8. Callie
Chapter eight
“Oh my god,” I groan, dropping my head against Liv’s kitchen counter. “What do I do?”
“I can’t believe you were talking to a guy and didn’t tell us!” she says as she kneads a batch of dough. I don’t know what she’s making, but it smells amazing. “Especially someone as good-looking as Mason Heart.”
My head pops up, and I pin Liv with a disgruntled sneer. “He knows it, too.” I take a sip of my cider. “I think he propositioned me no less than three times in the space of five minutes, and now I’m meant to work for the guy?”
And I know it wasn’t anything special to do with me—not that I’d want it to be.
Once I found out who he was, I may have looked him up.
You have to get past all the articles highlighting events with his family and his work, but eventually, you find the gossip forums. They all concluded one defining fact: Mason Heart is hung, hot, and always up for a good time.
“Do you think he’s hot?” she asks, tossing the dough over again, kneading the other side.
My stomach flips as heat rushes across my chest. “What?”
“Do. You. Think. He’s. Hot?” She drags out each word. “It only matters if there’s a risk of attraction, right?”
“I’m not blind,” I mutter. “But would I risk a well-paying job for a cute guy? Definitely not. Plus, my brother and Lee vouched for me. And I think we both kinda need each other. His current assistant leaves soon, and my maternity leave has officially run out. Plus, the lawyer bills—I need the money.” Would have been okay if Derek hadn’t stolen the safety net I’d been working on for six years.
“That settles it, then. You’re officially the new assistant to Heart City’s most eligible bachelor.”
My chest deflates as I sink into the chair, rolling my eyes at Liv. “Is that helpful?”
Liv chuckles as I lean back, peeking into the pram behind me where Navie sleeps soundly.
“It’s not like you guys hooked up or anything. You said you didn’t even like him. I bet after a week, neither of you will even remember that you first met at The Wayside”
“You’re right.” I nod. “We’ll probably be laughing about it in no time.” I can’t imagine it, but sometimes you gotta believe in something before you see it.
“Have you heard from Maevyn’s friend yet?
” I ask, keen to shift the subject. A few months ago, a friend of Maevyn’s came to visit.
He was an undercover cop, the one who had protected her identity for the last twelve years, but the second he laid eyes on Liv, he panicked.
Maevyn didn’t know his real name until he gave it to Liv as if she would remember, but she didn’t.
She shakes her head, her face a war of curiosity and confusion. “He won’t respond to Maevyn. I don’t understand.” She flips the dough over. “He knew my name. He thought I’d died. He clearly knows something about me. Why would he just ghost me after all that?”
“And you still can’t remember him?”
Liv had a traumatic accident a few years back that left her with retrograde amnesia.
It also left her pregnant with absolutely no recollection of how it happened.
None of her friends or family knew she was dating, and no man came looking for her in the weeks that followed.
It’s been four years now, and she has nothing but unanswered questions and memories stuck on the tip of her tongue. Until a few months ago.
“No. And Maevyn doesn’t know much more than I do. He was very secretive in all the years he helped her. There are a lot of Xanders online, but he’s a cop. I assume they keep a low social profile.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon.”
“I hope so. He might be the key to helping me find Daisy’s father.”
I want my friend to find her happily ever after, but my life so far has not given me the best first-hand experiences with fathers.
I know they’re out there. Just because my personal experience doesn’t inspire much confidence, it doesn’t make it the only option.
There are plenty of amazing fathers and men in the world.
My own brothers are at the top of that list. But with Derek’s dismissal of Navie and my own father’s disinterest in me and my brothers, the fact that Liv’s baby daddy never showed up in the months following her accident, not even a random text, doesn’t help with these resigned feelings.
“Are you sure it wasn’t a one-night stand?” I want to give the guy the benefit of the doubt as much as I want to support my friend.
Liv shakes her head. “It’s really not my thing. I’d be so surprised if that were the case.” She brings a flour-covered hand to her temple, massaging the sides. “I’ve always been a bit of a workaholic. Maybe it is the only thing that makes sense.”
“When was your last relationship?” I’ve told myself I want to wait until Navie is much older before considering a romantic relationship again.
I want to settle into life with me and my girl, to make sure we’re okay before opening my heart to another again, but I am curious to hear from Liv how she manages dating with a young child.
“Oh, gosh.” She blows out a breath. “Probably like a year before the accident.”
Five years ago.
My mouth twists with curiosity. “When was the last time you…” I leave the question hanging in the air.
“Last time I what?”
“Were… intimate.”
Her cheeks immediately flush as she turns back to her dough. “Umm, whenDaisywasconceived,” she mumbles, the sentence stringing together as one word.
“What?” I shriek.
“Well,” she gasps, floundering for an excuse. “I’ve been busy.”
“But you don’t even remember that time!”
“Ohh, please don’t ask me when it was before then.”
“It’s been a year for me,” I admit in commiseration. I used to love sex. The longer I go without, the more I worry that I’ll lose that confidence I once had. Especially when the next time it happens, it’ll be with an entirely new body I haven’t yet explored… not with anyone else.
“Do you miss it?” I ask.
“I don’t think I even remember how to do it,” she says, dejected, but for some reason, it makes laughter slowly rise in my chest. Before long, we’re both cackling, with tears streaming down our faces.
“I’m thirty,” she whines, still laughing. “I completely missed my twenties when sex was meant to be wild and daring.”
I wipe the last of my happy tears away. “Well, I’m twenty-three, and I can tell you the last time I saw action, it was the opposite of wild and daring.
” It was tipsy hate sex with my ex that left me knocked up, and while I’d never, ever regret my daughter and how she came to be here, it sucks that it’s my last memory of it.
It wasn’t something fuelled by love and tenderness.
It wasn’t even with someone who respected me.
Those days had long passed between Derek and me.
“What do you think makes amazing sex?” I muse.
“You’re assuming, of course, that I’ve had it?”
“Naturally.”
Her hands move absently through the dough.
“I think you’ll feel it everywhere. It’ll make your toes curl with pleasure, your stomach flip with excitement, and your heart beat with completion.
I think it comes with a partner who can read your body, but is also hungry for you.
Their desire for you translates through every kiss and every touch. It fuses with your bones.”
“Wow, celibacy feels even more depressing now.”
“You’re telling me.” She huffs.
I tilt my head, studying my friend as a thought occurs. “This may be totally outrageous, but have we considered that maybe the hot cop is—”
“I never said he was hot,” Liv interrupts with a shake of her head.
“Was he?”
“I mean, he wasn’t unattractive. He was definitely older, but he certainly kept himself in shape.”
“You have to admit the cop thing in itself is pretty hot. Bet he knows his way around handcuffs.” I bounce my eyebrows at her. “But, seriously, is it possible that he could be…”
“No.” Liv shakes her head in disbelief, but her eyes betray her curiosity. “Surely if we’d slept together, he would have alluded to the fact.”
“Yeah, but you said you didn’t remember him. He was probably embarrassed… and confused, since he thought you were dead.”
Liv clicks her tongue, fingers drumming against the benchtop. “You know, the more I think about it, the angrier I get. I have questions, goddammit.” Liv smacks a fist down. “Who is he to disappear and just leave me wondering? I’ve done enough of that in the last four years.”
“I agree. But you have no concrete leads on how to find this guy.”
“My mum still has a lot of my stuff in storage from my old apartment and bakery in Queens Coast. Maybe I missed something, like a business card?”
“It’s worth a shot.”
She nods, solidifying the idea in her mind as she picks up a knife and starts cutting into the pastry.
“Going back to your fantastic sex question—technically speaking, it doesn’t hurt if they know how to work a clit, too.”
I laugh. “Did you remember that while thinking about your hot cop?”
She purses her lips as she throws a tea towel at me. “Bet your new boss knows what he’s doing.”
“Five-star Yelp rating confirms.”
“He does not have a Yelp rating.”
“I truly hate myself for how far I dug into him.” He doesn’t have a rating, but there was no shortage of comments online from women losing themselves over his looks and verifying his abilities in the sack. We’ll never know how many are fact or wishful thinking.
“Jealous?” Liv smirks.
“As if. I have plenty of toys, and I know where my clit is.”
“Well, that’s good. It would definitely be harder to work for someone you find attractive and get jealous of the many females around him.”
“Neither of those applies to me." I stick my nose in the air. "We have a strictly professional relationship.”
I’m not jealous. All I need to do is keep reminding myself that I’m there to work, to do what I need to do to support my family. Everything I saw online confirmed he’s the exact kind of man I promised to never put my faith in again. Uncommitted. Placating.
I refuse to waste time on a man like my dad, who never backed up his words with actions, the epitome of empty promises. Never again would I give my heart to someone like Derek, who didn’t handle it with care, gaslighting me every time I suspected he’d been unfaithful. All four times, I was right.
Soon, I’ll forget that the first time I met Mason, I thought he was the most gorgeous man I’d ever laid eyes on. Pretty people can still break hearts, and he won’t get to mine.
I give it a week, tops, before all I see him as is my boss.