Spicy with a Side of Cranberry Sauce (17 page)

He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again, taking a minute to compose himself.

“I still don’t know if it will be enough,” he said. That was it. No emotional reaction or personal protest that he wanted her enough to fight Martha’s traditional view of relationships.

She pushed aside the pain from that and focused on the reason she’d come here tonight. If they were going to get Martha and James back together, they would have to do it as a team. “It’s a start, right?”

After a moment, he nodded. “I don’t know if she’ll forgive me for lying to her. And she really might not be ready for a relationship with your dad.”

She started to tell him he was wrong, but he held up a hand, and she waited for him to continue.

“I know he makes her happy. I saw her. It’s just that I think she’s scared to try again. Honestly I can’t blame her. My dad did a number on her. Almost thirty years of marriage was ended in an afternoon. She got her heart broken. I don’t know if I can encourage her to risk it again. I can’t lie to her anymore. I won’t. If we’re going to try this, we have to really stop. And I don’t know if I can.” He whispered the last as a confession.

The same truth burned inside her. She didn’t know if she could either. But for her dad, she would try. Maybe someday Martha would come around, but for now, Amy would make herself keep her distance.

“Me neither. But we have to try,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. “Starting now?”

No
. She wanted to scream it, but she stopped herself. She had to think this through, no matter how painful it was. “I was hoping maybe I could stay in town for a few days while we work out the plan. I have another interview on Monday, so I’ll be here until Tuesday. Wednesday at the latest.”

“If you stay here, we won’t stop.”

“I know,” she whispered. Why did the idea of stopping fill her with such dread? It was just sex. Great sex. Sex she didn’t ever want to stop having. But still. Just sex. She’d have to get over it.

“Well, then, we’ll start the hands-off rule the day you go home.” His voice was hoarse, deep.

Oh, thank God. At least she’d have a few more days to really get used to the idea of letting go. Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on how long she stayed. And he’d said “here,” as in, in his apartment?

“Deal?” he said.

“Yes, deal.” She reached out and took his wide hand in hers. They shook on it.

“Okay, then. Let’s get to work,” he said. He reached in the drawer beside the couch and pulled out a pad of paper.
Get parents back together
, he wrote at the top of the yellow sheet. Why was she not surprised?

She stifled a laugh.

“All right, accomplice. What’s step one?” he said.

“We have to convince your mom that we’re over. And get her to forgive you.” She still couldn’t shake the shame that she’d been the one to put such a strain on their relationship.

No sex.

“What’s next?” he asked.

“We’ll have to convince my dad to go down and see her again. I don’t think she’ll be willing to go any further with their relationship if he stays up north and she stays in Texas.”

Get them in the same state.

“How are we going to do that?” he asked.

“I think we’ll have to lie to my dad,” she said. Unless he received an engraved invitation complete with an apology and explanation from Martha, there was no way he’d fly back to Texas. Mason shifted, and she knew he was uncomfortable with the idea. But she wasn’t sure there was any other way.

“How so?”

“I don’t know. We have to do something to convince him that she wants him there. That your family wants him there.”

“That might be hard to pull off,” he said.

“What about telling your brothers and sister about what’s been really going on in the family?”

He looked at her as if she’d suggested he fly to the moon and back. With Superman’s cape.

“Okay, then. That’s not happening,” she said.

He shook his head. “I won’t ruin their relationship with my dad for a chance. I’m sorry.”

She leaned over and squeezed his hand. “I understand. It’s okay. You’re a good brother, Mason. And a damn good son too.”

The right side of his mouth quirked up into a tiny smile.

“Do you think your mom would just come up to New York and meet him?”

“I doubt it.”

“Then it has to be Dad who goes to her. The only way that’ll happen is if he thinks she invited him.”

He tapped the pen against the pad, then put the end in his mouth. He chewed on the cap and stared off into space for a few minutes. Was this what he looked like at work coming up with ideas to sell to his clients? Thinking of him in his office, surrounded by a team of loyal employees and followers, made her grin. She would bet they took his lead in all things. He always had his shit together. Except maybe with her. She liked that she could unravel him a bit.

She would miss that. But she would find a way to make herself okay with only being friends with Mason. Somehow. Her chest tightened with disappointment and something a little deeper, even darker, than that.

* * * *

The following morning, Mason wrapped his body around Amy’s, thrilled to have her back in his bed, even if it would only be for a few more days. She mumbled something in her sleep and burrowed her naked backside deeper into the cradle of his hips. He slung a leg over her and closed his eyes again. His alarm would sound soon, but he couldn’t deny them even a few minutes of cuddle time. They’d had so little back at his mom’s house, and they’d have even less after he gave Amy up for good.

He forced himself to stop thinking about what would come next week. And the week after that. They had the semblance of a plan to help their parents, but it would take some fancy footwork over the next few weeks if they were going to pull it off. The only window they had would be Christmas. Both their parents would get time off from work, and he didn’t want his mom to go through Christmas as miserable this year as she had last year. He couldn’t bear to see that again.

He was supposed to spend Christmas with Dad. Not a chance in hell. He’d barely tolerated holidays with the man when Dad lived in the same house as his mother, but now that his father was several states away, Mason had no intention of spending even a minute of the Christmas holiday with him. If that made him a horrible son, so be it.

He uncurled one arm from around Amy and reached across the bed to click off the alarm clock before it woke her. She didn’t have another interview today, so there was no reason she should get up at five a.m. He wanted to kiss her awake. Wanted to slide into her body and start the morning right. But he didn’t have time, and he wouldn’t be that selfish. He slowly lifted his left arm from around her waist. She murmured and snuggled closer to him. He inched his way back from her on the bed. She turned toward him, and he stood.

“Mason?” she whispered. Her voice was heavy with sleep, but the sound of his name on her lips was caressing, erotic.

He leaned over and brushed her hair out of her face. “Shh, sweetheart, I have to go to work. Go back to sleep.” She nodded and closed her eyes.

He grabbed a suit and boxers and rushed from the room before the temptation to climb back into bed with her became too much. He quickly showered and got ready. After leaving a note and the key on the counter, he ran from the apartment.

All through the morning at work, he fought the urge to call and check in on her. She’d been the one to show up at his place, the one to propose they work together to help James win his mom back. But he’d seen the look that flitted across her face when she agreed they’d stop sleeping together.

She was as unhappy about the prospect as he was. Why did this woman
always
blindside him? He looked down at the spread before him and picked up another colored pencil. The graphic just wasn’t right. He drew in a few more lines on the label for a can of cranberry sauce. Maybe it was Amy’s return to his life, but suddenly his mind sped into hyperdrive, an entire commercial for the new brand of cranberry sauce spinning out inside his head. He called his team into the conference room and laid out his plan.

Everyone was impressed with the campaign. Only Nate knew where the idea really came from, since Mason had shared the story with him.

“So, there’s the meeting in the store, the fight over the can, and the decision to share it at the end, sealed with a kiss. I like it. What’s the slogan?” Vanessa asked.

“‘Spice up your life with cranberry sauce.’”

Nate shook his head. “That’s not quite right. How about…‘Life: spicy with a side of cranberry sauce.’”

Mason grinned. It was perfect.

* * * *

Mason turned the key in his apartment door and opened it to a delicious scent. He followed his nose into the kitchen. Amy set out two plates piled high with chicken parmesan, and he grinned. It had been a hell of a long time since he’d come home to a hot, freshly cooked meal.

“Hi,” Amy said. She looked great in a pair of tight black jeans, bare feet, and an orange shirt that cupped her chest. “Thanks for the note. And the key.” She walked toward him and took his briefcase and kissed him on the cheek. “And before you get too excited, or terrified of my horrendous cooking, I ordered in.”

He laughed and shrugged out of his coat. “Smells incredible.”

“Sure does. I did pick out the wine, though. If it’s one thing I know, it’s how to buy wine.”

An uncorked bottle of red sat in the middle of the table. He didn’t recognize the bottle, but she seemed confident in her wine-choosing abilities. He slung his coat over the back of the chair and sat down.

“Thanks for getting dinner. I would have cooked when I got home. But this is…nice.” Too nice, in fact. But he wouldn’t tell her that. He had to marshal his thoughts better around her. Where the hell had his control gone? He was always in control, especially where women were concerned, but she slipped past all his defenses and made him feel like he was free-falling without a parachute. It was terrifying. And also the most exhilarating experience of his life.

“I know. But I figured I could do something nice for you. You are letting me stay here, after all,” she said, sitting down across from him.

She grabbed the bottle and poured them two large glasses of red. The bottle said Bordeaux. He knew that name, though he’d never really been a big fan of wine, and he was definitely not a connoisseur. He picked up the glass and held it out toward hers.

“A toast to our devious planning,” he said.

She grinned, and her hazel eyes darkened to a deeper green. It seemed she had a devious plan of her own. She clinked her glass gently against his and took a sip of the wine. He did the same, the thick taste coating his tongue and gliding smoothly down his throat. He looked down at the plate of chicken parm and picked up his fork and knife eagerly.

“So how was work today?”

“Good,” he said, putting the tender chicken bathed in spaghetti sauce into his mouth. The warm cheese and red sauce mixed great with the wine.

She took a few bites of the dish and moaned. “This is good.”

He smiled. “Yeah.”

“So work was just work, huh?”

He cut another hunk of chicken and swirled the angel-hair pasta around his fork. “Well, actually we’re doing a new campaign for Sally’s Spicy Cranberry Sauce between now and Christmas.”

She coughed on a sip of wine, and he grinned. He kept his gaze locked with hers as he told her his genius ad campaign plan inspired by her.

“Oh, God.” Her cheeks turned pink. “That’s awful. It sounds so far out of the realm of possibility.”

“Even though it happened?”

She nodded. “No one will ever believe it. That shit only happens in fairy tales.”

He tore off half a piece of bread and threw it across the table at her. He had no idea what possessed him to do it, but her shriek as the bread landed in her cleavage delighted him. Her mouth hung open, and she snatched the bread out from between her breasts.

“Oh, you’re going to pay for that one.” She took a huge forkful of spaghetti.

What the hell was she going to do with that? He tensed, waiting. She lifted the fork to her mouth, and the spaghetti disappeared inside. She chewed, staring at him. He didn’t know if it was safe to go back to eating. Something told him he shouldn’t take his eyes off her for a second.

“Don’t worry. It’ll come when you least expect it,” she said.

When he least expected it, huh? Well, that seemed to be standard where she was concerned. Anticipation tightened in his gut. He couldn’t wait to see what she would do to make him pay.

As she sat at the table beside Mason, Amy looked over the plan again, catching a glimpse of the kitchen out of the corner of her eye. It was a disaster area with dishes strewn everywhere, food pieces covering the stove top, and empty dinner plates in the sink. Mason could cook, but what a mess he made when he did. She glanced over at Mason and couldn’t help but return his smile.

Somewhere between when she’d shown up at his house two days ago and now, a calm had settled into her bones. It was such a foreign feeling, she didn’t think she could trust it. She didn’t feel nervous around him. Didn’t need to worry about being disappointed, because she knew that Mason was in this with her till the end. If he couldn’t help her get their parents back together, no one could. She settled into the cushioned wooden chair and kept gazing at him instead of starting the love letter they were supposed to be writing.

Two plates of half-eaten pie, complete with heaps of whipped cream on top, sat a few inches from them on the table. After a delicious homemade dinner, she’d pulled out the store-bought pie, and they’d both taken huge pieces neither of them could finish. She’d yet to pay him back for his little basket shooting at dinner last night, and he still had his guard up. They’d spent most of Friday night and a good portion of that morning in bed together. It had been glorious, lazy fun lounging about with him. She’d even shared a few memories of her childhood with her mom while lying in his arms. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever felt so safe.