Chapter Thirteen
The funny thing about panic, Mason realized, was that it wasn’t funny at all. Panic made you sweat, which sucked when you were wearing a tux. It also made your mouth dry.
Idling in front of the downtown Hilton in his Porsche 918 Spyder, he cranked up the air conditioning and peered through the windshield, searching for his brand new publicity-hungry date du jour, Anna Barstock. There was a cadre of rumpled, unshaven men with cameras lurking by the hotel’s entrance, which meant Anna’s PR agent had gotten up bright and early to notify the press.
Mason leaned closer to the passenger side, ready to whip the door open so Anna could get in fast and they could drive the hell away from this nightmare. Even if Cassidy didn’t see the thousand photos that would soon flood the airwaves and clog up every online newsfeed, she had friends who would show her. He could depend on Cuervo for that much.
No matter what he said, now or later, in person or on the phone, all she would remember was that mere hours after she’d slept with him, there was a new woman on his arm. And if that didn’t qualify as an emergency, he didn’t know what did.
Maybe I should call Jasper, he thought. Jasper would know what to do. Did he have time? Mason loosened his stranglehold on the steering wheel to check his watch. He forced himself to think. Okay, what would Jasper tell him to do? Jasper would tell him to face this mess head on. He would tell him to call Cassidy the minute he arrived at the charity dinner and explain everything, even if there were tears or frigid silences. Jasper would tell him—
“Oh, shit.” A sudden paralyzing fear came over Mason when he spotted Anna making her grand entrance on the steps of the hotel. All he could see were rows of white teeth, her flirtatious “Who, me?” red carpet pose, her killer outfit, which looked like it had been spray-painted on a Barbie. Any other time, he would have been gawking, but now all he could think was she’s not Cassidy.
Even that puzzled him. He’d never been so far gone before that he couldn’t appreciate a pretty face. And Anna’s face—Anna’s everything—had the power to inspire a whole lot of appreciation. Yet he found himself strangely neutral. It felt as though he’d dated Anna before, a whole slew of Annas. But they were all surface. Cassidy’s waters ran so much deeper.
Anna did the one-leg-forward, hand-on-hip model thing while the paparazzi salivated behind their flashbulbs. She had her boobs in some kind of sling that zigzagged around her ribcage like a bandage and left her midriff bare. Mason pictured Cassidy’s face when she would inevitably see it and a fresh wave of terror washed over him. He didn’t want to upset her for all the same reasons any man hated upsetting the woman he loved—as in, there would be hell to pay. But God help him, there was more to it than that. He didn’t want her to be hurt.
The paparazzi were asking questions now, shouting over one another. “Anna, over here!” a photographer in a Yankees cap yelled to her. “How long have you been dating Mason Hannigan?”
“We’re just friends.” Anna peeked coyly over her shoulder so they could snap a few million photos of her backside. Mason could tell there was a lot going on there and all of it trouble.
But now he was even more worried. “Just friends” was a dog whistle. “Just friends” meant there was a whole bunch more to the story, and now the press would tear itself to pieces trying to find it.
He had to get her into the car before she could say anything else that would bury him. Even if it meant ten thousand deer-in-the-headlight photos that would look exactly like what they were, which was him trying to sneak a gorgeous, scantily clad woman into his car.
Mason took a fortifying breath. He took another. He opened his car door, got out and then strode calmly around to the other side. As he held Anna’s door for her, the press turned its relentless, unblinking eye on him and lobbed the same million questions his way. He ignored them, focusing instead on Anna slinking down the stairs in her spiked heels.
“A Porsche 918 Spyder?” she said. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Well, he had to hand it to her. At least she knew a thing or two about cars. He sprinted back around to his side and dropped into the seat. He liked it when the door closed and the world became just his again.
Well, his and the woman who was going to murder his relationship.
He floored it before the paparazzi had a chance to surround the car. The interior smelled like her perfume, roses or gardenias or something else grown in a hothouse. Her presence here seemed so wrong. He ran one hand through his hair and wondered if Cassidy would ever speak to him again. He just had to call her. Explain.
Beg for mercy.
“Wow,” Anna said. “Nice wheels.”
What was he supposed to say? He didn’t want to risk looking at her, but he didn’t want to appear rude either. After all, she’d done nothing to deserve it. “Thanks.”
“So these babies are limited edition, right? Amazing that you can still get 887 metric horsepower out of two electric motors. I mean, who ever heard of a plug-in hybrid that could do that?”
Mason glanced at her in surprise while she popped open the glove box. “You clearly like cars,” he said.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what did you pay for this beast—upwards of a mil, right?” Without bothering to wait for an answer, she plowed ahead. “First real money I made modeling I bought a new car for everyone in my family. My brother wanted a Porsche Carrera GT and that’s what I got him.”
“That’s one hell of a gift.” Mason found himself relaxing a little. Cars were safe territory. Her generosity impressed him. “What do you drive?”
“I don’t. New York, remember? If I did have a car, though, I’d get the new Tesla. Having a car in Manhattan is a fucking nightmare. Besides, I’m never more than a cab ride away from anywhere I need to be.”
Mason pulled up to a stoplight. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see four guys in the car next to his craning their necks. One of them let out a whoop and then four camera phones were simultaneously thrust out of the window. Before Mason knew what was happening, Anna had popped her seatbelt and was practically straddling his lap, mugging for them.
“Jesus Christ, what are you doing?” he yelled, trying to get her back in her seat.
“What are you doing?” She pushed back a handful of blond curls, sat down, and gave him an injured sniff. “Hello? Model here. Aren’t we supposed to be fame whoring right now? I thought that was the point.”
Mason winced. He hated that term. And he hated having to explain why there was a giant stick up his ass. But what else could he do? Anna was looking for the very publicity he was trying to avoid. “I just need you to chill, okay? It’s complicated.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and stared pointedly out the window. “I’ll tell you what you need,” she muttered. “You need my foot up your ass.”
“Look, Anna, please don’t be mad. I’m in a new relationship. It’s an important relationship. And she’s not like you and me. She’s a regular person. So when she sees these goddamn photos—”
“Your girlfriend doesn’t know you’re out with me tonight?” Anna looked at him as though he’d grown a second head. Of course, that would actually be assuming he had a head to begin with. “You’re ten kinds of stupid, aren’t you?”
“I really am.” Mason sped toward the overpass where most of the office building windows glittered with light. “I screwed up and all I want to do is fix it.”
“Do you want me to talk to her?”
“No! If she sees you, that’s going to make it a thousand times worse.”
“Because I’m so hot, right?” Anna flipped down the visor mirror and preened. “I knew it.”
“I just don’t want her misunderstanding the situation here. You’re a new model who needed to up her visibility. And I messed up and told my personal assistant to get me a date for this charity event. I don’t need her thinking there’s more to it than that.”
Anna took a lipstick out of her tote and drew on fresh pink lips. She smacked them and then turned her face to the side so she could admire her profile in the mirror. “Yeah, but you should totally let me talk to her. I know what to say and it’s going to make everything okay again.”
He had a hard time imagining that, but humored her anyway. “Oh? What’s that?”
She gave a little shrug and then tucked her tote under the seat. “The truth, of course. I’m gay.”
* * * *
“Cassidy Dawn, have you lost your mind? Why on earth did you tell Lexie about Disney World?”
Cassidy glanced up guiltily at her mother and then pretended that setting the table for dinner required her full attention. Oh, boy, here they were—the words she’d been waiting for. After all, she’d come over expressly for the purpose of confessing to Priscilla what she’d done, even though explaining anything to her was, in Maggie’s words, “like trying to slice a lemon with a wood chipper.”
The wood chipper stood glaring at her from its place by the stove, soup spoon in hand. Priscilla had her hair in a stylish burgundy flip and wore a house dress covered in red peonies, along with matching red canvas espadrilles.
“I had to tell Lexie about Disney World,” Cassidy said, peeking into the other room to make sure Lexie couldn’t hear her. But Lexie was curled up next to her grandpa, watching TV.
“I still don’t see why it had to be now,” Priscilla complained. “Couldn’t you have waited until after your trip to Dallas? Now you’re committed to going to the damn thing and there’s no guessing… Well, I just think you should’ve kept your schedule open for a while longer, that’s all.”
“I didn’t have a choice. Believe me. Parker and Kayla would have—”
“Kayla. Jesus save me, but sometimes I wish that woman would just get hit by a bus.”
“Mom!”
Priscilla slid a spatula under the grilled cheese sandwiches with a vengeance, as if she could flip back time. “I don’t care what I said and I’m not taking it back, either. Kayla is a public nuisance. She couldn’t mind her own business if someone put a gun to her head.”
Lexie bounced into the kitchen. “Whatcha talking about?”
“Our God given right to shoot people,” Priscilla said. “Lexie, honey, go tell your grandpa that dinner will be ready in five minutes.”
“Can I use your phone?” Lexie said to Cassidy. “I want to text Amy. She’s never been to Disney World.”
Cassidy pulled the phone out of her back pocket. “Hurry.”
She watched her daughter dash away and then went to the rosewood china cabinet where Priscilla kept the soup tureens. As she bent down, she could feel her mother looking at her. In the Roby household, silence always meant that Priscilla was gearing up to ask questions. No matter how prepared you were to avoid answering, Priscilla would find the truth and then drive a stake through its heart.
“So,” Priscilla said. “You and Mason are getting pretty serious, aren’t you?”
Yes, they were, Cassidy thought, but she couldn’t talk about Mason. Not with so many feelings and worries to sift through. She set the blue-and-white soup tureen next to her mother and kept her lip zipped.
Priscilla piled sandwiches on a plate. “Mrs. Felps told Benita Sanchez who came in to get her hair done this morning that a man answering Mason’s description parked his car in front of your house last night. All night, in fact.”
Cassidy spun around, ready to catch Priscilla looking disapproving, but all she saw was her mother’s profile, serene and happy, along with her secret smile. Then Priscilla set down the soup spoon and turned to face her. “I think it’s wonderful.”
“What?”
“All that lovely passion and excitement.” Priscilla’s eyes went wistful. “And with a man like Mason, too. Why wouldn’t I want to see my baby girl happy?”
Of all the crazy things that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, this was the craziest. Moms weren’t supposed to go along with stuff like that. After Parker, Cassidy had just assumed there would be a big lecture. But it did make her feel pleased, if slightly uncomfortable, as though the rules had changed, only nobody had told her.
“Not to burst your bubble or anything,” Cassidy said, “but I don’t even know if I can afford to take the time off to go to Dallas.”
“Nonsense.” Priscilla poured the pot of tomato soup into her blue-and-white tureen and then carried it to the table. “Of course you can. We’ll take Lexie, and I’m sure one of your sisters can feed that horrible cat of yours. You know Darlene and Beth will cover for you at the restaurant. So what’s stopping you?”
Cassidy tucked her hair behind her ears. She sat down at the table. “I’m scared to death that I won’t fit in,” she said softly. “Mason is… well, Mason. He’s famous. He has all these friends who are famous. Everybody’s rich and has beautiful clothes. I don’t belong in his world.” She looked at her mother and at all the comfortable things that reminded her of family. The butter keeper that had belonged to her dad’s mom and had a smiling cow on the side, half-chipped away from years of use. The cat-face clock with its paws pointing the time. The scarred wood floor. With a pang of real homesickness, she thought, After I go to Dallas and see for myself what Mason’s world is like—the fame, the cars, the house—I probably won’t belong in this world anymore either.
She felt a little winded after admitting that, like she had been carrying the thought around for a while. She looked up and saw her mother’s face. Love and loyalty were there, but also a kind of tender pride that she recognized because she often felt it for Lexie.
“Come here, Precious.” Priscilla opened her arms.
Cassidy went into them and sighed, knowing she was always safe there. That no matter what happened, her mother would always love her.
“Don’t you get it?” her mother said. “If Mason wanted a showgirl, he’d date a showgirl. Mason wants someone who loves him not for who he is now, but who he is really. The Mason Hannigan you loved in high school before he became rich and famous. He’s looking for someone real, my darling, and you’re about as real as it gets.”
Her mother’s words made her feel warm, but there was still a tiny cold nugget in her gut that didn’t believe it. How could Mason love her for all the reasons she had such a hard time loving herself?
Priscilla released her in a cloud of her favorite designer knockoff perfume and then handed her the plate of sandwiches to put on the table. “Besides,” she said, “you won’t know if you like Dallas unless you go there. And if you end up having a good time on this trip, next time you can take Lexie and see how she feels about it.”
“I’ve got to survive this weekend first, remember?”
But Priscilla already had her head in the refrigerator and when she came out again it was with a pitcher of sweet tea and a look of steely determination. “Maxine’s is having a sale. We could go there after you pick Lexie up at school tomorrow and see if there’s anything worth wearing to Dallas.”
Lexie rushed into the kitchen and handed her the cell phone. “Mom! It’s Mr. Mason, and I was busy texting Amy so it’s, like, the third time he’s called.”
* * * *
The minute Cassidy swiped her finger across her cell phone screen and saw Mason’s face, she knew something was wrong. She could tell he was at a formal event because of all the tuxes and evening gowns in the background. He seemed to be wearing a tux himself, which might have made her swoon except he looked so worried, which made her worried, too. She heard him exchange greetings with someone off screen, but then hurry away from them.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m at this charity dinner that I totally forgot I had to go to. Ruth, my PA, reminded me two hours ago.”
Cassidy went to her parents’ den and closed the door. No point having a conversation out in the open like that, not with everyone acting like they weren’t listening.
“It’s not raining there,” she said.
“Is it raining in Cuervo?” For the first time, he smiled a little, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “See? That’s exactly why you should be here with me. There’s a lake full of floating candles, too. All I could think about when I saw them was kissing you there. We could have gotten into a decent amount of trouble.”
She set aside one of her mom’s celebrity gossip mags and sank onto the blue chintz sofa. “So why do I think something’s wrong?”
Mason glanced behind him and then started walking again. “I can’t get any damned privacy. It’s making me crazy. Everybody wants to talk to me about football.” His dark eyes sought hers. She thought dizzily, How handsome he is. Half his face was bathed in the warm glow of a wall torch burning inside a stone archway. It made him look as though he were carved out of darkness and light.
“I’ve got to tell you something, and you aren’t going to like it,” he said. “It’s the kind of screw up most girls would never forgive a guy for.”
He looked so miserable, she almost felt sorry for him. She held her breath, waiting for it. Waiting for the thing that was coming. She’d always known there would be something.
“I’m crazy in love with you, Cassidy,” he blurted out. “I mean it. And even though I fucked this thing up and there are going to be a bunch of photos to prove it, I’m asking you to trust me. I know there hasn’t been enough time for me to prove to you that I’m worthy of that trust.”
I’m crazy in love with you. The phone went slack in her hand. He rattled on about a swimsuit model he’d been fixed up with. From any other man, it would have sounded like the flimsiest of excuses. But all at once, Cassidy knew. She knew.
She could trust him.
Every part of her knew that Mason was telling the truth, and she couldn’t help smiling.
“This is the downside to dating me,” he went on. “There are always going to be photos. And there will always be fan mags or websites or just some asshole with a camera jumping to the wrong conclusions about everything. It’s the part of fame no one prepares you for. They can’t. Because no one knows how much it’s going to suck until they’ve gotten a taste of it themselves.”
“Mason—”
“I can’t tell you how much it bothers me to think of you seeing this crap and assuming the worst.” He paced, taking the phone with him. “There’s nothing to worry about, Cass. I’m yours. I’m yours if you want me.”
She pressed one fist to her chest. She wanted to spin in wild circles until she fell backward, dizzy and laughing. The man she loved loved her back. And even though he’d said it before, she could feel it this time. There were a million things she wanted to say, but here she was tongue-tied again while Mason was in distress.
“Oh, there you are,” a woman said off screen.
Mason jerked his head up. “What the hell, Anna. I’m in the middle of a conversation—do you mind?”
Anna said, “We’d better step it up because they’re all asking about you and I’m tired of doing the heavy lifting.” A woman’s face appeared, and Cassidy’s mouth nearly fell open. She had no idea any human being could look so perfect. It was a friendly perfect, though, like someone you’d want to go hang out at the mall and eat nachos with.
“You’re Cassidy, right? I’m Anna. Did Loverboy here explain the situation?”
Loverboy? Oh, that was funny. “Well—”
“You’ve got nothing to worry about because I don’t bat for his team.”
Cassidy stuttered out a reply that got lost when Anna talked right over her.
“Even if I were straight, which I’m not, I wouldn’t go for Mason. Don’t get me wrong. He’s super nice. He cleans up well and drives a badass car, but he’s way too muscly.”
“I actually like his muscles.”
“Plus, he’s totally gone on you. So just say something to make the poor boy feel better so we can get back inside and finish this publicity freak show, okay?”
Cassidy saw the phone being handed off. Mason’s perplexed, concerned face appeared in the screen. She wanted to kiss it, but realized her lips would look weird, all squished up on the glass like that.
“Yes to Dallas,” she said giddily. “Yes to everything.”