Page 82 of Meet Mason, the Billionaire

“So,” I said. “Your place or mine?”

He gave me a quizzical look and I squeezed his arm.

“You know, if we moved in together, it would simplify things a lot.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed, a slight smile played at his lips. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” I sputtered, half laughing but a little bit miffed. “I suggest we move in together and you say maybe?”

Mason kissed me, hard. It literally took my breath away. He pulled away to look me in the eyes before he spoke.

“Just get in the car. I have something to show you.”

“Okay,” I said, forgetting all about being miffed for the moment.

I climbed into the limo, and then he retracted the sunroof. “Go ahead, stick your head up.”

“Isn’t that illegal? Not to mention dangerous?”

“Haven’t you always wanted to do it, though? And I’ll hold onto you.”

“Well, okay.”

I did so as the limo pulled away from the curb. It soon became obvious we were not heading for either his place or my own.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Just keep looking ahead for a little bit longer,” he said.

We came around a corner, and I noticed that several skyscrapers had some lights out. It took me a moment to realize that the lighted window panels formed a pattern, and another moment to decipher what it said.

Megan Scott, will you marry me?

My hand flew up in front of my face. It felt like my heart stopped for a moment, then thudded powerfully hard like a herd of elephants. Trembling, I lowered myself back into the car and turned to find Mason on one knee, holding out a boxed ring for my perusal.

“Will you marry me?” He said, repeating verbally what he’d made the New York Skyline ask me.

“What do you think?” I kissed him, and he slid the ring onto my waiting finger. I barely glanced at it before I kissed him again.

Move in togethermaybeindeed!

Epilogue

Mason

My grandfather’s backyard looked just the way I remembered it.

The green grass rolled out in a thick carpet toward the scattered trees marking the start of a dense wood. Grandfather’s victory garden stood behind a fence high enough to keep out hungry deer—the only fencing on the property. It was nothing for me to look out the back window and see deer grazing, or raccoons plodding along, and white rabbits hopping intermittently between fervid pink-eyed gazing.

A huge oak tree, older than the house and probably the surrounding country dominated the yard with its shade. One of the thick limbs—bigger around than Hercules’ thighs, grandpa used to say—bore a stout hemp rope which held a tire swing. Grandpa had drilled holes in the bottom to let the rainwater drain out, so we didn’t give a free breeding ground to mosquitos.

A small storage shed stood halfway to the woods. Inside were usually stored my bike and his battered but still functional John Deere riding lawnmower.

I spent many an afternoon playing in that yard. Flying kites, or playing yard darts, or swinging from the tire and shouting at grandpa higher, higher!

In dreams, time seems to have a diminished meaning. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t actually seen the place in over a decade. Or that it had actually been burned down by vandals and paved over long before I thought to find and purchase it.

It also made perfect sense that I was my adult self, and not an adolescent or a teen. I was wearing my black Armani tux, the one I’d chosen for my upcoming nuptials.

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