Chapter One

Mason

I stepped out of the French doors onto the balcony off of my study, figuring that would give me the best chances of catching her before she got all the way away from the building. The sun was barely in place on the horizon, but there was enough of the blue and purple light of the early morning for me to see the figure of the woman scuttling down the sidewalk, pulling the sides of her jacket around her as she went.

Perfect timing.

I had seen this scene play out enough since moving into The Avalon that I had the amount of time that it took to get from my bedroom to any single place in my apartment, as well as out to the sidewalk, down to a science. It helped me in moments like this when I needed to make sure that I got to one of the women leaving my apartment before she could disappear out into the city. I knew what she was doing. She had a plan and I was about to ruin it for her.

“You forgot this,” I called down to her.

From 57 stories up, my voice couldn’t have been very loud, but even if she didn’t understand what I had said to her, she had heard enough to glance up. She only just had enough time to reach up and snag her bra out of the air, stuffing it beneath her jacket. It was amazing how fast lace and gel padding plummets to the earth when dropped from the edge of a balcony.

Must be the padding. I fucking hated padding like that in a bra. False advertising. It’s like a bakery advertising four-tier cakes and then serving you a cupcake. Just give me the fucking cupcake. They’re sweet, delicious, and fit perfectly in my hand.

I couldn’t hear the woman’s reaction, but by the way that she flailed and how the couple jogging down the sidewalk in their perfectly coordinated suits stared at her and took a wide arc to get around her, I knew that she wasn’t responding well to the way that I chose to return her bra to her. I had seen that reaction before. It was another of the little games that these girls played. No matter what the circumstances behind me letting them know it was time for them to be going about their way, they had a habit of leaving something behind. It was like a manipulative little insurance policy. If they left behind their bra or makeup bag or last remaining shreds of their personal self-worth, they would have laid the foundation of being able to show up later, give a casual flick of their hair, and giggle through telling me that they just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought that they would swing by and scoop up whatever it was that they had left behind.

I was all too familiar with the pretense and it was that familiarity that ensured I paid close attention to every belonging that any of the women who spent time in my apartment had with them, so I could make sure that they had every single one of them with them when they made their way down the sidewalk. If I had wanted to see them again I would have given them my phone number or accepted theirs. I would have cared more about knowing their names or anything about them. As it was, I only had a shadowy recollection of the fact that the woman who was walking away from me now had a name that started with a “B” and that I had picked her up at the bar where I had been having drinks with a potential new client.

The meeting had gone well so she was my celebration. Now that it was morning I didn’t really have any more need for her. Or her bra.

Giving her a wave from the balcony, I walked back inside and closed the door behind me. Throughout my apartment my staff was already going about the tasks of removing the signs of the night before. One of the maids scurried past, her arms filled with the sheets from my bed. I knew that there was another of the fast, meticulous women in my bedroom, replacing those with a set of fresh sheets that didn’t have the smell of the woman’s body on them. I couldn’t even remember what color her eyes were. I really didn’t need a reminder of her smell. I’d leave the staff an extra tip at the end of the day to show my appreciation for their attentiveness and discretion.

I made my way further into the apartment toward the dining room. Taking up the newspaper that had been set on the corner of the table, I walked toward the chair where I always sat. I reached out with the paper, using it to sweep an apron up off of the table so I could hold it out toward the cook as she approached. The last time I had seen it the woman who had just performed the quintessential walk of shame was wearing it and nothing else as she did a pathetic job of trying to make breakfast.

“You’re going to want to have this washed, Bettie,” I said.

The older woman glared at the apron like she was searing the naked girl who had once been behind that piece of cloth with her very eyes.

“She was in my kitchen,” she said, sounding offended by the very concept.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“She touched my stove and messed up my refrigerator.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” I repeated. “Go ahead and throw everything out. I’ll call up the grocery delivery service and have them replace it all this afternoon.”

“Now, don’t you go and do a fool thing like that,” Bettie said, the anger disappearing from her voice just as I thought that it would. “Can’t waste all that good food just because one disaster wandered into the kitchen. I’ll clean it up.”

I smiled at her. Bettie was the only person who would ever dare speak to me the way that she did, but there was something disarming and endearing about her that kept me from ever being offended that she didn’t keep up the formalities of the rest of my apartment staff.

“Thank you,” I said, then looked at the table in front of me and the scattering of plates that cluttered it. I peered into the closest one, using a fork to prod the unidentifiable splatter of blackened food on it. “Do you think that you might be able to give this a decent burial and make me something actually edible for breakfast?”

Bettie grabbed up the plates, stacked them on top of each other, and stomped out of the room, grumbling under her breath as she went. I didn’t hear everything that she said, but the few words that I caught made me hope for her sake that the woman from the night before hadn’t left anything else in my apartment and might be planning a reappearance.

The image of the woman wearing the apron and brandishing a partially cooked piece of bacon at me as she rattled off her plans for our day together was still almost disturbingly clear in my mind.

Our day together.

Just the thought made me shudder. Her very mention of me taking the day off so I could enjoy a leisurely breakfast and then go to the farmer’s market with her smacked so much of a relationship that I had the urge to toss her out on her pert little ass without even letting her get dressed.

I don’t do relationships.

I was finishing up my breakfast when Aidan came into the room, bringing with him the almost frantic energy that he always had, as though he was on the brink of disaster with every breath. He paused by the table. Just to frustrate him, I continued reading through the newspaper and chewing slowly. I made it a habit of reading a real newspaper in the morning, preferring to stay unplugged until the very last moment that I could get away with it.

“Are you still here?” Aidan finally asked.

“No,” I said. “I’ve been gone for hours.”

“You have meetings right up until you are going to have to come home to get ready for the party tonight. I’ve been in contact with the vendors and they are doing final preparations.”

I sighed, cutting him off, and looked at him.

“Do I really have to do this? There’s no way that I can cancel or get a stand-in?”

“Are you serious?” Aidan asked, his voice slightly higher and more fragile as though it were going to shatter.

“Alright, alright,” I said.

I held up my hands in surrender and got up from the table. Ten minutes later I walked out of the apartment, reaching out as I always did to run my fingers along the silver frame sitting on a table in the foyer.