“No. Of course not.”
Mason moved on to his third can of beer, his mind in turmoil. He wasn’t sure how he felt any more; all he knew was that he would miss that crazy armful of neurotic femininity more than he cared to admit. She was funny, intelligent, insanely sexy, and sweeter than any other woman he had ever met, and he felt like he’d lost something unique and special. Hard as it was to admit, no amount of beer would fill the hole she had left in his heart.
“Daddy, have you ever seen that car before?” Daisy asked one Saturday afternoon on the way back from their clinic day.
“What car, sweetheart?” her father asked absently, keeping his eyes on the road.
“Behind us.” She had her eyes on the rearview mirror, checking out the dark sedan with its tinted windows directly behind them. “I’ve seen the same car on our last three visits to Inkululeko.”
“That’s nothing to worry about,” her father said with a smile. “They’ve been escorting us to and from the clinic every week for the last month.”
“What?” The word was a whisper, and she doubted that her father even heard it.
“Mason insisted. It was part of his donation to the clinic.” Mason had made an outrageously generous donation to the clinic, enough for them to buy new equipment and a bigger mobile clinic. He had also sponsored a full scholarship for Thandiwe’s current and future studies. The girl was ecstatic and enthusiastic about the future. “In addition to the money, he insisted on providing security for as long as we needed it.”
“We don’t need security,” Daisy insisted, feeling a little lightheaded that he had actually gone ahead and done this. It was more than a month since the wedding and at least six weeks after he had first brought up the need for security.
“I feel better knowing that they’re there. They’re very discreet. You haven’t even noticed them until recently, and they’ve been escorting us on our last eight visits.”
“Why would he do this?” Her father’s eyes flicked from the road to her face and back again.
“He’s a good man. And he cares about what happens to you.”
“You once thought Clayton was a good man too,” she pointed out. It was a low blow and she knew it, but her father took the hit with nothing more than a smile.
“I never thought Clayton was a good man, but I had hope that Dahlia saw something in him that I didn’t. I trusted her good judgment, and in the end my trust was warranted.”
“I suppose it was nice of Mason to arrange this,” she said quietly.
“More than nice, I think.”
“Maybe.”
“Daisy, I don’t know what happened between the two of you . . .”
“Yes, you do, Daddy. Everybody knows it was all fake. We were pretending to be a couple.”
“You like him, he likes you. No pretense there,” he said with a shrug.
“No, he did what he had to because I forced him.” Her father laughed at that, the sound so genuinely amused that Daisy was a little offended by it.
“Sweetheart, you can be difficult and stubborn and a little crazy at times, but nobody on God’s green earth, especially not a lightweight like you, can force a man like Mason Carlisle to do anything he doesn’t want to do.”
“I blackmailed him.”
“He came to that wedding because he wanted to,” her father dismissed.
Daisy didn’t respond to that, but her eyes drifted to the side-view mirror, and she watched the other car for a long moment. Mason had been out of her life for a month; she hadn’t seen him or heard from him at all in that time. And she knew it was her fault; she had leaped at the excuse to drive him away. At times she was sure she’d made the right decision, but then at other times—like right now—doubt crept in and she wondered if perhaps she hadn’t made the biggest mistake of her life. She often wondered who had really told Shar about their scheme. Not that it really mattered anymore; the damage had been done. But she was still curious.
Straight from the horse’s mouth.
How could Shar possibly have found out about their deception unless she had heard it from one of the parties involved? Could it have been Spencer? He was the only other person who knew about it.
“I’ll tell you what I told my brother,” Spencer said, when Daisy went by his house later that evening to pose the question to him. “It wasn’t me.”
“Mason asked you about it?”
“He’s been trying to figure it out too.” He handed her a beer, not offering her a choice, and she took it with a nod. Beer wasn’t her drink at all, but he was trying to be civil.
“Daisy”—Spencer’s grave face mirrored his tone of voice—“I deserve your doubt and your ill will. I haven’t been . . . kind to you, and I’m very sorry for that. I’ve treated you badly in the past, but I want you to know that the night I asked Mason to distract you while I chatted with Daff was only because I wanted a chance to speak to her and she’s always been very protective over you. So I—stupidly—thought if she saw that you were happily preoccupied, she’d be more open to relaxing and talking with me. Mason was reluctant to go through with it, not because he had anything against you but because he’s a good guy and he thought it might hurt you if you found out his interest wasn’t genuine.” He shook his head. “It was a stupid, ill-advised, and flawed plan. And it failed miserably . . . for me. Mason, on the other hand, my brother liked you from the beginning. And this entire fucked-up situation has messed him up more than he’s willing to let on. He’s miserable.”
“He is?” Daisy hated the thought of Mason being miserable. Especially if she was the cause of it.
“Do you know that he punched Edmonton?”
“What?”