Chapter 28

Ash

I smoothed out my dress and gave myself one last look in the mirror before I headed out. Mason had been acting weird all day, but I knew it must be something good. He had already spoiled the hell out of me, and he had been acting fine all week. So whatever he had planned for tonight must have been big.

I didn’t have the slightest clue as to what would make this trip any better than it was, but I was ready for whatever was coming.

I splashed on a bit more red lipstick and put on the newest pair of earrings I’d made. Then I set out for the terrace. The smell of the food wafted through the mansion and made my stomach growl, and I couldn’t wait to sit down and eat dinner with him tonight.

I walked out of the room and headed for the terrace, but I furrowed my brow when I saw two shadows streaming from the balcony. I rounded the corner and saw a tall, slender woman with long brown hair gazing up at the moon, and my blood froze when I realized who was standing on that terrace with roses up to her nose.

“Mason?” I said.

He whipped around and raked his eyes over me, but I was too fixated on Eva. The smile on her face slowly fell, and the stony expression that took its place was nothing short of malice and disgust. The roses she was holding fell to her side, and I heard the clacking of something against the wrought-iron table. Mason finally piped up.

“Eva, I’m in Milan with Ash. I came here early to set things up for her. Not you.”

“Oh,” Eva deadpanned.

“This dinner isn’t for you, and neither are those roses,” he said. “My plan was to show my mother how happy I am around Ash so she would back off with forcing you onto me.”

“Wait, your mother is going to be here?” I asked.

Amusement spread across Eva’s face, and I realized I’d given her enough of a lead-in to speak up and jump into the party.

“Of course,” she said. “It’s a family trip. It’s why it was assumed I would be on it.”

“You’re not family, Eva,” Mason spat.

“I might as well be,” she said, shrugging.

I pipped up. “I don’t see a ring on your finger.”

“Exactly,” Mason seconded.

“Oh, that kind of thing doesn’t matter where we’re from, honey,” she crooned at me. “People like Mason and I are born understanding we will eventually end up together.”

Mason quickly took the roses from Eva before he handed them over to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy them. A bag dangled from the ribbon, and I was sure it was full of more beautiful stones he’d bought in town for the jewelry I was going to make when I got home. But all of a sudden, I was incredibly tired and no longer hungry.

“So, let’s backtrack,” I said. “Your mother was supposed to be here, Mason?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And you weren’t going to tell me about this at all?”

“I mean, it would’ve come up eventually…”

“Like Winston’s apartment eventually came up?”

I saw the pained expression on his face, and I knew I was being unfair. I understood why all of that had transpired, especially in the beginning, but when he’d whisked me away for the weekend, I figured we were starting fresh. I figured we were erasing the past and starting again.

“I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me this was a family trip,” I said.

“Ash, you have to believe me. All I wanted to do was show my mother how good we are around each other, how natural it is for us to be together.”

“And why did this require you not telling me she was coming?”

“Because…”

Eva was standing back and enjoying the entire spectacle. She folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the terrace railing. Then she felt the need to speak up again.

“Because he knew I was probably going to show up, and he wanted to show mommy dearest that he could be with anyone. Even someone like you.”

“Eva, would you please shut up?”

“You knew she was coming?” I asked.

Tears rose to me eyes. He had fucking known she was going to be here? He had dragged me halfway across the world after treating me to the most incredible weekend of my life only to parade me around in front of his mother and some stuck-up bitch just so he could prove a point?

“What point were you trying to prove here, Mason?” I asked. “What point could possibly be more important than informing me that this bitch and your mother were coming on the same trip as me?”

“Wait. What did you just call me?” Eva asked.

I ignored her. “This was supposed to be a family trip, and you thought dragging along your temporary girlfriend would really spice things up?”

My blood boiled. I was no longer in the mood to play fair, and I was no longer in the mood to save face. If cursing was beneath them, then they were about to get a hell of a lot smaller, because I was about to raise my podium and stand over both of them.

I’d been dragged halfway across the world and given my dream jewelry making lessons, and I was not about to look like a fool because I’d blindly trusted a man who had already proved to me once that he couldn’t be trusted. I remembered every word that bitch Eva had said to me at that dinner. She’d criticized me for my weight, looked down her nose at my wine choices, and I knew she had been clocking my entire fashion sense and comparing it with her own. She’d made snide remarks all throughout dinner, and never once had Mason spoken up for me. Now I was going to speak up for myself.

I had no intention of spending any part of this weekend around Eva. At this point, I didn’t really feel like spending time around Mason, either.

Then my stomach let out a raucous growl that made Eva snicker to herself.

“At least I’m not ashamed to eat,” I spat at her.

Mason clammed up just like he had at the dinner, and the three of us awkwardly sat down inside and ate. The terrace dinner was cramped, and Eva thought she was being cute when she stole my wine glass. So, I picked up the bottle, poured them two more glasses, then tipped the bottle up to my lips. Who gave a fuck what happened now? I was in the most beautiful city I’d probably ever visit in my lifetime, and the queen of the ice bitches just made herself comfortable.

“The roses did smell wonderful, Mason,” Eva said lightly.

“They weren’t for you,” he said.

“Nice to know you can talk,” I spat.

The three of us ate awkwardly on the terrace, and I was fuming at Mason for not kicking her out. She had marched her way right into a mansion he had set aside just for us, and he was actually letting her sit and eat the food he had prepared for me. For us.

What the fuck was going on?

Eva finished picking at her food and got up to put her plate away. I downed the rest of the bottle of wine and shoved my plate away. When Mason tried to take my hand, I pulled it into my lap.

“How did you see this going?” I asked.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m curious. Did you think your mother was going to see us together and just slap her stamp of approval on it? Was it to make Eva jealous? Were you gunning for some weird threesome that hasn’t been talked about yet?”

“What the hell are you talking about, Ash?” Mason said.

“I would just like to know what light you saw at the end of this dumpster-fire tunnel is all!”

Mason sat there silent as a rock, and tears rose in my eyes while Eva stood in the doorway of the terrace.

“If there was a time for an explanation, Mason, it was earlier.”

“I thought my mother would get the point about me not wanting to marry Eva if she saw us together,” he blurted out.

“Do you people not have words?” I exclaimed. “Could you not have unhinged your jaw and said those words to her? Did it really require dragging me halfway across the world and embarrassing me in front of this bitch for you to get the idea that this is bullshit?”

“I honestly thought my mother was going to be on this trip,” he said. “She faked sick and sent Eva a day early to try to manufacture—”

“I don’t care, Mason! Don’t you get that? I don’t care about your manipulative games or your weird arranged marriages, your money, your station, or the fact that you don’t work—or the fact that your life is just as much of a shambled mess as mine is!”

“Then what is it?” Mason exclaimed. “What are you so angry about?”

“That for the second time, you’ve made me feel like a pawn. Like something you could just use to get away from your life before your own reality came raining down on you. You dragged me to a charity event and shoved your dick into me numerous times before meeting me for whatever the hell brunch is and letting me know, in so few words, that I didn’t have enough money to understand how hard your situation was!”

“Ash, that’s not—”

“And now I’m here in Milan, a city I’ve always wanted to travel to, and I’m just another pawn. A pawn in manipulating your mother so she won’t make you marry some thin, empty, stuck-up shell of a woman you’ll never love.”

“Now wait just a second—” Eva tried to step in, but Mason and I ignored her.

“Ash, that isn’t how it works—”

“I don’t give a damn how you think it works. Open your face hole and tell your mother you don’t want to marry a bitch, Mason. Grow a set of balls and stand up for yourself.”

“Where I come from, we deal with things with dignity,” Mason said.

“Well, from the looks of it, where you come from you don’t deal with things at all.”

Eva had the most disgusting smirk on her face, and I didn’t even care. I was sure I was playing into some game of hers, but I was done sitting on the sidelines while Mason attempted to educate me on the lives of the rich and famous.

He’d yanked me around enough, and I was done.

“I don’t appreciate being a pawn in your manipulative games, Mason,” I said.

We stared at each other for a while, and Eva just lingered. She didn’t move to leave, she didn’t move to come out onto the porch, and she didn’t try to speak.

The kicker, however, was that Mason didn’t tell her to leave. Mason didn’t get up and escort her from the house. Mason didn’t pick up the phone and call his mom to let her know about anything that was taking place.

“I’ll sleep in the guest room tonight,” I said.

“Ash, no, please.”

“Should I help you with your things?” Eva asked coolly. “I’ve already set my stuff up in the room down the hall.”

“Go fuck yourself,” I said.

“Wow. So violent. You really should pick them better, Mason.”

Yet again, he didn’t come to my defense.