“Well, I’m sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean to piss you off.”
“That’s all?” I demanded, hiding my surprise at his apology. I hadn’t expected him to apologize, especially after how cold-hearted he acted with me. “You’re sorry? And that’s supposed to make everything better?”
Mason nodded at the kitchen table. “Go on, have a seat and I’ll explain everything in a minute.”
I started to step toward the table and stopped to give him a dirty look. “I’ll sit down whenever I’m good and ready, thank you very much.”
Mason chuckled as he flipped over pieces of bacon he had sizzling in another skillet. “Suit yourself Miss Prissy Pants.”
“I will.”
I waited all of five seconds before walking over to the table to sit down, just to show him who was boss.
“That smells good,” I grudgingly admitted, my stomach growling.
“Doesn’t it?” Mason tossed me a wink. “And I knew you’d see it my way.”
“Shut up.”
Mason laughed and I almost felt better. Almost.
A minute later and he was sitting down across from me with the steam from our food rising lazily in the air between us.
“So about last night,” Mason said, biting into a juicy piece of bacon, his powerful jaws making quick work of it.
I forked a heaping of eggs. “Yeah, about last night . . .”
“I said those horrible things to you for a reason. Maybe it was stupid, but I wanted to piss you off.”
My forehead crinkled in confusion, and I set my fork down. Didn’t he just say a minute ago that he didn’t mean to piss me off? “But why?”
Mason stared at me for a moment and then let out a sigh. “Because I wanted you to be mad at me so that it would be easier for me to leave.”
My mouth went dry and my heart skipped a beat. “What?”
“It just seems that the best thing I can do for you is to distance myself, and lead everyone who’s chasing me away from you.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We’d come so close to taking our relationship to a place it had never been before and now Mason wanted to up and leave. “But we can negotiate—”
“Even if we were able to get the charges against me dropped, or a plea deal with just a slap on the wrist, that still leaves Anonymous after me. I just don’t see any other way around it, Carly.”
“There’s always a way. We just have to find it,” I protested in despair.
Mason nodded. “There is a way. You stay here and I leave.”
I shook my head. It felt like I was falling apart inside. “I won’t let you leave again so easily.”
Mason ignored me. “Stay off the grid for a few days and give me a head start. Then you call the police — tell them that I showed up on your doorstep out of the blue and forced you to help me. Tell them that you don’t know where I went, which will be true.” He stared at me. “Can you do that for me, Carly?”
Mason was killing me. He’d just come back into my life and now he was leaving again. It would be worse than before, at least then I just figured he was pissed and would be back a few hours later.
I stared at him, searching for a weakness in his resolve, some chance that I could make him stay. He had his chiseled jaw set like stone. It was obvious that I wasn’t going to convince him to stay. He’d already made up his mind.
“Carly? Promise me . . .”
I could barely get the words out over the lump in my throat. “I promise.”
Relief etched across his handsome features and then he nodded at my untouched plate. “Good. Now eat your food.”
I pushed the plate away from me, feeling sick to my stomach. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
Mason sighed and sat back in his seat. “I’m just as upset about this as you are.”
I snorted angrily. “Well you definitely don’t act like it.”
And if you really cared about me, you wouldn’t be leaving. Again.
“Well, I am. And I’m only doing this to protect you.”
I didn’t even want to argue anymore. “Whatever.”
Seeing the distressed state I was in, Mason gave up on trying to reason with me and ate the rest of his food in silence.
When breakfast was over he went outside and retrieved his shirt and hoodie and came back in to say his goodbyes.
“I really do hate to do this, but it’s time for me to go.” There was a genuine sadness in his eyes that only served to heighten my emotions.
Looking at him standing in that doorway, prepared to leave out of my life for maybe forever, I could hardly breathe.
It was Déjà vu all over again. And this time I had a feeling he wasn’t coming back.
He appeared to be waiting for me to say something. “Carly?”
I couldn’t speak. The lump in my throat was too big.
“I’m doing this for the both of us.”