Page 25 of Meet Mason, the Billionaire

“Ah, Mason,” she said, doing the finger gun at me. “Just the man I wanted to see.”

Normally, I’d have been annoyed, but the thought of my grandfather’s portrait stirred me back to life from my exhausted coma.

“You have some news on the painting?”

“Maybe. I checked out the artist name it was credited to, but the guy’s been dead for ages. It must be a typo or something, so I’ll keep looking.”

“That’s all you came to tell me?”

“Not all. I wanted to let you know I’ve got some feelers out, and I expect one or all of them to bear fruit soon.”

“So that IS all you came to tell me.”

She smiled and patted me on the arm. “Go get some sleep, Mason. You’re much too cute to be cranky.”

“Careful, Jack, he’s got himself a girlfriend now,” Stan quipped.

“Oh, a girlfriend?” Jack shrugged. “Good. Then tell his girlfriend to give him a knobber or something, because he seems awfully tense.”

I gave her a look, and she shrugged. Jack probably had the most secure position in the firm. Partners came and went, but you always needed a good private eye.

“I just need some sleep,” I muttered, and entered the car.

My bad mood over the lack of progress on my grandfather’s portrait was dispelled immediately when I saw that Megan had sent me a text.

Hey. Hope you got the hostile takeover thing sorted. Miss you.

“I miss you too,” I said to myself on the way to the ground floor. “I miss you too.”

Chapter Eleven

Megan

I staggered down the steps toward the street, bearing two plastic bags full of trash in my right hand, and one in my left. The lumpiness of the bags hinted at their extremely strained capacity. I hadn’t realized I’d accumulated so much junk and trash in such a short period of time.

I almost tripped on a newspaper left out on the front concrete steps before I finally made it around back to the big dumpster. I heaved the bags into the open lid one by one, finally divesting myself of my burden.

With that, I headed back up the steps to my apartment and ran the vacuum. I was finally doing it. I was cleaning up my cluttered apartment at last.

And all for a good purpose. Mason would be coming over and I was going to actually let him in the door this time.

I vacuumed everywhere, even moving furniture to do so. When I pulled back my couch, a profusion of empty Ranch flavor Doritos wrappers greeted me.

“Junebug, you little lazy punk. The trash can is all of ten feet away.”

I grumbled and picked them up, depositing them in the new, virgin trash bag I’d just installed in the kitchen.

Once my apartment looked at least decent, I took care of the next step. Making myself presentable. I’d gone for my jog before laying into the housework, and between the two activities I was covered in sweat.

I stepped into the shower and let the cool water sluice away the day’s grime. My heart beat rapidly in my chest as I thought about having Mason over. It had been a long time since I’d let a guy see my apartment, and I intended to make the most of it.

I finished my shower and wrapped my wet hair up in a towel, before using another one to cover myself. I padded into the kitchen and gasped when I saw the time.

“How did it get so late? Fuck, Mason’s going to be here any minute!”

I turned on the oven to preheat for the frozen pizza I was planning for dinner—I never did really learn to cook—and raced around doing last-minute pick-ups and tidying. When the knock came at my door, I was woefully unprepared.

“Just a minute!” I considered making him wait while I put on clothes, but I had my outfit carefully planned for the evening. I didn’t want to just throw on a pair of sweats. Besides, it might be nice to show him a little preview of what he just might be getting…

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