Believe Me (Hearts for Ransom Book 3) (25 page)

Mason walked in the door of his apartment. He wouldn’t miss living there at all. They decided to live in Claire’s rental house until they found one to buy. He actually planned to build her a brand new one, but he had to tell her about his money first.

He swallowed down his guilt. Mason told Emily he wasn’t going to keep it a secret from Claire—he would tell her when the time was right. It had just been that the time never seemed right. What was he supposed to do?

“Can I have another slice of pizza? By the way, I have a large savings account, and I’m going to inherit a few million dollars in a year and a half. I love you.”

No. Claire was too important for him to mess around and lose. He was going to sit down with her this evening and tell her the truth. Who his parents were, and about the money. Mason wasn’t the slightest bit worried that she would think he was something he wasn’t, but she might be upset he hadn’t already told her.

He looked out the window and saw the new mini-van he bought. It was fresh out of the factory. He chose it partially because of the room and extras—it had drop-down DVD player equipped television screens for the middle seats—but mostly because of its safety. This particular model was ranked the highest in auto safety over all the mini-vans on the market.

Remembering photos of his crashed car, he was determined to do all he could to make sure his family was safe. In fact, he told the salesman safety features were of utmost importance.

A familiar car pulled in behind the van. What was Claire doing there at two o’clock in the afternoon? When he saw she was still wearing her uniform beneath her coat, he knew something was wrong. But the color of her skin and a grim expression on her face told him something was
terribly
wrong.

“Hi.” He opened the door just as she reached it. “It’s nice to see you.” He leaned down to give her a kiss, but she stepped around him and walked into the apartment.

“Claire?” He followed her into the living room. “What’s wrong?”

She turned to face him. “When were you going to tell me?” She sounded defeated. “Or were you just going to wait until you got tired of playing house with the poor white trash, and pack up your daughter and leave?” That startling possibility occurred to her on her way there, and she nearly drove into the side of a building.

He waited too long. Somehow she knew about the money. “Claire,” he said soothingly, “Let me explain.”

“I mean, I should have realized something was wrong.” She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “You’ve been off work all this time and managed to pay your bills and buy gifts—expensive gifts.” She looked at her engagement ring. “I see you’ve got another toy.” Claire gestured toward the window through which the new van was plainly visible.

“I was going to tell you, I sw—”

“I bet it’s been hard for you to be seen with me in my second-hand clothes, and run down used car. You even had your friend’s wife fix me up with a fake discount, so I could buy some new clothes and wouldn’t embarrass you so much anymore, didn’t you?”

He walked to her and tried to take her hands, but she pulled them away from him. “If you’ll just sit down and let me tell you about my parents,” he begged.

Her eyes blazed. “I know enough about your mother . Some lawyer or something came to see me at work today and gave me some cockamamie story that you get engaged to podunk people like me just to see how far you can push your parents. They’re not going to give you your inheritance if you go far enough in your game to marry me. They even offered me a ridiculous amount of money to walk away from you.” She shook her head. “Your parents are fools. They didn’t bother checking you, or me, thoroughly enough, did they? If they had, they’d know there was no way I would believe you would ever be committed enough to anything to have former fiancées, or play those games you supposedly play. And they don’t know anything about me if they think I’m stupid enough to believe they would refuse to let you have your inheritance if they know you’ll come back to them anyway.”

“What did my parents do?” He was suddenly furious. “They offered you money to do this? To break up with me?” He looked at her incredulously. “Did you take it?”

She deflated before his very eyes. “Sure, Mason, I took it. Because you know how much more important things are to me than people I love, one of whom happens to be you.” She pulled off her ring and held it out to him. “Here. You can give this to somebody more suitable. You know, somebody you don’t have to be ashamed of, or embarrassed by.”

“I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to ask you. I know you’d never do that.” He wouldn’t take her ring. He couldn’t take her ring. “I don’t want you to do this, Claire.” His mind searched for answers. “You said you love me. Give me a chance to make this right. Don’t let my parents do this to us.”

She sadly shook her head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. They didn’t do this. You did.” Claire turned and placed her ring on the end table closest to her. “You can see Spence or Zoey whenever you want. Just call first so I know to be gone when you get there. I won’t embarrass you anymore.”

Mason tried once more to pull her into his arms. “You’ve never embarrassed me. I’ve never felt prouder than when you’re on my arm. I love you more than you can imagine.”

She pushed her way around him and walked to the door. Right before she opened it, she turned back to face him. “That might be a problem, Mason, because right now I can’t imagine very much at all.” She opened the door and walked out.

Mason felt like he had been run over by a bulldozer. What had just happened? He sank into the nearest chair and put his head in his hands. The woman he loved more than life itself thought he hadn’t told her about his money because he was ashamed of her. She thought he was just “playing house” until his inheritance came through. Wait a minute! His parents didn’t have any say in his trust fund. Just what had his parents told her?

He hadn’t felt such despair since right after his accident. The memory of his tests and long hospital stay caused him to remember how close to death he came. He hadn’t been saved for nothing. His life had meaning! And the woman who just left was the biggest part of it. No. He wasn’t going to sit and feel sorry for himself, or go out and get wasted, like the old Mason Wright.

He messed up big time by not telling her. She was right. He did this. But his parents…He sat and thought for a while until he had a plan of action. Then he put it into play immediately. He called Brody.

Claire waited on Spencer to come home from school. She left Zoey with Louise so she could talk to her son. This was going to hurt him, and she needed to be able to give him her undivided attention.

She had gone over and over it in her mind since returning home from Mason’s. What would she tell Spencer? Then she realized what it had to be. He deserved nothing less than the truth. Yes, it was going to be painful for him to hear, but he was strong.

“Mom?’ He stood in the doorway. “What’s wrong?” She knew when he saw her sitting at the kitchen table, he would realize something was up.

“Sit down,” she softly told him.

He pulled off his coat and hung it on the back of the chair before he sat down. His eyes searched hers.

“I have something to tell you. I need you to listen to everything I have to say before you ask me anything. Then, I promise I’ll answer any questions you have for me. Okay?”

He wordlessly nodded.

“I found out today that Mason has been…fooling…me. There is something about him I didn’t know. And I believe he didn’t tell me because he’s ashamed of me, or I embarrass him.” She looked at her son and saw how much he wanted to object. “You see, Spence, Mason has a lot of money. If he really loved me, he would have told me about it. Instead, he’s hidden it all this time. I can’t be with somebody who doesn’t love me enough to tell me the truth, no matter how much I love him. I don’t have much, Spencer, but I have self-respect. Please understand I’m trying to keep it.”

“Can I ask questions now?”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Yes.”

“Are you going to marry Mason?”

She shook her head. “I can’t. I told you, he’s a wealthy man who wants his wife to be dressed up and wearing fancy things, not a woman who shops at a second-hand store.” She decided he may as well know it all. “He even arranged for me to think I was getting a discount at Rivets, so I could buy some new clothes he wouldn’t be embarrassed to take me out in.”

A flush spread up Spencer’s neck and onto his face. “Nobody could ever be embarrassed by you, Mom. You’re beautiful.”

She felt the pressure of tears behind her eyes, but she was determined to be strong for her son. “Thank you, Spence, but that’s just not the way it works sometimes.” She waited, but he didn’t ask any more questions. He stared at the wall, his face full of anger.

“Spencer,” she gently said. “This doesn’t change anything between Mason and you or Zoey, except I can’t give you his last name like you wanted.”

He stood up so abruptly his chair fell over. “I wouldn’t take his name if I needed it to save my life! And I don’t want my sister around him, either! She doesn’t wear fancy clothes any more than you do. Zoey might embarrass the jerk!”

Claire stood up and put her hand on Spencer’s arm. “Please calm down.” She hadn’t expected this reaction. She planned on tears and sadness. “Mason is Zoey’s father, and we can’t change that. His name will be on her birth certificate in a couple of weeks, and I couldn’t stop it now if I wanted to.”

“So we have to let him see Zoey?”

“Yes,” she answered, “and he’ll want to see you, too.”

He leaned down and picked up his chair. “If I see him, Mom, he’s going to have another black eye,” Spencer stated as a simple fact.

“Please don’t hit him again,” Claire requested. “Let’s just learn to live with him in Zoey’s life…and yours, if you decide you want to after you’ve calmed down.”

“Not gonna happen,” he assured her. “What about you?”

She smiled sadly. “I’ve told him to call before he comes over so I can be away. You’ll have to at least see him long enough for him to pick Zoey up or drop her off. Can you do that for me? At least until I’m a little…stronger?”

He suddenly pulled her into his arms. “I’d do anything for you, Mom.” He awkwardly kissed her cheek. “I just hope he waits a while before he decides to come over, or I can’t promise you I won’t slug the worthless pile.”

She didn’t say anything because she was too busy trying not to cry. And she didn’t know what to say because she didn’t know how long it would be before she would be able to see Mason without feeling like her heart was being torn to shreds. If she ever could.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t go in there.”

“Watch me,” Mason told his father’s secretary as he stormed past her. He turned the knob and pushed the door open so hard it smacked the wall. “Hi, Dad! I’m home!” he announced to his shocked parent, looking up from his desk.

As usual, the man’s polished persona fell right into place. “Mason, it’s nice to see you’ve finally come to your senses.”

“Oh, I’ve come to my senses, all right.” Mason mimicked his father’s haughty tone of voice. “It’s taken me a long time, but I have everything figured out now. I know what’s vital and what isn’t worth a millisecond of my life.”

His father stood up. “Good. I knew you’d see it our way once…well, once your path was clear.” The man actually smiled. “I’ll have an office ready for you, so you can start as early as next Monday.”

“But, Dad,” Mason said in a calm voice, “I want to start right now.”

For the first time, his unflappable parent looked unsure of himself. “I suppose we could set you up in an empty office just for the rest of this week, until I can get yours prepared.” His smile was back. “In fact, that’s a good idea. You can have some input on the décor of your office.”

For the first time in his life, Mason produced a real smile for his parent. “The only input I want is to put something large and uncomfortable in your butt and kick it as hard as I can. And the only office I’m going to have is the one inside a site supervisor’s trailer when I become partners with my boss.” He spoke as calmly as if he spoke about the weather. “You and Mother went too far when you tried to buy off the woman I love. She’s too good for that. She’s not for sale. Whatever crazy story you put together didn’t work on her either, in case you’d like to know. I guess poor people aren’t all as stupid as you’d like to think, huh?”

Vince Wright had most definitely been caught off guard by his son’s words. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m not even going there with you.” Mason pulled a paper out of his folder and placed it on his father’s desk. “This is a document I had my attorney draw up yesterday. You and Cassandra are no longer my parents. I have legally severed all ties with you and this corporation. If you’re foolish enough to leave it to me, it will automatically be divided into shares and distributed among your employees, the very people who actually deserve credit for everything this company stands for. And since my trust is from my grandfather, and not you sad excuse for a sperm donor, I will still receive it when I’m thirty, and there is nothing you or my incubator can do about it. It’s a done deal. Remember, I told you--I have an excellent attorney.”

The man who called himself a father for over twenty-eight years picked up the paper and looked at it, his expression of disbelief slowly turning to one of shock. He looked up from the form. “You can’t mean this.”

“I only meant one other thing I’ve done more than I mean this. I asked the most compassionate, loving, beautiful, generous, good woman to marry me.”  Mason held the other man’s now wavering gaze. “I almost forgot this one.” He pulled another paper out of the folder and set it in front of his father. “You can look at it and have it verified, but it is a sworn affidavit stating if you or your wife approach my family or me, we will bring a lawsuit for harassment against you so quickly you won’t have time to think about it. And believe me, it will make the front page of the newspapers when all this comes out. I’ll make sure it does. Won’t it impress your friends to know the child your wife gave birth to has severed all ties and wants nothing more to do with you?”

Before the wide-eyed man behind the desk could respond, Mason turned and walked out of the office. As he left the building a few minutes later, he felt like a new man. He was finally free of Vincent and Cassandra Wright, once and for all. Now he just had to convince the woman he loved to forgive him—again—and give him one last chance.