Chapter Fifteen
Saylor
The sounds of everyone going on with their Monday morning filled the air around me. I stood in line at the little coffee shop I had discovered walking to work a few weeks back. I mindlessly ordered my tea and slipped out of the shop.
Sunday I had done nothing but lay 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 would never be interested in a one-woman relationship.
All night Saturday and a part of Sunday I had analyzed Mason’s call to me on Saturday night. He had invited me to his place. Why? It wasn’t business related, so what was it? He admitted to being drunk. Maybe in his drunken state, he thought I would sleep with him.
Truth be told, I probably would have gone over, and I most definitely would have slept with him. Even knowing he was drunk, just to have had a piece of Mason would have been worth it. But I wasn’t lying. I was out with Mary, and for the first time in months, I was having fun, until his call. Then I was analyzing the shit out of it.
Good lord. I had fallen for the jackass, and I could no longer deny it.
Damn, that pisses me off.
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 parent’s lived in Florida. They’d moved there a few years back to get away from the cold weather.
“I’m on my way.”
“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 few weeks?”
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 had to take the pie over for her best friend who was helping another table at the little restaurant they worked at. According to her, my father looked up at her and smiled, and that was all she wrote. My father tells it the same way. The second he looked into her caramel eyes he was lost to her. He asked for her number, and the rest is history.
“Have you met someone?”
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’s 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 can even call them dates.”
“Tell me why you think you’ve fallen for him, sweetheart.”
This was easy. Sitting back, I took a sip of my tea and started going down 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, 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 had mentioned her mother’s transmission went out. She was going to have to dip into her savings—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 for her mother to 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. I was hidden behind a few men, so he hadn’t realized I was in there. “Yes. I overheard him telling them to take the same model, but fully loaded, and 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.”
My mother gasped. “What an amazing thing to do.”
“I know. It’s not even that. He has this pull that I can’t ignore. When I’m around him, I either want to kick him in the balls or beg him to kiss me. Most of the time it’s the latter. It’s confusing as hell.”
“That’s love,” she said with a chuckle. “Have you talked to him about how you feel?”
“God no!” I answered standing. “Mom, this guy is beyond gorgeous. He could get any woman he wanted just by walking up and smiling at them. He’s not interested in me like that. I mean, do I think if I told him I’d sleep with him he would go along with it?”
Pushing the door open and making my way to the elevator, I stopped. “No, I take that back. I don’t think he would. I think he would want to, but he has more respect for me than that.”
“Saylor Maria Night. Do not ever put yourself down like that young woman. Any man would call himself lucky to have you.”
I replied, “I’m sorry, Mom. You’re right.”
“I am right. And he sounds like a catch.”
Feeling my chest ache and my heart sink, I nodded my head and slowly walked to the elevator. “He is. I mean, for some lucky girl he will be.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, sweetheart.”
I fought to keep my tears at bay. “I’m not sure he feels that way about me, Mom. Which leads me to my next question: Do I follow my heart or my head?”
She remained silent for a few moments as she thought about what I had said.
“Saylor, when the time comes that you need to make that decision, only you can make it.”
Ugh. I’d forgotten how my mother’s advice worked. She made it seem like she was giving you some when really all she was saying was it’s on you to figure out.
“Thanks, Mom. I love you. Kiss Daddy for me.”
“I will, sweetheart. And Saylor, one more thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked as I stepped to the side of the elevator to allow people on.
“That one true love only comes along once. You knew it wasn’t Ron, so you’ll have to ask yourself if it is Mason.”
I swallowed hard as I tried to get rid of the lump now formed in my throat. My eyes batted quickly to keep my tears at bay.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Love you, my sweet Saylor.”
My voice was on the edge of cracking. I had the sudden urge to flee to my parent’s and run into my mother’s arms. I had a sinking feeling my heart was about to fall into pieces.
“Love you too.”