BRIAN (The Callahans Book 1) (113 page)

Mason had spent the last month at the bottoms of very expensive bottles of booze. He’d told his business partner he was going on an extended leave of absence and shut himself in his penthouse, hoping to drink himself braindead.

He couldn’t bear to take the photos down. The image of her smiling face was all around him, constantly pouring salt in the wound. He liked it. The feeling kept reminding him what a fuck-up he was. He couldn’t allow himself to forget that.

But that night he put the bottle down and stayed sober. He buried his feelings until he was pickled. He should have fought for her. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

He slipped on his sneakers and grabbed his jacket. There had to be a way to get her back.

Once on the sidewalk he hailed a cab. “One hundred Willoughby Street, Brooklyn,” he instructed the cabby, and slammed the door behind him.

The entire drive he was on pins and needles, imagining what he would say, and kept glancing at his watch. It was only six o’clock. With any luck he could meet her at home. “Take two seventy-eight, please. I’d like to avoid the traffic as much as possible.”

Thirty minutes later, he stood in front of the AVA DoBro building, near to hyperventilating. It took every ounce of strength to propel his body forward and through the doors. He punched the “8” button on the elevator ten times in his impatience.

Once the lift stopped and the doors opened, Mason sprinted down the hall to her apartment, stopping to catch his breath in front of her door. He took a deep breath and knocked.

A petite brunette who appeared to be in her mid-twenties came to the door. “Can I help you?”

Mason was so surprised he forgot why he was there for a second. “Yes, uh, is Laura home?”

The girl looked confused. “There’s no Laura that lives here. Are you sure you have the right apartment number?”

That was the hardest pill to swallow, it was. “I suppose not.” Mason’s heart sank. “I’m sorry to bother you.” Dejected, he turned on his heel to leave.

“Wait a second. Aren’t you Mason Decker?” The brunette opened the door all the way, revealing a fit little body in a form-hugging sweater and jeans. “I’ve seen you on the cover of a magazine. What are you doing in this part of town?” While the area they were in was brand new and safe, it wasn’t anywhere near the same as the Upper East Side.

“Looking for someone who clearly doesn’t live here anymore.” He waved politely. “Thanks for your time.”

“I’m Emma. You want to come in for a cup of coffee?” She made flirty eyes at the weary billionaire. He was still quite fetching, even with the beard growth.

Mason shrugged. “Are you alone?”
What a creepy question to ask!
He flinched at his own words.

“Yeah. Just me. No boyfriend. I just moved here from Canada. Come on in.” She opened the door wider to encourage him to enter.

Mason ran through a list of possible scenarios and figured his life insurance was up to date, so what the hell? He took Emma up on her offer of coffee. Although, as hurt as he felt, he was going to need to Irish it up, a lot.

“When did you say you moved in?” he asked, removing his coat.

“Three weeks ago. Why?”

Laura had gone. She’d left to God knew where and hadn’t told him she was leaving. Betrayal and desolation hit him like a truck. He took another look at the pretty pair of doe eyes watching him, seriously contemplating turning things into a one-night stand just to not feel so empty.

With a shake of his head he picked his coat back up. “I’m sorry, Emma. I have to go. Thank you for the invitation, really.” He bailed before she could say a word.

He had to tap into something to take the hurt away.

He was glad he had been able to save the contents of his smashed phone and could upload them into his replacement. He scrolled through his contacts to find a number he hadn’t used in a long time and dialed.

“Hello?” answered a feminine voice he hadn’t heard in years that was foreign, familiar, and shot straight to his manhood.

“Hello, Charlotte. It’s Mason Decker. How’ve you been?”

“Mason, my favorite client! It’s been, what, six years? Longer?”

“About that. Listen, I’d like to meet up, your place. I assume you’re still working professionally, mistress?”

Charlotte’s voice caressed his ear through the phone. “Yes. If memory serves me correctly, you liked humiliation, binding, and my stiletto heels digging into your back.”

Mason could feel himself getting hard at the memory. He was going to forget his emotional pain, even if it meant feeling physical pain instead. “Yes, and bring your flogger.”

“So here’s the head, and the little line of blips is the spine. Judging by the size I would guess you are roughly ten to twelve weeks along.” The sonogram tech squirted a little more jelly on Laura’s skin. “I just want to look at a few more things to make sure everything is developing normally.”

Laura stared at the fuzzy black and white screen in front of her. The little blob twitched. “I’m going to listen to the heartbeat now.” The tech’s voice pulled Laura’s attention back to earth.

When the switch was flipped and the rapid pulse came through the speakers, Laura fell head over heels in love. “Wow,” she whispered. “That’s my baby.” For once, she cried tears of joy. All these long weeks of heartache and anxiety, there was finally a reason for her to be happy again.

“It looks like the baby is developing normally. I don’t see anything abnormal. Everything is perfect.” The sonogram tech hit the print button before turning to clean the goo off Laura’s belly. “If you want to know the sex, schedule an appointment for eight to ten weeks from now and we can take another look. The baby is too small to get a good read on right now.” She tugged Laura’s shirt back over her tiny bump.

Laura couldn’t wait to get home to show her parents the pictures. Her mother was going to be over the moon.

“Make sure you give the daddy enough notice so he can make the next appointment,” the tech suggested.

Laura thought the comment was a little inappropriate, but since the woman appeared to be in her early sixties, maybe she was just old fashioned. No need to get offended. “Of course. Thank you,” she said.

Laura hopped off the table and headed for her car. Would she tell Mason? She had been shopping for jobs in Boston and Hartford to avoid going back to New York. It seemed cruel to keep this a secret from him, but with him being such a control freak, she wasn’t so sure she wanted him around calling the shots.

She placed a hand protectively over the swell of her stomach. Counting backwards put the date of conception either early on in their Switzerland trip or just before. The baby was conceived in love; was she risking raising it in an environment filled with doubt and tension by telling Mason?

As she pulled into her parents’ driveway, it was decided. She would just cut all ties to the man. She didn’t want or need his money, so child support was off the table. She would just quietly have the baby and raise it in Northampton or someplace nearby.

Joanie met Laura at the door. Laura suspected she had been standing in the foyer, waiting since she’d left. “Oooh! Let me see, let me see!” She was practically vibrating, she was so excited.

“Here. The baby is perfectly healthy, and the tech estimated I was roughly ten to twelve weeks along.”

Joanie looked up at her daughter in shock. “That long? That means you’ve been pregnant since…” She counted off the weeks on her fingers. “Well, since Thanksgiving-ish. How did you not know?”

Laura shrugged. “With all of the drama with Frank, and then the stress Mason put me under, I just stopped paying attention. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago in the pantry that the thought even occurred to me, and it took you to point it out.”

Joanie eyed her daughter, the question plain on her face.

“I’ve decided not to tell Mason about this. I don’t know how he’ll react, and he’s become so neurotic and controlling, I don’t want to give him a reason to take over my life.”

Joanie narrowed her eyes and inhaled as if to say something. She decided to withhold judgment. Laura was grown and knew what she was doing, even if Joanie didn’t think it was a particularly intelligent choice. “Whatever you want to do, honey, is your call.” She flipped through the grainy black and white photos again. “Come on, let’s go feed that baby. I want to go out and celebrate!”

***

The Rosses got to Jake’s Northampton just as a line for lunch was starting to grow outside the front door. Laura was glad she’d picked up the
New York Post
as a time killer. She always loved to scan through Page Six to see what the celebrity mucky mucks were getting up to in the city. Her mom and dad were chattering away with people they knew in line behind them, so Laura could enjoy a few minutes to herself.

There was the usual: a Kardashian sighting, Taylor Swift shopping, cast announcements for every movie in production for the next six months, but what she read next stopped her cold. The headline read:

Billionaire Bachelor and Mystery Brunettes

Like a masochist, she kept on reading.

Tech mogul, Mason Decker (31) was seen exiting The Plaza Hotel with a mystery girl on each arm after a gala event Friday night. It would appear that his May to December romance with journalist Laura Ross is over, and New York’s hottest and most eligible bachelor is on the prowl again.

May to December?!
Laura was livid. She had given a total of five years of her life to that man, and to be addressed as a fling stung. But the idiots at the
New York Post
were nothing compared to the earth-shattering heartbreak she felt when looking at the crisp color photo of the love of her life and two women wearing barely legal dresses.

She crumpled up the paper and tossed it. She stormed across the street to get away from the crowd before she burst into tears. If it weren’t for the baby she’d hit the nearest packie and drown herself in a bottle of Jim Beam.

Instead she sat under a tree and dealt with the pain. They had split up; they were free to do whatever they wanted. For him that must mean a threesome with two women he’d probably never speak to again.

“It must be nice,” Laura grumbled to herself. For the foreseeable future she had no plans to date and was okay with that, but to actually bear witness to how quickly Mason had moved on was a real kick in the shins.

She allowed a few more minutes of feeling sorry for herself and steeled her resolve. She wanted this, so she got it.

She dashed back across the street to the diner and jumped back in line with her parents. By then they had reached the threshold of the restaurant.

“Laura, there you are. Look who we bumped into!” Joanie pulled a couple of women up to their place in line.

“Maggie? Amber? Oh my God! It’s been years!” Laura embraced her two old friends as if they were her life rafts.

“Well, you went off to New York and got all busy. It’s so good to see you!” Maggie hugged Laura again. Laura had forgotten how petite the two sisters were. Maggie, the tallest and older of the two, was only 5’4” and had a long, lean build and thick, chestnut hair that fell to her butt.

Amber, who was two years younger, stood two inches shorter and was built like Salma Hayek. Clearly, the gods had saved all of the bombshell genes for the younger sister.

Laura was so happy she wanted to cry again. She was so happy the first trimester was nearly over. Being a weepy hormone monster all the time was rough. “Join us for lunch! I want to catch up with you guys.”

“Sure,” the sisters answered in unison.

***

Laura’s parents took a separate table to let the three women have some alone time, a gesture Laura was grateful for.

They finished ordering and handed their menus back to the server.

“So what are you doing back in town? I would never leave New York,” Maggie asked. She had the itch to leave Western Mass since they were in high school. Getting married to a Marine recruit at nineteen had grounded her in town.

“Believe me, it’s not as glamorous as you think.” Laura took a sip of her water before continuing, “The museums and culture are great, but after a while the hustle and bustle grates on you, you know?”

“No, we don’t,” Amber answered with a laugh.

“Ha! I suppose not. Well, I also broke up with my boyfriend and have since discovered I’m pregnant. The city is no place to raise a child.”

The sisters squealed in excitement and began talking over each other.

“How far along are you?”

“Do you know if you’re having a boy or girl, yet?”

“Are you having a baby shower?”

“This is so exciting!”

Laura let the two of them vent their steam. When they settled down a little she filled them in on the details and showed them the ultrasound picture.

“Aw. Congratulations, Laura,” Maggie beamed. She had been Laura’s best friend from preschool all the way up until she’d moved to New York, when they had lost touch.

“Thanks. Despite the circumstances, I’m really excited too.” She had lost Mason, but she still got to keep a part of him with her.

“So what happened to the guy, anyway? The last boyfriend I remember you having was that guy in college you were going to marry. What was his name?” Amber asked.

“Mason. Mason Decker,” Laura answered.

“Yeah, him. Didn’t he go on to create that puzzle app that blew up huge?” said Maggie.

“That’s the one. He expanded into developing other software too. He’s brilliant. Well, with computers. We reconnected last summer. He had lived in Manhattan while I was in Brooklyn. We both lived there for years without ever crossing paths.”

Amber nodded and smiled. “I remember him. What a hottie. And that accent? Unf, you had a stunner there, Laura.”

Laura smiled weakly. “Yeah. Handsome, charming, rich, everything that looked good on paper, but he had some issues with boundaries and control. At least, this time around, anyway.”

Maggie studied Laura’s face, trying to read her friend. When Laura noticed, she tried to hide her face with her glass.

“There’s more you aren’t saying. Spill, Ross.”

Damn.
Maggie could still read Laura like a book. They hadn’t seen each other in nine years and it was like a day hadn’t passed. “I was involved with a guy when Mason and I reconnected and I didn’t tell him. I didn’t think it was a big deal, since it was a fuck buddy agreement…or so I thought. When Frank turned out to be stalking me for months, Mason had a hard time dealing with it.” She put her glass down. Rehashing this with someone who had known Mason the first time around might give her some perspective.

“I’ve been obsessing over the idea that he didn’t trust me. In the end we both agreed to move on. Quit looking at me like that!”

The sisters had these pitying looks on their faces. Maggie spoke first. “Laura, I remember how much Mason meant to you in college and what leaving him did to you. Are you sure this is what’s best for you? Especially considering…” She nodded her head in the direction of Laura’s belly.

“He doesn’t know.”

“What?!” Amber perked up. “Laura, you have to tell him.”

Laura shook her head. “No, and I don’t plan on it. Things will just get murky and complicated. I’ll be fine.”

Unlike Joanie, Maggie wasn’t one to hold back her judgment. “I’m sorry, Laura, but that is so stupid. This is his baby, too. Be fair.”

Laura scoffed. How dare her friend not take her side? “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Maggie. I’ve made my mind up. To involve Mason in my life in any capacity will only keep me bound to him. I don’t trust my feelings for him enough to not maintain some sort of boundary. The best way for me to deal with this is all or nothing. Besides, he’s moved on now.”

“Whatever, girl. Let’s eat and talk about something else.” Maggie removed her arms from the table as the server came to drop off their food.

Laura’s appetite had fled during their conversation. Instead of eating she stared at and played with her food.

Maggie’s questions had put some doubts in her head. Doubts she really couldn’t afford to have.