Abby had been sitting at her computer for hours. Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she wrote the final chapters of the first draft of her book. Being with Mason never ceased to inspire her, he truly was her muse, and hearing his story had explained so much about him. It had also broken her heart. How could someone do that to a little boy? She would never understand the way humans could inflict such pain upon other humans.

Hearing his story had also given her a great idea for Hyde’s backstory. She needed a reason for her main character to have a split personality, she needed something to explain why Hyde existed and seeing the death of a parent at such a young and impressionable age was exactly what she needed. She had a moment’s hesitation about using what she’d heard, but she justified it by telling herself that she wasn’t using Mason’s story, there was nothing remotely similar about him and Hyde and their childhoods, but it was the idea that a child would be exposed to death so earlier, that he had seen his father murdered before his eyes, that was what she wanted for Hyde.

She had filled in the rest of the profile she’d written for Mason, an act of clearing her head so that it wouldn’t interfere with what she was writing, and then she’d updated Hyde’s profile, adding a tragedy in his past, giving him a reason for splitting into two personalities. For the last few hours she had been deep in the story, going back and seeding the earlier chapters with hints about Hyde and tragic past and then finally writing the last few chapters.

Abby was excited about this book. She’d felt a real connection to the characters and the story had flowed easily from her. She credited Mason being in her life for it. He really had inspired her, more than just the way he’d looked at her on that first night, more than the way he made her feel when they were in the bedroom together. He gave her a confidence in herself, something that she’d never really felt before. Having someone love her without expecting her to be perfect had unlocked a well of creativity within her. She had been worried that she had been drying up, her last two manuscripts had been difficult to write and she’d wondered whether her career as a writer was over, and then she met Mason and everything changed. She owed him everything for this book.

She typed the last sentence and then the big capitalised ‘THE END’ and sat back with a satisfied smile on her face. She’d forgotten how satisfying it was to complete a novel that was a joy to write and so Abby sat there for a bit, soaking in the feeling of being content, happy and satisfied. It wasn’t often that Abby felt confident in her work or in herself, she struggled with self doubt and imposter syndrome, especially when she reached the end of a first draft. Spending so much time with a story often left her feeling like it was a piece of crap and that it was her worst attempt yet, except this time it was different. This time she was excited to finish and she felt good about it. Normally she would close the file and leave it for a week or two before she could read it and do a first self-edit, but not this time. This time she was keen to read it straight away because she wanted to relive the story. And that was exciting.

But she knew she needed to let it rest for a couple of days at least. It needed fresh eyes and she had been so wrapped up in it these last few weeks that she needed the space to be able to look at it objectively. With a sigh, she pushed away from the desk and stood to stretch. Mason had gone into the office today to sort out some issues so she was alone on the top floor of the apartment building. Abby wandered around her home, feeling a little lost. Her time had been so full lately with Mason and the new book that now that she had a few moments to herself, she didn’t know what to do.

Her stomach growled and she wandered into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge to see what there was to eat and then she got an idea. She could cook dinner. There wasn’t any food in the house, so she’d need to make a quick trip to the shop, but cooking for Mason was suddenly something she wanted to do, desperately.

After a quick change out of her writing uniform - leggings and an oversize t-shirt - and into something more appropriate to shop in, she grabbed her keys and handbag and skipped down the stairs to the elevator. Abby’s mind was so full of, well, she didn’t know how to describe it except to say domestic bliss as she shopped for her man. There was something primal about providing for her mate, an act of taking care of him even if she was a terrible cook and never made anything more than stuff you found in packets and jars. Nigella Lawson she was not, but for him, for Mason, she was willing to learn.

She stopped at her favourite butcher for inspiration. She perused the meat on display, not really knowing what to buy or how to cook it if she did buy it.

“Hello pretty lady,” came Jim’s familiar voice over the glass counter, “Here for another body?”

She smiled at him, “Not this time,” she replied, “This time I want something to cook, except I’m a pretty lousy cook.”

“Beef Stroganoff,” he said, writing something down on the butcher’s paper behind the counter. “It’s real easy and the sort of dish that is impressive to serve. Just do some mashed potatoes or rice or pasta with it and you’re golden.” He handed her his hastily scribbled recipe and she grinned up at him.

“You are a prince among men,” she said.

He laughed and measured out the beef she would need.

The day wasn’t going well for Mason. Yet another game was glitching and it was too coincidentally the same as the other glitch to be random. He had a saboteur amongst his staff and it pissed him off. Finding the son of a bitch wasn’t going to be easy. Too many hands touched a game in the production stage to easily narrow down the suspects—too many of the same hands. People he had trusted, people he had worked with for years were now under suspicion and he didn’t like it and he didn’t know who to trust.

He couldn’t even work out the motive. Whoever it was knew that a game wouldn’t be released with a glitch in it, it was one of the things that Mason was absolutely unmovable on. He knew other companies released games with minor glitches that they fixed with updates after the product was purchased, but he refused to do that. His games didn’t get unleashed on the public unless they were perfect. So why? Was it just a delaying tactic, to stop a game being released on time?

It was corporate espionage and he hated it. He may be a game designer, but he didn’t play games like that. He preferred an enemy that was out in the open, not this backstabbing shit that left him feeling vulnerable. The fact of the matter was that it could be anybody, it didn’t need to be someone who had coding experience. Whoever was paying the traitor could simply give them a drive with a piece of code written on it and they could copy it into a game.

Thinking about the money made him growl low in his throat. He paid his employees well and tried to give them a workplace that was as frictionless as possible. He wanted his people to enjoy their work and to feel valued, so he spent the money to do just that. But it obviously wasn’t enough for some greedy bastard and now he would have to look at his friends and colleagues with suspicion to try and find the little prick who was trying to ruin his business and his reputation.

The last thing he wanted was to be stuck at the office sorting this shit out, but he couldn’t trust anyone else, not until he knew who the culprit was. He would much rather be at home with Abby in his arms, losing himself in her sweet smell and her soft moans as she came apart at his hands. Last night was still fresh in his mind and he had hated leaving her this morning. The most surprising thing was how she had reacted to his night terror and his story. The way she had loved him after hearing everything about his past had blown his mind. He craved her touch now, he wanted her hands on him and he wondered whether sex with her now would be different. Would he still need her bound?

The way she had straddled him and ridden him, her hands all over him, was the most vanilla sex he’d ever had and yet it had been exactly what he needed. She’d known that. She’d known that he needed to replace the memories of hands that hurt with hands that loved. God, what a revelation she was. She hadn’t run screaming from the room when he’d attacked her in the middle of the night. Instead she had comforted him, wrapped her arms around him and given him a peace that had been elusive for so long. He fingered the little velvet box in his pocket and knew that tonight he would ask her to marry him. He was no longer nervous at the thought of it, not after last night and the way she had loved him.

He smiled for the first time since he’d come into work. Just the thought of her gave him a calmness and clearness of head. He wouldn’t stay here all night. He knew what to look for in the code, it was just a matter of checking every single game they had in production, which was going to be a bitch, and then trying to find the traitor. He was suddenly inspired and had a plan as to how to sniff the bastard out, the only draw back being that he would have to test all his employees, something that was bound to undermine their trust in him, but it couldn’t be helped. Hopefully when the arsehole was caught, they would understand why he had to do it.

He pressed the intercom on his desk and spoke to his P.A. asking her to call a meeting for all the people working on the current round of games. Although it could feasibly be anyone in his organisation, it was more likely someone who was in contact with the games everyday. So he’d set a trap to catch a rat and hopefully not harm the goodwill of the rest of his staff in the meantime.

Mason could smell something delicious wafting from Abby’s apartment as he stepped onto the landing outside their doors and he grinned. Was she cooking for him? It was such a simple thing and yet it warmed him and made him feel cared for. He let himself into her apartment and found her in the kitchen squinting at a recipe book. She looked up and smiled at him and he couldn’t help but lean down and kiss her. She had a smudge of flour on one cheek and an apron tied around her waist and he could really get used to coming home and finding her like that.

“Hey,” he said, caressing her cheek with his finger. He didn’t wipe the smudge away, he liked seeing it there.

“Hey,” she said in return, looking up at him with soft eyes and a small smile.

“You’re cooking,” he said, not a question.

“I am. I hope you like beef stroganoff.”

“I do.” He kissed her nose and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “I’m just going to grab a quick shower and change, is that okay?”

“Sure. There’s still about half an hour until dinner is ready.” She popped up onto her toes and kissed him and he wrapped his arms around her and dragged her closer, deepening the kiss.

She chuckled and pulled away, “I don’t have time for that,” she said, extricating herself from his arms. “You go, have a shower and come back here ready to be amazed.”

He grinned as he left her apartment and went into his own. It was all so domestic and it should have had him running scared, except that it didn’t. He liked the thought of coming home to Abby, coming home to a lovingly prepared meal. It wasn’t politically correct, but it did something to him inside, made his heart soft, made him love her more for the way she was loving him. No one had ever prepared a meal for him with love. If Francine had ever cooked it was not for him, but for his father and generally ended in tears. Most of the time Francine had forgotten to even shop, let alone feed him. Coming home to Abby cooking a meal for him felt like a healing balm over open wounds, soothing them.

God, he sounded like a sap. He shook his head and had his shower, smiling at the memories that his shower invoked. He couldn’t wait until after dinner when he could show Abby his appreciation. Even if the dinner was awful, he didn’t care, he would eat it anyway just to show her that he was grateful for her attempt, for thinking of him, for trying to please him. God, he loved that woman and he really wanted to show her. Tonight he would ask her to marry him and then they would celebrate between the sheets, or on the kitchen table.

He dressed and went back to Abby’s place. She had a mixing bowl out and was stirring something that looked chocolatey.

She looked up at him and grinned, “I’m making chocolate pudding,” she said.

“Sounds perfect,” he replied.

He took a seat at the kitchen bench and watched her work. She wasn’t exactly what he would call confident in the kitchen and she kept referring to the recipe book on the counter, but eventually she had the pudding in the dish and the sauce poured over the top. She opened the oven door and the smell of beef stroganoff wafted out and Mason’s stomach rumbled with anticipation. She pulled out the casserole dish and slid the pudding in, closing the door and setting the timer. She sat the casserole dish on a trivet on the bench in front of him and he took a big whiff, his mouth watering.

“That smells amazing,” he said and she blushed.

“I hope it tastes as good as it smells.”

She turned back to the stove and produced a pot of steaming mashed potatoes that he hadn’t noticed before. They looked a little lumpy, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He would eat lumpy mashed potatoes and he would like it because she had made it for him.

Abby dished up their plates and he filled some glasses with the wine she had out and they sat down at the table like a real couple.

“Thank you,” he said, reaching across the to take her hand and squeezing it.

She blushed again, “It was kind of fun,” she said with a one-shouldered shrug. “Now eat up before it gets cold.”

He dug in and took his first bite without hesitation. It was good, better than good, delicious even. He may have even moaned in appreciation. He took another forkful and closed his eyes as he chewed. It really was delicious and maybe more so because she had cooked it especially for him. Just as he was about to take his third mouthful, his phone rang.

He looked down at the display and grimaced. “I’m sorry Abby, it’s work. I have to take it.”

“Go, go,” she said with a smile.

He stood and paced away from the table as he answered the phone.

“This is Mason,” he said.

“Hi Boss, it’s Craig. I have that tracking ID you asked for.”

“Okay, great, let me just grab a pen.”

He’d set his team to finding the pieces of code that were causing the glitches. He’d told them what to look for, and that he had no idea how many compromised games there were. He figured that whoever the culprit was, they wouldn’t report finding anything. He didn’t know how successful it would be, but if nothing else, it would reduce the number of games he needed to check himself. He looked around Abby’s living room for a pen and a piece of paper, but there were none to be found.

“In the office,” she said when he glanced at her.

He walked into her office and pushed things around on her desk until he unearthed a pen and a scrap of paper.

“Go,” he said into the phone.

He copied the tracking ID down and noted the game that Craig had worked on and then disconnected. As he looked up from the desk, he saw a photo of himself looking back at him from her computer screen. He slumped into the chair and looked again, reading the words that were on the page with his photograph. She had written a profile of him, of his life. The meal that he had been enjoying only moments ago turned to lead in his stomach as he read about his life, right there on her computer screen. Everything he’d told her, all his closely held secrets, things that had caused him angst and pain all written down in cold, impersonal Times New Roman.

Was she writing about him? Was she using his childhood trauma as a basis for her next book? Is that the only reason she was with him, because he had a juicy midday-movie-special story that she could use to further her career. Had it all been about extracting his personal life from him?

He wanted to vomit, he wanted to punch something. He felt betrayed and he felt like a fool for trusting her. He should have known that opening his heart up to someone was a mistake. He should have known that when she didn’t run screaming from him after he told her about his past that there was something in it for her. Of course she hadn’t been scared or worried or turned-off by his scars, they were exactly what she needed to make money. How many other poor unsuspecting guys had she used this way, after all she was a successful novelist. She had to get her ideas from somewhere.

He couldn’t stay here a moment longer. He stood, the suddenness of the action causing the office chair to tip over and crash to the floor. He ran his hands through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut trying to get ahold of his emotions. He systematically shut down until he was in that place of numbness where nothing could reach him. He felt cold, the warmth of life and love, leech out of him as his greatest fear was realised.

“What happened? Are you all right?” Abby’s voice cut through him like a knife.

“I’m leaving,” he growled, spinning on his heel, but she blocked the door, cutting off his escape.

“What’s wrong, Mason?” she asked.

Oh, but she was a good actor. The concern on her face looked real, looked like she actually cared about him. What a fool he’d been, she’d completely hoodwinked him, drawn him in, drawn him out. What would she have done if he’d actually proposed tonight?

“Stop it,” he growled, “Stop pretending. I know it’s all a lie.”

Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at him and then she looked past him to the computer and her eyes widened. “It’s not what you think,” she said.

“How do you know what I think? It’s pretty hard to deny that you were using me, Abigail. Well, it’s over. I’ve had my fill of being used. You’re no better than any of the other women in my life. I’m leaving.”

“No, wait, you need to let me explain—”

He turned and indicated the computer screen, “This is all the explanation I need,” he said, “I hope you got what you wanted, because you’ll get no more from me.”

He pushed passed her, gritting his teeth against the touch of her skin. He left the apartment and headed down to the garage. He couldn’t stand being close to her, being able to hear her moving around in her apartment. He needed out, away. He needed the speed of his car and an escape. She had betrayed him in the worst possible way and it cut deep. This was so much worse than the whole Monique debacle, at least she hadn’t tried to sell his story.

He hit the steering wheel as he tore out of the garage. He should’ve known, he should’ve seen the signs. No one could love him, how had he ever thought that it was possible that Abby did? He’d just been a means to an end for her, a pay cheque. How could he have let her so close? Now his life was going to be out there for all and sundry. He would become a joke, his reputation would be ruined, his darkest secrets revealed. And all because he trusted a woman. Hadn’t Francine taught him anything? Women couldn’t be trusted.