Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 40867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
“Can you meet me at my place?” I said the words before my head caught up with my heart.
The line was silent.
“Saylor?”
She cleared her throat. “I, um, I can’t. I’ve made plans for this evening.”
My heart sank. “Right. I’ll see you at work on Monday.”
Hitting ‘End,’ I turned my cell phone off and headed to the bathroom. After taking a hot shower, I wrapped a towel around my waist and face-planted onto my bed. It didn’t take long for the alcohol to finally kick in and I passed out until late Sunday morning.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* * *
Saylor
THE SOUND OF people going about their Monday mornings filled the air around me. I stood in line at the little coffee shop I’d discovered when walking to work a few weeks back. I mindlessly ordered my tea and then slipped out of the shop.
Sunday, I’d done nothing but lie on my couch and sulk. I couldn’t keep doing this. Clearly, I had feelings for Mason. I wasn’t really sure how he felt about me. Honestly, it didn’t even matter. I’d seen him with two different women in less than twenty-four hours. A man like him was clearly a commitment-phobe.
All night Saturday and a part of Sunday, I’d analyzed our phone call. He’d invited me to his place. Why? It wasn’t business related, so what was it? He’d admitted to being drunk. Maybe in his drunken state, he’d thought I’d sleep with him.
Truth be told, I probably would have gone over, and I most definitely would have slept with him. Even knowing he’d been drunk, it would have been worth it just to have a piece of Mason. But I wasn’t lying that night. I’d been out with Mary, and for the first time in months, I’d been having fun. At least until his call. Then all I could do was analyze the shit out of everything he’d said.
Good lord. I’d fallen for the jackass, and I could no longer deny it.
Reaching for my cell in my purse, I hit my mother’s number.
“Saylor, darling, how are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
My parents lived in Florida. They’d moved there a few years back to get away from the cold and wet weather of Seattle.
“I’m on my way in right now.”
“What’s wrong?”
A small smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. I swear my mother had a sixth sense when it came to me.
“Mom, I need to ask you something.”
“Anything, sweetheart.”
“Can you fall in love with someone you’ve only known for a little over a month?”
She giggled. “Of course you can. I fell in love with your father the moment I first set his apple pie on the table.”
My mother loved telling the story of how she’d been helping out her best friend at the little restaurant where they’d both worked and had taken a pie over to one of her tables. According to her, my father had looked up at her and smiled, and that was all she wrote. My father told it the same way. The second he’d looked into her caramel eyes, he was lost to her. He’d asked for her number, and the rest was history.
“Have you met someone?” Mom asked.
I blew out a breath.
“I’m going to say you have, and things aren’t going as you’d like?”
Laughing, I sat down on the bench outside my office building.
“No. He’s my boss.”
“Oh dear.”
“Yeah. He tried to kiss me once, but I stopped him. He’s a bit of a player. Doesn’t want to settle down or even date, I think.”
“You haven’t been out with him?”
“I have a few times—if you could even call them dates.”
“Tell me why you think you’ve fallen for him, sweetheart.”
That was easy. Sitting back, I took a sip of my tea and started going through my list of things I loved about Mason.
“He’s smart, strong-minded, his business sense is spot on, he’s handsome, he’s kind when he wants to be, and he has a caring heart that he tries to hide, but I’ve seen it.”
“Like how?”
I shrugged. “Well, for instance, his secretary. He tries to intimidate her, but last week she mentioned that her mother’s transmission went out. She was going to have to dip into her savings to help her—she’s trying to buy a house. The next day, she said someone had called the dealership where the car was and had traded her mother’s car in for a brand-new vehicle. Same model but brand freaking new. The poor girl was in tears. Her mother wasn’t going to have to worry about a reliable car and now she was that much closer to buying a house so her mother could come live with her.”
“You know your boss was behind it?”
Closing my eyes, I smiled when I thought back to being on the elevator with Mason last week. I’d been hidden behind a few men, so he hadn’t realized I was in there. “Yes. I overheard him telling them to get the same model, though fully loaded, and to use her old car as a trade-in. He said he wanted it to be anonymous. He got off the elevator a few floors before me, so he never knew I was on there with him.”