“I like her,” he replied smoothly after a long and measured pause. “And I’m working on getting her to like me back.”
“Why would you have to work at getting her to like you? Seems to me she likes you already,” Dr. McGregor inserted, and Mason swallowed as he heard the edge in the man’s voice, even though he was still smiling benevolently. He was starting to feel like he was being worked over by a professional interrogation tag team. He was almost tempted to respond with his name, rank, and number.
“Like me in the same way,” Mason said and then nearly bit off his tongue at the dumb answer.
“And what way is that, dear?” Millicent asked, leaning forward slightly, her smile becoming a little less benign and a lot more sharklike.
“A lot.”
“What’s that?” the older man prompted.
“I like her a lot. She likes me less . . . I’m working on resolving the disparity.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” Millicent asked sweetly, and Mason shrugged. They were playing a canny game of good cop/good cop, and it was freaking him the hell out. Good cop/bad cop, even bad cop/bad cop, he could handle, but this was something else entirely.
“You know, the usual way.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” the woman said, taking a sip of tea. “What, pray tell, is the usual way?”
“Flowers and stuff?” Jesus, he sounded like an amateur. So much for having Daisy’s back. He was coming apart like a wet tissue under the tiniest bit of duress.
“To what end?” The male voice was almost jarring after Millicent’s catlike purr, and Mason barely stopped himself from starting.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” he hedged.
“What will you do after you get her to like you a lot?” How the hell was he supposed to answer that question? He had no intention of marrying Daisy or getting into a serious relationship with her. He wanted to have sex with her, sure, but even that wasn’t in the cards, and if it were, it wasn’t exactly something he’d tell her parents. So where exactly was this fake relationship supposed to go?
“I don’t know.” He finally opted for honesty. “It’s much too soon to tell. We’ve only just started going out.”
Bizarrely, that answer seemed to please them both, and they sat back with relaxed smiles as if the last couple of minutes hadn’t happened at all. Daisy and Daff chose that moment to return, and it was all he could do not to glare at Daisy for abandoning him to her ruthless parents.
They all immediately noticed the difference between the two younger women when they entered the room. They had clearly resolved the tension between them and were a lot more relaxed in each other’s company, but Mason was getting all kinds of sidelong death glares from Daff. And he immediately knew the reason for them. Daisy had clearly blabbed their secret to her sister.
Goddamn it.
Luckily the after-dinner coffee didn’t last too long, and because it was a work night, the evening ended soon after. Mason was relieved to say good-bye to the smiling older couple and their malevolently frowning oldest daughter.
“Tell your brother I’ll be seeing him really soon,” she hissed into Mason’s ear under the pretext of giving him a hug, and he winced. Spencer wasn’t going to be too thrilled to have the object of his desire pissed off with him. He said nothing in response to Daff’s words and instead moved on to kiss Mrs. McGregor on her cheek and shake the doctor’s hand.
He walked Daisy and Peaches to her tiny Renault coupé—she had insisted they come in separate cars—and leaned in to give her a kiss on her cheek, putting on a show for the still-watching family. Peaches, snug and secure in Daisy’s arms, growled a tiny warning, but Mason ignored her.
“You told Daff?” he asked on an angry whisper.
“I couldn’t help it. The occasion called for honesty.”
“While I was tasked with sitting in that tiny room with your hardcore parents, undergoing a grueling interrogation, you simply caved at the slightest hint of pressure?”
“Tiny room? The family room is huge.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“And don’t be silly; my parents aren’t hardcore and don’t interrogate people!”
“Shows how much you know. Any government organization anywhere in the world would be lucky to have Dr. and Mrs. McGregor do their interrogations for them.” They were both smiling, keeping up the pretense for her family, while they had their hushed conversation.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she scoffed, and he glared at her.
“You’re having dinner at my place tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up at six thirty.”
“Fine!”
“Fine.”
“I like that young man,” Andrew McGregor said as he watched his daughter say good-bye to Mason.
“He seems nice enough. A little rough around the edges but decent and sincere.”
Daff said nothing, merely watched her sister lean into Mason while they had a hushed conversation. She was beyond pissed off with that idiot Spencer Carlisle for his role in this debacle. If—no, when—Daisy got hurt because of this crazy plan, Daff was going to have that blockhead’s guts for garters. He’d never been the sharpest tool in the shed, but he had always been almost charming in his clumsy attempts to pursue her. Using Daisy to get to her was just an unforgivable breach of the unwritten rules of their longstanding non-relationship. He pursued, while she rebuffed or ignored, and everything was right in the world. He had stayed away while he was with Tanya as was proper, and Daff had known he would start trying again after the breakup. But she hadn’t known he would do so at the expense of her sister’s feelings.
Mason wasn’t exempt from her anger either, but she felt a bizarre sense of betrayal mixed in with her fury at Spencer, and boy was he going to pay for this.