Page 131 of Grand Love

“Ellis wasn’t my reason back then, Mason, you were. I believed in you even after everything that happened.”

“Nothing happened.” I scrub my hand down over my face, stepping away from her.

“I didn’t know that then. And I never would’ve been able to get the images out of my mind if I stayed. Could you?”

Could I?

Live my life with the image of another man with her.

No. No, I fucking couldn’t.

“I needed time, Mason, and I’m sorry for that.”

“I know.” I scrub my hand over my face again, feeling agitated.

She spins around in the room that was once ours and chuckles to herself, falling back onto the bed. Her chest shakes, and I fight to keep my eyes glued to her face.

“Am I missing something?” I stand with my hands on my hips, wondering if she has lost it.

Looking up at me, she starts to laugh harder. She’s infectious, and my cheek tics. “No. I don’t think so. It’s just funny, isn’t it? Us. What a mess.”

She continues to chuckle to herself, so I bend down and scoop her up.

“Mase!” she whisper-shouts, jolting up in my arms.

“Shhh, you’ll wake Ellis.” That, and if I don’t get her off my bed and into safer territory soon, I might end up completely and utterly fucked. Literally.

I carry her out onto the terrace, dropping her onto a lounger. “I’m going to go get us some drinks. Unless you wanted to leave?”

Her eyes dart around my face and I sense that she wants to go, but something keeps her here.

“No, I’ll stay. But just one drink.”

* * *

She’s standingat the railings when I come back out to the terrace, looking out across the city.

“My son has spent more time in this penthouse than I have,” she tells me, placing one of Ellis’s lost dummies on top of the wall.

“That bothers you?” I place her wine next to it, and she turns her head to look at me.

“Only that I wasn’t with him too.”

“You’re all around us here, I made sure of it.”

“Not in the way that counts.” A tear rolls down her cheek and I reach out to swipe it. “I never wanted my children to grow up like I did. A broken home. The confusion and unanswered questions.”

I instantly regret leaving her out here. It gave her too much room to think. “Ellis won’t have that.”

“Won’t he? Because he might not understand right now, but one day he’s going to grow up, and then what?”

“We call Auntie Luce and Uncle Elliot.” I smirk, giving her a soft wink.

“You’re an idiot,” she chokes the words out with a smile, wiping at her eyes and pulling back her shoulders.

Brushing herself off, like she always does.

I open out the blanket I brought out and wrap her in it. “You know, if you count the days, months even, that you spent living inside my mind.” I reach under her top, smoothing my hand over the soft skin of her stomach. “Then I reckon you’ve both spent nearly the same amount of time here.”

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