Page 44 of Love Me Ever After
“Oh, you know. Girl stuff.”
He whirled around. “You didn’t talk about our sex life, did you?”
I shuddered. “Jesus, Mason, never! She’s yourmotherand I wouldn’t ever discuss that with her. With Sara or Georgie maybe…”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.” He sniffed.
“Oh because you’ve never spoken to Luke or Fraser about me.” I tilted my head to one side.
Mason grinned. He moved towards the bed and placed a knee either side of my legs. “Never. Why would I want to share the best thing that ever happened to me with anyone else?” He leaned down and cupped my face in his hands. “You’re mine, Ems.” His lips met mine, softly at first, then deeper and all-consuming.
To stop him from falling on top of me, I snaked my hands around his hips and anchored them on his arse. Even beneath the towel, I could feel how hard and muscled he was.
“Want to give dinner a miss?” he murmured against my lips.
“Tempting though that thought is, it’s our last night here and you promised me a special one.”
His lips moved from my mouth to the sweet, tender spot behind my ear. “It could still be a special night…”
With great effort, I shoved him off. “And it will be. After we’ve eaten.”
Twenty minutes later, we were walking into the centre of Puerto Pollensa. The main square held a number of restaurants around each side and Mason’s absolute favourite was an Italian called Osteria N15. The maître d showed us to our table, which was in one corner of the terrace, slightly away from the others.
“This weekend has been awesome,” I commented, scanning the menu once we’d been seated. Everything looked delicious and I had option anxiety already. “To be away from Ealynn Sands, away from work, away from home.” I looked up to find Mason staring at me. “It’s like a proper holiday. I don’t want to go back.”
He gave me a lazy smile. “I’m sure my parents would be happy to adopt you, but I’m not entirely sure how Sonya would react to your resignation.”
Given everything that had happened recently, it’s entirely possible she would have welcomed the letter with open arms. “Mmm, that’s something I won’t have to think about though. Not like I’ll be going anywhere in the near future.”
Mason’s eyebrows twitched. “Glad to hear it. I like what we’ve got going on.”
The waiter came over to take our order, stopping any further conversation. I ummed and aahed my way through my choices, before finally settling on Mediterranean scallops and prawns as a starter, followed by seabass baked in a wood oven with a garden salad. Mason chose beef carpaccio and the lamb rack. I already knew I was going to be stuffed before I’d even started eating. We sat in companionable silence, observing the couples and families around us, while we waited for our drinks, white wine for me and beer for Mason.
“You know when you told me you were going to New York?” I said, breaking the silence. “I thought you were going to ask me to move in with you.”
Mason almost choked on his beer. “I know, I’m sorry.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Up until that night, you’d been really cagey and I thought you had this grand plan you’d been hatching in secret.”
“Which, I sort of had,” he admitted.
“But then you told me it was about work. I always wanted to know why you didn’t talk to me about it before, things might have been so different if you had.” I glanced down at my rapidly decreasing amount of wine. It hadn’t been my intention to dredge up the past, but I did wonder if we would have stayed together if we’d discussed it.
If it hadn’t come as such a shock.
The waiter arrived with our starters, although my appetite had somewhat waned. I didn’t want to burst this bubble we were in.
Mason ground a little pepper over his beef before answering. “I guess I didn’t think to. It was probably totally selfish, but I was excited about the opportunity and didn’t really give anyone else much thought.”
“You did talk to your parents.” I don’t know why I was pushing the subject. That part of our lives was over, and now we had the future to focus on. Bringing up the past was never a good idea.
“Of course. A decision like that had to involve them.”
“But not your girlfriend.”
Mason put down his knife and fork, concern crossing his face. “I guessed we would talk about it after I told you. But you stormed out and wouldn’t take my calls. We never had the chance to discuss it.”
Shit. He was right. I had acted like a spoiled brat over the whole thing. If I’d have taken a breath, calmed down and not gone off on one, things could have been different.
