Page 23 of Black Roses

Sadly, perspective is hardly what I get in the well-appointed restroom that’s nothing more than a flurry of women applying makeup and spreading gossip. But mostly what I notice are the three pregnant women sitting on the bench, comparing stories while working the circulation back into their feet. I make quick time of my business and exit the ornate ladies room. “Iseverywoman here pregnant?” I mutter to myself.

“You’renot,” Mason says, surprising me as he leans against the wall outside the bathroom. “And count your lucky stars. From what I’ve seen and heard, it’s no walk in the park. Morning sickness, stretch marks, and weird-ass cravings. Not to mention all the moodiness.” He points to the men’s room. “I’ll just be a second. Wait here, okay?”

I nod, watching him disappear behind the bathroom door. “Yeah, lucky me,” I say under my breath, ignoring his command when I head back in the direction of the bar.

A few minutes later, Mason finds me downing a third drink, standing shoeless by the service entrance in an attempt to avoid the cameras now making their way around the congested atrium. He shakes his head in mock disgust. I shake mine back at him and realize that it doesn’t stop when I do. My head is spinning. He smiles sympathetically, taking my empty glass and placing it on the ground, picking up my shoes in the process. “Winning that bet is getting more likely all the time. Let’s get out of here.”

He opens the service door behind me, pulling me through into the brisk nighttime air. With whiskey coursing through my veins, I don’t notice the chill. But that doesn’t stop him from removing his jacket to place it over my shoulders.

Before now, I didn’t realize how truly large he is. His tuxedo jacket is longer than my dress and envelopes me like a black hole. As he puts my arms in the sleeves, rolling them up as if he’s dressing a little girl, I study him. I never noticed how unique his hair is. He has this platinum-blonde hair normally reserved for west coast beach bums. It falls into an effortless part, courtesy of the cowlick above his left eye. It’s not very long, but it has an edgy look that is slightly this side of rebellion.

His icy-blue eyes are bright, even in the relative darkness of the evening. I’ve never seen this exact shade of blue before. I glance down at my dress and it dawns on me why Skylar insisted I wear this one in particular. I can’t stop the roll of my green eyes before I look back at his dress-matching blue ones. I can’t remember ever admiring a man’s eyes the way I am right now. The alcohol has made me brave. Bold. Careless.

When he’s finished dressing me in his jacket, he turns his attention to my feet. He lowers himself to the pavement and lifts one of my legs to put on my heels. My foggy head swims with a little-girl fantasy, and then I almost fall over when he seems to read my mind. “See, and now you’re Cinderella,” he says, slipping on one of my shoes. “That’s two.”

Two princesses.Ha!My life is anything but a fairy tale. Those are reserved for people who aren’t stupid, like me. For people who pay attention to details. For people who never go looking for trouble. I frown, watching this prince of a man put on my shoes, knowing not he nor anyone else could ever fill that role for me. But for just a split second, deep inside the far reaches of my spinning head, a voice tries to be heard. A voice that tells me how, just maybe, someone like me can have a happy ending.

“Ouch,” I say, attempting to walk alongside Mason back to the car. I halt our progress and lean against a wall, sinking down and looking very unladylike as I once again remove my shoes. “Feet hurt.”

Before I can stop it from happening, I’m picked up and cradled in the arms of my sizeable escort, being carried helplessly through the parking garage. My body and my mind are at war with each other. My mind screams for him to let me go, but my body relishes the feel of his arms around my back and thighs, holding me tightly against his chiseled chest. My body shudders as my face falls against his neck. I inhale, dragging his clean, athletic scent deep into my lungs.

My eyes close at his intoxicating aroma when, suddenly, I’m falling into a dream. There are hands everywhere on me, grabbing at my clothes and jockeying for position on my body. Only this time, I fight. I lash out, screaming bloody murder while my fists swing at anything and everything. I hear my name being called over and over as my self-defense training kicks in, refusing to let me be claimed as a victim.

“Jesus Christ, Mister, what’s wrong with her?” a strange voice bellows.

Strong hands shake my shoulders, causing my eyes to open as I’m pulled from the nightmare. “Piper. Piper, wake up,” Mason implores. My drunken eyes try to focus on the young guy on the ground holding a hand to his face.

“What happened?” I ask, eyeing the kid on the floor of the parking garage.

Lines of worry collect near the corner of Mason’s mouth. “He was just trying to help me get you in the car when you starting fighting us. You punched him, sweetheart.”

My chin falls to my chest as reality sets in. “I’m so sorry.” I watch the kid stand up, rubbing his reddened jaw. “I didn’t mean to do that,” I tell him. I turn to Mason. “I’m sorry.” I duck into the car and close the door, wanting it to swallow me up and spit me out in another dimension.

I see Mason exchange a few words with the attendant; shaking his hand and forking over what I think are several very large bills much to the kid’s pleasure. I blow out a deep sigh. He’s paying him off so he won’t press charges. Or maybe so he won’t go telling the story to one of the many journalists inside the building.

When Mason gets in the car, I’m barely awake, alcohol pulling me under as my head rests against the window. I sit wallowing in regret over how badly this could have turned out for him. For me. I don’t even put up a fight when he reaches across me to secure my seat belt. But I do everything I can to ignore the intensity of his touch as his fingers brush up against me when he gently grabs my neck and turns my head towards him. “Piper, what’s going on? What happened back there? Tell me. I can’t understand unless you talk to me.”

I pull my head away from his hand. “I told you when we first met, Mason. You don’t want to know me. Maybe you’ll believe that now. Just take me home.”

We drive home without talking, neither of us bothering to turn on the radio. He scrubs a hand over his jaw. The debate going on in his head is apparent. The tension between us is palpable. The silence in the car is deafening.

He finds a parking spot in front of Skylar’s place and sprints around the car to help me as I quickly exit and stumble my way up the porch stairs. “That’s where you’re wrong, Piper,” he says, stopping me short of the front door. “Idowant to know you.” He cups my chin with his hand, raising my fallen head so our eyes meet. “Believe it or not, you’re worth knowing.”

Without bothering to acknowledge his words, I slip through the front door and shut off the porch light, watching his defeated body shuffle back to his car. Under the dim light of the streetlamp, I see him pound the steering wheel in frustration before he drives away.

I take a bottle of water and some aspirin upstairs with me and lock myself in my room, not even bothering to undress before I fall onto the bed.

Suddenly, it occurs to me that he called me sweetheart back at the parking garage. My heart pounds at the recollection. And my head aches when my mind grasps the notion that of all the events that took place at the benefit—this is the one I choose to focus on. Not the humiliation I imposed upon him tonight. Not the damage I inflicted on the poor kid’s jaw. Not the complete ass I made of myself all evening. No, my stupid, under-the-influence-of-too-much-whiskey brain keeps playing his endearment over and over, like a looping movie reel.

Mason didn’t even seem to care about how I embarrassed him. In fact, I recall him saying he wanted to help me. Protect me. Keep me safe. I try to imagine for a second the possibility of being with him. But then my stomach wretches and I dart into the bathroom just in time to empty its contents into the toilet.

I clean myself up and look in the mirror, shocked to see I’m still engulfed in his jacket. The heady smell of his cologne travels across my every nerve ending. I pad back to my bed, mindlessly wondering what happened to my heels. Then I drift asleep, surrounded by the intoxicating scent of the only man my body has ever craved.

chapter ten

mason

It’s Marathon Monday. Thousands await the gun to sound and start the third wave of runners. As I stand among the herd, I scan the crowd looking for the only reason I’m here. I know I won’t find her. She’s much further up in this wave than I am. She has actual qualifying times from other marathons, so even though I got her in under the charity waiver, she gets to start with other people who have similar qualifying times.

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