Chapter Fifteen
Iwokeintheearly hours of the morning to someone taking off my shoes. It took a moment for me to remember whose warm fingers caressed my skin, and how I wound up naked in my bed in a pair of heels. The delicious memories rushed back to me and I shivered in delight, knowing they were Mason’s hands gently caring for me. He finished removing them and ran his thumb up my instep, making me groan and shiver in unison.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he murmured in the darkness, and pressed a kiss on my ankle. “You’re so lovely when you’re sleeping.”
“You were watching me sleep?” Surprised enjoyment filled my tone.
“Not for long,” he assured me, as his hands moved up my calves to my thighs, planting soft kisses on them, he made his way up to lie next to me on the bed. “I wanted you to be comfortable, but you’re a lighter sleeper than I bargained for.”
“I’m too vigilant for that.” I meant it as a joke, but the truth in my words rang through.
“You’re afraid of me.” The assumption made sense, after all, he told me in no uncertain terms he was dangerous, but that wasn’t the reason. The sorrow in his voice nearly broke me.
“No, I’m not.” I brushed my fingers through the light smattering of hair on his chest. “My mom...” I couldn’t force the words out. I never spoke to Sam about my mother and we had been together for almost two years. My unwillingness to talk about my family or let him meet her was part of the reason we broke up. Though finding someone else he preferred drove the final nail into the coffin.
“What about your mom?” He pulled me tighter into his side and nuzzled into my hair. His strength seeped into me and somehow it made me want to talk. I wanted to uncover all of his secrets and I needed him to know mine. It was stupid and would bring me greater pain down the road, but at that moment I couldn’t care less.
“She has a lot of issues, and her moods are unpredictable. I’m just used to being on my toes.” I shrugged, and he nodded his head.
“She hurt you.” He lifted my hand and kissed the back of it. The stubble tickled and burned my skin.
Perhaps the assumption should offend me, but it didn’t. “Rarely, and not too badly but her temper could be explosive. The potential in her rage scared me more than when she hit me. I never knew how far she would go, and it wasn’t usually myself I feared for...”
“Then, who? Do you have siblings? You strike me as an only child, but I could see you as a protector.”
I giggled at that. “You’re right and wrong, respectively. I’m an only child, and I can barely protect myself, let alone someone else...” I hesitated, trying to find words for the fear that gripped me for most of my life. Fighting it by maintaining the distance between her and I failed. “I was afraid for her. I never thought she would actually kill me, but I can’t say the same about herself.” A huge weight fell off my shoulders as I voiced my fears to another person for the first time. “She wasn’t always angry. She was empty, unable to care for either of us.”
“That’s exactly what I meant; you protected her. You are still doing it, even without speaking to her much.”
“How do you figure?”
“You worry about her, and your guilt over pushing her away is a lot more intense than you’d like to admit. It eats at you.” There was no question, and once again I wondered how he knew me so well in such a short space of time. I showed him more of myself than I ever offered another person, but the way he got me was deeper than that.
“Yeah, I do.”
“You’re not wrong for protecting yourself, Claire. You’re worth it, and you deserve to be happy.” I had nothing to say to that, in part because it was sappier than I expected, and because I didn’t believe it was true.
We laid together in silence for a while. “Mason,” I broke the sweet calm surrounding us, “I’m not afraid of you. I feel very safe with you but, but... you said you were dangerous.” I bared my soul to him and revealed parts of me no one else had seen. Getting to know the man holding me, the man who peeled away my layers and left me exposed, was all I needed.
“I did.” The tension replaced the comfortable silence between us.
I waited a couple of minutes for him to gather his thoughts and speak, but he didn’t. “What did you mean by that?” His rigid body had my heart battering against my ribs. I could barely breathe through the ball of anxiety swelling in my throat. The rise and fall of his chest were the only things interrupting the stillness, and the longer he went without calming my worries, the worse they became.
“Why don’t you have any business records under Mason Sharp?” It wasn’t the question I needed answered most, but I hoped it would be easier to get him talking from there.
“I legally changed my name after my father’s arrest, and that’s the name I practice under. I went to college and law school under that name as well.”
“Which is?”
“Dubois,” I turned the name over in my head, trying to place it. It sounded familiar.Mason Dubois.No, just Dubois sounded familiar.
“And what about Harris?” I hedged, trying to make sense of the many layers of all of this.
He sighed, “Mr. Harris started as a joke when I went through the process of changing my name. I considered taking an entirely new name, as my mother’s family has a bit of a reputation of their own. A few of my friends would make our reservations under the name, and it just kind of stuck. It would be embarrassing to tell my favorite places the name they served me under is fake. So, I went with it.” Mason letting anyone control any aspect of his life was beyond bizarre, but also hilarious.
I would have giggled at the absurdity of him being pressured into an embarrassing situation by his buddies, but the click in my brain when the pieces finally fit was nearly audible. “Your mother’s family owns Dubois, the multibillion-dollar corporation that is regularly in the news for hostile takeovers and stepping on the little guy.” I tried to keep my tone level.
“You could put it that way, yes.”Holy shit. He’s rich, rich.