Page 58 of Writing Mr. Wrong

Not one little bit.

CHAPTER TWENTY

GEMMA

Gemma woke to a text asking whether she was awake. She was tempted to answer no. Instead, she shook her head groggily and peered at the name—

Mason. Of course.

Gemma:It’s one in the morning, Mace

Mason:I’m downstairs. Can I come up?

Now she was tempted to copy and resend her last text. She supposed she should just be happy that no one had let him through the secure entrance at this hour.

Mason:I read the book

Shit. Gemma squeezed her eyes shut.

Gemma:I asked you not to do that

Mason:I thought you were just being humble

Mason:Can I come up?

Mason:Please

It was the “please” that did it. She stumbled to the front hall and hit the button to let him in downstairs. Then she lurched back to her room and pawed through a drawer for sweats. She’d barely gotten her sweatshirt on when Mason rapped at the door.

She opened it to see him standing there, not leaning against the doorpost, not posturing and grinning. His five-o’clock shadow was two days old now, and his eyes were bleary and downcast. If it were anyone else, she’d suspect them of putting on a show of looking dejected. But Mason didn’t know the meaning of humility enough to fake it.

“It’s one in the morning, Mason,” she repeated.

His shoulders slumped. “I know.”

She could point out that she’d been sleeping, but if she expected an apology for that, they’d be standing at this door until Christmas.

“You have a game tomorrow—tonight.”

More slumping. “I know.”

Why the hell couldn’t he be angry? Why didn’t he come storming over to ask why she’d based such a despicable character on him?

She’d never seen that side of Mason, though. Call him out on his shit, and he was either confident that you were mistaken or he was… this. And “this” was impossible to ignore.

She waved him inside and strode to the living room without holding the door. She plunked onto the love seat and waited. She wasn’t offering him a beverage. She doubted he was staying that long. He’d just come to make sure there wasn’t some terriblemisunderstanding, and then he’d walk away and she’d never see him again.

Rip the bandage off. Tell him the truth. If he was angry, she’d deal with it.

If he was hurt…

Shit. That was so much harder to deal with. Maybe it shouldn’t be. He’d hurt her. Tit for tat. Revenge best served cold and such.

She didn’t want revenge. She’d just wanted to sell a damn book and maybe exorcise an old ghost. The old ghost wasnotsupposed to show up at her door in the middle of the night and haunt her with his sad-puppy eyes.

“So you read some of the book,” she said as he slouched into the recliner.

“All of it,” he said. “Listened to it at least.” His gaze rose to hers. “Argyle is me, isn’t he?”

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