Page 27 of Writing Mr. Wrong

“I think I’ve done enough damage tonight.”

He emptied every bill in his wallet, still mumbling—about her getting home safe, being careful, ordering in dinner, getting whatever she wanted. Then he shut the door, hunched his shoulders against the rain, and strode off into the night.

GEMMA

Gemma sat in the taxi and stared at the money strewn across her lap. She could only imagine what the taxi driver thought about this woman in his back seat wearing a clingy dress and covered in money. Well, at least it was fifties and hundreds.

Gemma wasn’t sure whether she should laugh or spit nails. Neither, because it wasn’t funny and it wasn’t an insult. Oh, itcouldfeel insulting. Mason had dumped her in a taxi and taken off, which would seem like an asshole move… if she hadn’t seen his expression, his face flushed, eyes unable to meet hers.

As the taxi idled at the curb, she watched Mason through the rain-smeared window. He still had his jacket off, his wine-soaked linen shirt plastered to him as he jogged across the road and headed into what looked like a bar.

“Miss?” the driver said. “Where to?”

“Just… around the block, please.”

His brows shot up, but he only shrugged. Clearly she had enough money to pay the fare. That made her the boss.

The driver pulled into traffic, heavy now as the light changed.

Gemma should go home. Mark this down in her journal as, quite possibly, her worst date ever, and use it for one of those scenes where the heroine goes out with the wrong guy andrealizeshe’s the wrong guy after a disastrous evening.

Except…

Oh hell. She kept seeing Mason’s face. His expression after the server refused to wait on their table. After Camille threw the wine at him. Then when the drunk frat boy took a swing, the genuine horror in Mason’s eyes, as if she’d been knocked out cold.

After what happened in high school, Gemma had ruthlessly revised her memories of Mason. That guy she got to know in private, considerate and funny and even vulnerable? He didn’t exist in real life. She must have constructed a silly schoolgirl fantasy of the superstar asshole jock who could be an absolute sweetheart in private, with the “right” girl. After the kiss, he’d reminded her who he really was. The kind of guy who’d make out with you behind the school, let his friends spread the rumor that he’d done it on a dare, and then ghost you after a few mumbled words that did not include “I’m sorry.”

Twenty years of holding fast to that edited image of Mason Moretti, and then she met him again, and there was the boy she’d known, peeking through again. The boy who could be considerate, funny, and yes, vulnerable.

She squeezed her eyes shut, as if that could erase the images. Edit them again. Forget those bits and remember the guy who hopped into the hired car so it’d seem as if they were arrivingtogether instead of actually picking her up. The guy who wanted her to walk in the freezing cold to look good for photos. The guy who put her umbrella back in the car—a car that was no longer around because they didn’t even get to eat dinner before an angry mob came for him.

What had the drunken college kid said? Something about “Denny”? The name rang a bell, but she couldn’t place it. Maybe another woman Mason had dated? The frat boy’s friend or sister?

Even if the altercationhadn’tbeen about a woman, there was no denying that the incident with Camille was clearly Mason’s fault. So Gemma shouldn’t feel bad for him.

And yet…

What would it be like to be Mason Moretti, one of the city’s most recognizable faces?

Her mind slid back to high school, in the aftermath of that kiss, when one of Gemma’s friends had commiserated as if Gemma had been holding a lottery ticket that was off by one number.

“Can you imagine what it would be like to actually date Mason Moretti? I should be glad he messed up, or you wouldn’t have been hanging out with me anymore.”

In high school, it wasn’t uncommon for out-crowd kids to fantasize about being part of the in crowd. For Gemma, that was like contemplating a pretty dress that wouldn’t suit her. In those brief moments when the possibility of a relationship with Mason had dangled before her, she’d considered that, too… and came to the same conclusion.

What she’d wanted was the private Mason. Her fantasy wasn’t going to hockey games and having him skate past and blow her a kiss. Her fantasy was a secret relationship, one only the two ofthem knew about, where she greedily got private Mason entirely to herself.

Public Mason came with too many complications.

Like going out to dinner, having the server refuse to serve you, an ex dumping a drink on you, and a drunken lout throwing a punch at you.

Proof that she should return Mason Moretti to the high school memory trunk and go home.

Instead, she leaned over the seat and said, “Can you drive back and drop me off at the pub across the road?”

“The one where your date went?”

She nodded.

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