Mine - A Stepbrother Romance (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

MASON

I had a meeting with a popular TV journalist’s producers later this evening for a discussion and planning session on my upcoming interview, and my pulse raced every time I thought about it. Once I did it, there was no going back. Layla’s life in the limelight would be over, and no longer would she be able to try to get rid of Arizona.

But first I wanted to find Arizona and beg for her forgiveness. I very much doubted it would be forthcoming, but it was worth a shot.

I tore down the road towards the house, and the first person I saw was Jan. She was wiping down the kitchen island counter, and she glanced up at me as I entered.

“Hi, Mason. How’s your new apartment going?”

“It’d be better if I had you to make dinner for me every night,” I said with a grin.

She clucked at me and waved her hands. “You know I have my hands full here already. I’m glad that you’re getting out in the real world by yourself, though. Anyway, can I help you with something?”

“Yeah, have you seen Arizona? I need to talk to her.”

“She’s at the marina,” she replied. “She left about fifteen minutes ago.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“She said something about meeting Roy, Layla and Victoria down there. Apparently they’re taking one of the yachts out for the afternoon. I wouldn’t have minded an invite, but I’m just the housekeeper,” she said with an injured sniff.

“But Roy’s still in New York, isn’t he?” I asked.

“I thought so too. Arizona said Victoria called her and told her they were back already. So I guess they came back early.”

My blood suddenly ran cold. Victoria. Of course. That bitch must have had something up her sleeve. This may have seemed like an overreaction to anyone else, but I immediately had a more-than sneaking suspicion that Roy wasn’t home early from New York at all, and Victoria had probably come back on her own and tricked Arizona into meeting her down at the marina alone. Why? I wasn’t sure. But I sure as fuck wasn’t standing around here waiting to find out. If Victoria was still doing coke and had gone off the rails into some sort of drug-induced state of craziness, then that meant Arizona was in danger. Serious danger.

A small part of me told me I was probably getting concerned over nothing; for all I knew, Roy
was
home early and they’d all decided to get some sun together. But another larger part of me screamed that that wasn’t the case. I didn’t know how, but I could just sense that something was very wrong with this picture. You know how old folks say they can feel stuff in their bones? Yeah, it was like that.

“You absolutely sure that’s what she said?” I asked, and Jan nodded.

“Call Roy,” I added. “Right now. Tell him I think Arizona might be in trouble.”

“Mason, what’s going on?” she asked. “What makes you think that?”

“Just do it!”

I was already out the door before she could press me for more. I sped down to the marina as fast as possible and parked up before heading down to the waterfront, and my pulse doubled as I stepped out onto the boardwalk of the marina. I hadn’t been this close to the ocean since I was eight, and I blinked several times, trying to shake the image of my friend floating face-down in the water all those years ago.

I recalled Roy saying he kept his yacht at the farthest end, and I ran down there as quick as my legs could carry me, trying to spot the Rosa. I remembered the name because my mother had bitched about it behind his back for months, saying she took it as an affront that Roy had a boat named after his first wife…even though he’d bought and named it before he even met her. But there was no time to think about what a heinous bitch my mother was right now. I needed to find the yacht.

As I arrived at the farthest end, I craned my neck and then cursed as I saw the Rosa cruising out to sea already. Fuck. They’d just left.

“Shit!” I shouted, kicking the ground as I considered my next course of action.

Just as I pulled my cell phone out and realized the battery was totally dead, a middle-aged man with a sizable beer gut pulled up in the water just beyond where I was standing in a little silver motorboat.

“Hey!” I shouted, pointing out to the Rosa as he stepped out and tied the boat up. “Did you see who was on that yacht when it left?”

He shrugged. “Two girls, I think.”

“No one else?”

“I dunno. Don’t think so.”

Fuck. So my suspicions were correct. Roy and my mother weren’t aboard. I knew what I had to do. “Can you take me out in the water? I need to get on board!” I said.

The man rolled his eyes. “Sorry that you missed your little boat party, man, but I need to go pick my kids up from school. Don’t have time to be ferrying your ass around.”

I whipped out my wallet and frantically counted all the cash I had on me.

“Look, I’ve got…er…three hundred and thirty bucks here. I’ll give it all to you and I’ll get out another five hundred for you when we get back. Please? I really need to get out there, now!”

“No can do,” he said. “I gotta go. But if you’re gonna be throwin’ all that cash around, then I guess I can let you borrow it.”

He held his hand out and continued. “But you’re handing over your driver’s license too. If you take off with my boat and don’t come back, then at least I’ve got your name and address.”

“Fine.”

I handed him my license, and his eyes widened a bit. “Mason Crest, huh? Thought you looked familiar. My teenage daughter is always reading all those gossip sites.”

“Err…yeah. Right.”

He dangled the keys in front of me and then dropped them into my outstretched hand. “You know how to drive it?” he asked, arching his brows.

Good question. I’d heard my friends droning on and on about their boats before to have a general idea of how they worked, but that wasn’t exactly the same as actual experience. I’d avoided any manner of watercraft ever since Sammy’s death, but now wasn’t the time to be acknowledging any fears other than my fear that something bad was happening to Arizona. I just needed to push through it. Piloting a little speedboat couldn’t be too hard, right? At least I fucking hoped it wasn’t. Time was running out, and the Rosa was fast disappearing into the distance.

“Err, kinda,” I replied, and the man snorted.

“It’s a bit like drivin’ a stick, I guess. Pull this out to the start position, and then when the engine fires up, use this gear to chuck it in forward. Then steer it with this.”

He pointed to the handle, and I nodded. “Got it.”

“Remember…you fuck up my boat in any way, you’re paying for it. I’ve got your license, and I’m not givin’ it back to you until the keys are back in my hands.”

“I promise I’ll return it in good condition,” I said hurriedly, wanting to get the hell out of here as fast as possible. “Do me a favor and call the Coast Guard. Tell them to find a yacht called the Rosa as soon as humanly possible.”

“Okay, man,” he said, not even bothering to ask why. “I’ll be back down here tomorrow at twelve. I’m serious about this; you bring the keys back then or I’m calling the police and handing them your details.”

I waved my hand at him impatiently. “Uh-huh, I know. Now call the Coast Guard! Seriously, do it!”

With that I started up the motor and carefully steered the little boat out of its docking area. My hands shook as I gripped the handle, but I gritted my teeth and powered through it. Now was no time to be a wimp and give up. It also wasn’t a time to fuck up. I needed to get out to Roy’s yacht in one piece, and the only way I could do that was to be really fucking careful.

The man watched me from the marina with narrowed eyes as I left, but he quickly whipped out a cell phone and held it up to his ear. Thank god. He was calling the Coast Guard. Either that or he was calling the tabloids and giving them a juicy story along the lines of:
Mason Crest Hijacked My Boat!
Hopefully it was the former.

I got the hang of driving the boat after a few minutes, and I was soon confident enough to push my speed up. The Rosa was still a fair way off in the distance, but I was gaining on them rapidly. After a few more moments they stopped, and I breathed a sigh of relief, wiping the sweat off my brow with the back of my hand.

A couple of minutes later I could see two figures on the sun deck, and as I squinted at them I realized it was definitely Arizona and Victoria. Shit. Arizona was holding her hands up, and Victoria appeared to be holding something in her right hand, brandishing it in Arizona’s direction.

When I’d approached close enough, I steered the boat around to the rear of the yacht. I was fairly sure that most big yachts had a landing deck, and my suspicions were confirmed a second later as I pulled up to a grinding halt and coasted onto the edge of the deck. I grabbed a rope, jumped out and quickly tied the smaller boat to the landing deck, and then I was ready to face whatever the hell was going on up on the sun deck.

My mother wasn’t the only woman who’d soon be going down. If I had my way, Victoria would sink to the bottom of the ocean like a fucking stone for threatening Arizona.

I crept up the stairs to the deck, and on my way up I could hear Victoria’s voice.

“You still don’t get it, do you? You came here and fucked everything up for me!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Victoria,” Arizona replied. Her voice was shaking.

Victoria’s voice rose to a higher pitch. “Yes, you do! You took him from me!”

“Who did I take?”

“
Roy!
” Victoria shouted. “We were always so close. He used to say he would adopt me and then you came along and took him away. You don’t deserve him as a father. I do!”

What the fuck? Was she serious?

“Victoria...I think he was just making jokes about you two spending so much time together at work,” Arizona said, obviously trying her hardest to keep her voice steady. “Just calm down. We’re friends, remember?”

Jesus, Victoria was even crazier than I thought. She actually thought Roy would adopt her on the basis of a few lighthearted jokes he’d made offhand? She was legitimately unhinged.

“No!” Victoria screamed. “You think it was all a fucking joke? Arrogant little bitch!”

I couldn’t wait any longer. I stormed out onto the deck and shoved Arizona out of the way.

“Mason…what the…?”

Her voice trailed off as I hissed at her. “Stay behind me.”

Victoria’s blue eyes were wide as she processed my arrival. Clearly she hadn’t been expecting any company on this little outing.

“What’s the plan, Victoria?” I said. “You going to kill her and throw her over the edge? Claim it was all an accident and that she tripped and fell in?”

She didn’t answer, and I decided to play up the little crush she’d always had on me.

“Y’know, I have to say… I like your style,” I said, reaching around and grabbing Arizona’s left arm so that she was standing beside me, held firmly in my grip. “I’ve hated this bitch ever since she walked into Roy’s life. He was going to leave her trust fund to
me,
and now I don’t get a penny of it seeing as she’s back in the picture. Let me help you. We’ll get rid of the body together, and then when I get all the money, I’ll split it with you. Sound fair?”

There was no way a rational-minded person would have believed a word that was coming from my mouth, but Victoria’s dilated pupils told me she wasn’t thinking rationally due to what I assumed was a metric fuckton of drugs. That and the fact she’d just kidnapped Arizona. Not exactly something a sane person would do. She’d obviously had a full on drug-induced psychotic break.

Her eyes narrowed. “You’ll just take all the money for yourself,” she hissed. “I’m not stupid.”

I think everyone else begs to differ, sweetheart,
I thought, trying to keep the edge off my voice.

“I promise I won’t,” I said. “You know, I’ve always wanted you. Roy made me stay away because you worked for him and he thought it might get awkward, but fuck that. Let’s do it.”

Her face softened slightly. “Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, if we get married, you don’t even have to worry about all this adoption shit. You’ll be Roy’s daughter-in-law. Close enough, huh? And that’s what you want, right? For him to be your father?”

I was playing right into her batshit crazy fantasies. Operative word: crazy. She clearly had daddy issues coming out of her ears, but that wasn’t my problem. My only problem was getting Arizona back to shore in one piece.

She chewed on her lip, and I could see that her arm was shaking.

“C’mon, toss that thing over to me,” I said, nodding towards the thick iron bar she was holding. “I’ll do the dirty work. A lady shouldn’t have to do that.”

She finally nodded and threw it in my direction, and it made a loud clanging sound as it hit the deck. I picked it up and held it firmly in my dominant hand, and then I let go of Arizona’s arm.

“Get downstairs and lock yourself in one of the suites,” I said as calmly as possible. “No arguments. I’ll be fine. Go now.”

Victoria immediately realized I’d been playing her and shrieked before charging at me, and Arizona dashed down the stairs behind us to lock herself away. Victoria was pretty tall and strong for a woman, but she was still no match for me. The second she dove at me, I smashed the bar across her middle, and she fell to the deck, winded.