“Fuck.” It’s a gasp, a whisper. A broken statement. Mason leans in the doorframe, almost mirroring Trystan’s posture from earlier. “Are you in pain? Your face.” He gestures around his own with a waving hand. “It looks painful.”
“I’m okay.” The lie croaks easily off my tongue. The last person I want to look and feel vulnerable in front of ishim. It’s bad enough that I’m in one of his bedrooms. He swept in like a white knight, demanding I see his own physician before sequestering me to his castle. All this after his muscles were worked free from any tension by the fucking Barbie massage twins. I can only imagine what else they worked free.
I throw back the duvet and notice that I’m in a man’s T-shirt. It smells like Mason, and the buttery soft material is an indicator that it is his; still, I don’t want to make assumptions.
“If there are clothes for me to wear, I can shower and go home.”
“Your coat was torn and your dress had blood on it from your lip. It’s being laundered at the moment.” Right, well, I could be driven back to East Orange in sweatpants and a hoodie; I’m not picky. That’s if Mason even owns a hoodie.
He watches my progression out of bed. Every wince, every hesitation caught by his hawk-like eyes. “You’re not going back there, Bri. Trys and two security guards went to your apartment overnight. They brought back most of your things. You can goback with Trys and security later to pick up anything they may have missed.”
“Mason…”
“This is non-negotiable.”
“Mason—”
“And you will have security with you from now on. Had someone been assigned earlier, this would not have happened.”
“Mason, I can’t stay here. This is lunacy. And security is not required because this had nothing to do with you, or the Mercer family. It was an opportunistic attack. The police said so.”
“Bri, I don’t give a fuck how it happened. It never should have, and that’s on me. You are my direct employee. I’m usually brilliant with asset management. Until this.”
The realization sank in my stomach like a stone.Assetmanagement.Receivingparty. This isn’t about empathy or welfare. This is about his asset being broken, and that affectshim. My swollen eye and cut lip reflect badly onhim. I want to scream, and not from the searing pain.
“You’re worried about me not performing?” It rasps out broken and bruised. Like me.
He scoffs, launching forward to assist me until I swat his hand away. Alerted by the raised voices, Trystan reappears, a frown blanketing his gentle features.
“The doc said she needed to take it easy for a while. That will not be possible if you insist on being a dick.”
“I’m not being a dick,” Mason snaps back. Yeah, he kinda is.
“If all three of us are here, Helen is the only one at work? How is that going to play out?”
“He went in early and sat through a presentation and the rest of the day has been shuffled,” Trystan clarifies. “I’m staying here with you while he meets his lunch commitments, then he’ll fly out to the Warner event tonight.” My hands fly to myface. I can’t go out looking like I’ve been mugged. Heavy makeup can cover bruising, but swelling quietens down for nothing other than cold compresses and time.
Mason looks up, those frosty eyes that warm occasionally have no furnace today, however. “I’m going alone. Stay here, rest and recover. The doctor will be back tonight. As soon as I can, I’ll be back here again. We’re taking the jet, so I don’t have to wait around for commercial.”
Of course. Rich people problems. With one finger snap, cue a private jet. Fuck me.
Trystan is fun.Not a day out with your besties and a huge carb-laden dinner kind of fun, but a level-up kind of hysterical. He’d skip the carbs altogether and insist on alcohol. The more he drinks, and the more he tops up my glass, the weirder the conversations are getting. He’s known Mason for over half his life; the two met at a prestigious boarding school for obnoxiously rich schoolboys. Their field trips varied from hiking and making your own shelter in the woods with what you can salvage, to watching the Formula One Grand Prix on a superyacht in Monaco. A chasm of classes, each one was an experience he treasured because it made him the man he is today. He is the only son of some big old Texas tycoon, their riches weren’t from oil, only he wouldn’t expand on how the Hynds made their money. He did, however, tell me that his dear old dad put a stipulation into his trust fund that made it almost impossible to access his trust fund. That’s where Mason stepped in. He offered Trys a job as his executive, a position that Trystan turned down for almost a year.
“Why the reluctance?”
“Many reasons,” he begins, folding his feet under him onthe sofa next to me. His legs are so long that he’d be able to reach the table to rest his sock-clad feet on, if it wasn’t such bad manners. “I was hesitant about hurting a friendship. I think Mason was too, but kept repeating the offer. Perhaps it was out of guilt that I was struggling on coupons and ramen; I don’t know.”
“You were not struggling!” I shriek, aiming a tufted corduroy cushion at him for good measure. The eclectic throw pillows are a design masterpiece.
“I was. Maybe not for food, but for money and acceptance, absolutely.”
“That makes me sad for you, T.”
“I wasn’t sad; I just needed to sidestep, reassess, and go about achieving whatever new goal I’d set. Luckily, or unluckily for me, I moved in wealthy circles and knew many people, so I had options. For a lot of others out there, they aren’t so fortunate.”
The Warner Music and Modern Movement Dinner red carpet is on in the background of our conversation, a glittering gold carpet laid out among pockets of entertainment reporters and paparazzi. The Mercer cars aren’t due to arrive for another eleven minutes.
“What made you accept his offer? Was it a last resort?”
