, and I never brought it up.
He had perhaps forgotten I was still in the suite, where I often took up position at the office easel because the light was cool.
Artificial, just like every other fucking thing in the building or bound to the blood of that wretched family.
My main positive from that time was my friendship with Trystan, and the reason I can recount those months and not break down into heaving sobs.
We rarely talk about the conduit that was Mason.
I don’t believe I’m strong enough to utter his name, although Trystan argues the opposite, telling me at every opportunity he’s certain I still love him.
Somewhere, in the nucleus of one dormant cell, maybe I still do?
I’ll never forgive his repetitive, abhorrent behavior, not just toward me but toward Tryst as well.
Trystan says I don’t need to forgive him, but forgetting would be preferable to holding a caustic, hate-filled torch ready to burn the world down. Cortisol, and all that.
“I’m not that bitter,” I gasp with a hand on heart, knowing he can’t see me through the phone.
“Oh, girl, both of us have every right to be, but it helps no one. We’re both still imprisoned by King Mason.
I want to be your knight and break you free, but I’m locked up in an adjoining cell.
There is a reason he was often described as unforgettable, and it wasn’t lazy copy.
He was, and still is, I guess, the most remarkable man.
” His words drift, lost in thought. “That’s the reason I never fixed my nose properly.
I could have, but wanted a reminder of what we shared.
Every time I look in the mirror I remember what we were to each other.
Only fleetingly, but it’s still my memory to hold on to.
My imperfect nose reminds me of those days.
All the raw emotion that preceded the punch. ”
He’s right, of course. In the days AM, I couldn’t bear the thought of conversing with a single soul, opting to hole up in a motel in Newport.
The idea of running into him, or anyone other than Nic and Marin in that family, brought on anxiety-fueled hives.
I ditched my cell and number, picking a new one up at a store at the airport.
I told Trystan I needed both time and space, the one indulgence requisite to any semblance of healing.
He agreed, swearing that no one would follow me or try to contact me until I contacted them when I was ready.
When I was ready. Fuck, would I ever be?
If it pained Trystan not to share my location with his boss in the weeks he served out his notice, he never mentioned that either.
Should consuming prepackaged food and binge-watching reality shows ever become an Olympic sport, give me my gold right now.
I earned it. Other than those two pursuits, I texted Pen to relay that I was alive, but far from fine.
I texted Mom with the same message, albeit a diluted version.
She told me that someone had come to the door with a gift for me that required a signature, and no, she couldn’t sign for it on my behalf.
So, the courier departed with the box in hand.
It was Mason’s way of testing the waters, trying to pry my location out of my well-meaning, but no doubt distracted mother.
She also commented on the number of expensive-looking black vehicles that seemed to have taken up residence on our street yet didn’t belong to any residents.
“Who would leave a car like that out on the street?”
“They’re not left there; look inside and you’ll find suit-wearing security. Trust me.”
“Security for who, us? Do they realize the four brawling Broe brothers could take down half a pub? And your dad would get involved, even at his age, stupid man.”
I miss my mother; I miss my sister. I miss my whole family.
But I knew with those blacked-out cars there would be specific instructions to alert Mason if I came to the house, and who knew if the telephone lines were bugged.
The media have been caught out doing that before.
The way billionaire heirs spend their money is both unique and offensive.
I’d walked out on him, after all. A wounded animal hissing and snarling in its cage of marble, granite, and triple-glazed windows.
Would he be licking said wounds, or intent on doling out an appropriate punishment for my audacity.
Who the fuck cared? Deep down, I wish I could say that I didn’t.
But I’d promised to stop lying. Part of me wrestled with the reconciliation of his distinct personalities.
The sweet, caring man who loved me with his body like no one ever had.
He stimulated my mind with remembered Latin phrases and stories about ancient royal courts and revered pharaohs.
He was highly educated, highly sexual and, unfortunately for me, highly reactive to perceived disloyalty.
It was up to me to decide if I defined him based on that drunken night while he flipped a poker chip over and over between his thumb and fingers, or the man who honored the contract, depositing one million dollars into my bank account with the reference: you earned it Bri.
Did I? I put up with his oscillations in moods and anger, especially after he cleaned out the Mercer family house and razed it to the ground.
I hope Alice’s fucking plants burned metaphorically too. What a toxic human.
Six weeks later
(To the Group Chat)
Jaspar
Was it dinner, then drinks, or drinks then dinner?
Ed
How do you adult?
Me
Both. In no particular order. It’s chill, Jas, don’t fret, pet.
Jas
I love it when you talk dirty to me, cheese.
Pen
Now he has visions of a collar and lead and being led around the bar.
Jas
Now we’re talking.
Ed
Eww. I’m going to need more alcohol for that.
Jas
It’s my birthday, I need all the alcohol.
Pen
Esp if you wear a collar and lead.
Me
Please just wear clothes, Jas. Last year we got kicked out when you insisted on taking them off.
Jas
My birthday, my birthday suit. My turn to tell you to chill, pet. Dog emoji. Woof.
My phone vibrates with the shrill ringtone that came as a factory default, and I never changed it, hoping it would be temporary. It was not. Now I don’t know whether it annoys me almost to the point of wanting to change it, or I’ve grown to like it enough to put up with it as some kind of crutch.
“Hey Pen, do you want to debrief the thoughts of a naked Jaspar in a collar and lead?”
Her girlish giggles float through the earpieces like childish whimsy.
She’s all stolen cookies off a cooling sheet pan and a hide and seek game gone on too long.
God, I miss her laughter. “Just checking in on you, Bubble, I can’t imagine how hard it was.
You are one of the strongest people I know, so for you to be so broken, that shit was monumental. ”
My humiliation hadn’t been solo or silent, but loud and public.
He couldn’t have used an ill-fated teachable moment with more cruelty.
Not even the bound references at the spill-all family presser cut like that blade.
Yet each day dawned bright and new, and the pain slipped just a little further down and away from my gut.
Every night when I lay in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar studio apartment, I focus on a square drain at the base of a pool filled not with water, but with all the tears I’d shed after Charlotte.
The level of the liquid was diminishing, more of the tears slipping through the grate whether by gravity or sheer will.
Soon, I’d have a head above the water line and drag in a welcome breath.
Then it would be hip-high, allowing me a chance to walk rather than float or tread water.
Then I’d be able to stand on two feet, like I should have all along.
“I’m okay, Pen. Every day is a better one. And I was thinking of asking Trystan to come for Jaspar’s drinks.
“That is a great idea.”
Only when I text the broody man with the grown-out blonde hair and sexy as hell glasses, he’s not even in the country.