“He didn’t tell me about it; I heard it from one of the guy’s groomsmen. Apparently Clayton was spouting off some shit about you, and Mason punched him and warned the groomsmen if they ever mentioned your name again he’d lay a world of pain on them.”
“Oh.” Daisy’s hands went to her mouth, and her eyes flooded with tears. Nobody had ever done anything so sweet and romantic for her before. Mason had always been kind, gentle, and protective of her. And Daisy had simply thrown it all away because of her own stupid insecurities. Mason was right; she was so hung up in the past, in what people used to think of her, that she’d allowed it to color her vision of the world and herself. And then he’d come along and had seen something completely different, and because his image of her didn’t gel with hers, she had dismissed it as fantasy. As part of an elaborate act.
What a fool she was.
The following afternoon Daisy nervously rubbed a damp palm over the denim of her jeans before lifting her hand to ring Mason’s doorbell. There was a faint answering bark inside. The barking grew closer and closer until she could hear Cooper just inside the door. She cast an anxious glance around. Mason’s Jeep was parked outside, but she couldn’t see his bike or BMW and she wondered if he was out. The possibility filled her with both relief and disappointment. She needed to apologize and to know if they could still have something real between them. She hoped so, because she had stupidly—and against every ounce of her better judgment—gone and fallen in love with the man.
Cooper was still kicking up a fuss, and when she heard Mason command him to be quiet, her heart started up a frantic rhythm in her chest, and for a fraught moment, she insanely considered dumping her peace offering and making a run for it. But then it was too late, the door swung inward, and there he was, staring down at her from his great height. And he was really . . . dirty?
Her eyes fluttered over him. He wore a pair of dirt-streaked jeans, boots, and a ripped T-shirt. His clothes and face were streaked with grime and sweat.
Daisy blinked and wondered if she were dreaming because he looked like he had just stepped out of one of her favorite erotic fantasies. She licked her lips, searching for something to say, more than a little wrong-footed by his appearance.
“Uh . . . you’re really dirty,” she pointed out, wincing at the inadvertent sexual ambiguity of the statement. Instead of jumping all over the unintentionally provocative words, as he would have in the past, he shrugged, causing the muscles in his shoulders and chest to flex impressively.
“I’m busy,” he said, his voice flat and unencouraging.
“So this is a bad time to talk?”
“What do you want, Daisy?”
“To talk,” she said again.
“I figure we’ve said everything that needed saying,” he muttered.
“May I come in?” she asked doggedly. He sighed, the sound impatient and explosive, and stood to the side. He held on to the door, while his body shifted to allow her to pass him, forcing her to duck beneath his arm in order to gain entry. He smelled wonderfully earthy, of soap and good, healthy male sweat. None of that expensive, sexy cologne she liked as much. He slammed the door behind her once she was inside and brushed past her as she bent to pat Cooper, who was greeting her with a happily wagging tail and a grinning face. She followed Mason into the kitchen, where he twisted the cap off a beer and took a long drink. He lowered his arm to stare at her and, unlike his brother the day before, refrained from offering her one.
“I brought you something,” she said shyly, holding up the wrapped package in her hands. He didn’t respond, which forced her to elaborate. “It’s a bacon, cheddar, and zucchini bread. Freshly baked.”
“What do you want, Daisy?” he asked again, his voice so cold it sent a shudder down her spine.
“I wanted to apologize. I know you didn’t tell Shar about us.”
“Who did?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I’m shocked you changed your mind without definitive proof,” he sneered, and she carefully placed the bread onto the center island and braced her hands on the countertop.
“I knew you didn’t almost from the beginning, but I was freaking out a little about us, you know? It was all a little overwhelming, and maybe I jumped on the whole Shar thing as an excuse to—to drive you away.” She was babbling, she knew she was, but his face was just so cold and impassive. It was making her nervous. “Anyway, I should have spoken to you about my fears. I shouldn’t have dealt with it the way I did.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
“Mason, I’m truly sorry.”
“Fine.” He took another sip of his beer, before looking at her again. “You’re forgiven.”
“I was wondering if maybe we could try again?”
“Try what again?” God, this was really hard. This Mason was a far cry from the warm and easygoing man she knew. He was cold, callous, and calculating. But she knew the other Mason was in there, and it was up to her to find him and appeal to him.
“Us.”
“We’re not an us. There’s never been an us.”
“I would like there to be.”
“Yeah?” He slammed his bottle down on the counter between them and leaned toward her, his entire body vibrating with tension and unmistakable fury. “It’s not going to happen. Go play your high school games with some other idiot, Daisy. I’ve done my time. You don’t know what you really want. I was your first fuck, and you think that means something, don’t you? Little Daisy with her teen dream fantasies about the perfect boy. The one who will love her just the way she is, right? That’s what you want from me? I’m through role-playing. I won’t be your fantasy man—the guy too impossibly perfect to exist in real life.”
“I don’t want that,” she denied. “I made a mistake, and I’m sorry. But I wanted us—”
“There’s that word again,” he sneered. “Get it through your head, Daisy. There’s no fucking us!”
“I love you.” It was a desperate cry, and she knew saying it was a mistake.