Chapter 34

Ash

A few days had passed since I’d gotten back from the “vacation” to Milan. I was happy when Jason didn’t step another foot on the doorstep of my apartment. I had been riding the high of literally tossing him out the door and told Frank she either needed to start helping with bills or find a place of her own. I told her I loved her and she’d always be my best friend, but something had to give because I couldn’t float her forever.

We agreed she’d get the groceries and help me with this month’s electricity and water. By the time this month was out, she’d be in a new place of her own. She wasn’t really happy about it, but I didn’t care. I was done with the bullshit people were throwing at me, and to hell with her if she didn’t realize what she was doing.

It was nice to be able to stand up to people like that.

I stretched to continue putting away the new yarn balls we’d gotten in last week. I had finally convinced Luna to have a section of the store dedicated to more expensive types of yarns and fabrics, and they were selling like hotcakes.

Luna gave me four more shelves on the main wall to promote the luxury craft supplies. I was knee deep in wool-and-silk balls of yarn that I had to stack and arrange by color in a way that was impressive to the eye.

I heard the bell above the door ring. I straightened out my clothes and wiped the sweat from my brow.

“Welcome to Luna’s Crafts. How may I—”

My breath caught in my throat when my eyes focused on the person standing in the doorway. It was Mason, with his intense stare and his plump lips and his tall stature and his strong arms.

Jesus, he looked spectacular, and I was pissed at my knees for clacking together the way they were.

“Hello, Ash,” he said.

For days I had been working on my self-esteem. I’d told Jason off, I had put my foot down with Frank, and I had even told Luna she was getting a website whether she liked it or not. I told her that I cared about this store just as much as she did, and that if I wanted to work in it for the rest of my life, then it needed to get with the times.

I got complaint after complaint from customers about us not having a website and being unable to ship shit to them. I explained to Luna that it was possible to offer a wider array of products just online, then commission them from a warehouse and ship everything right to the customer. No muss, no fuss, more money for the store, and we didn’t have to hold inventory.

I could’ve sworn there was a ghost of a smirk on her face even as she fought me on it the entire time.

She told me I could take a couple weeks off from the store to get the site up and running and that she would pay me for it. I told her I was going to outfit her store with some basic internet so I could do it here while training her niece. Back and forth we went, and eventually I got what I wanted.

For the third time in a week.

I knew I was worth fighting for, and just from Mason turning up, I could tell he’d convinced himself of that as well. But dear god, I’d given myself over to this man twice, and both times he had let me down. My heart had been ripped, shattered, and deep fried before it had been thrown to the wolves in the middle of Milan, and I just didn’t know if I could do it with him again.

“First off, I need to apologize,” he said.

“Yep,” I said.

“No. I need to really apologize. I need to apologize for not understanding how my words were affecting you and for not taking into account how they were being interpreted.”

I narrowed my eyes at him before I raked them up and down his body. He had an angle. I was sure of it. I just didn’t know what it was yet.

“I was so wrong to point out our differences instead of telling you that none of those differences meant anything to me. Which they don’t, by the way. I kept battering you over the head with them, trying to get you to somehow feel sorry for me. Instead of defending you with Eva, which I will always do from now until eternity, I kept my mouth shut because I thought you wanted to defend yourself. I thought that by defending yourself, you could show all those prim and proper assholes I grew up with that you deserved to be there just as much as them.”

He took a few steps toward me, and I couldn’t help but back myself slowly into the wall of yarn I was stacking.

“What I didn’t stop to think about at all was the fact that maybe they all had to prove themselves to you. Maybe, instead of you proving your worth, we all needed to prove ours. I needed to prove my worth to you.”

Tears rose to my eyes, and I cursed myself internally for faltering right in front of him.

“My family,” he said, “we’ve been doing things a certain way for generations. Families are picked to merge at the time children are born. That’s just the way it's always been. I had no idea how to untangle myself from that because no one in my family’s ever done it before. I’m the first, and therefore, there is no precedent for me to follow. There’s no one’s example for me to trace.”

I swallowed hard to keep my tears from spilling down my face.

“The truth is, Ash, I’ve never met anyone like you. You make me feel alive. You make me see the world through the lens of someone who isn’t as privileged as I’ve always been. And I don’t mean to say you’re somehow lower than me. I simply mean that you appreciate things in this world that I’ve always taken for granted. You’ve framed the world for me in a way I’ve never framed it before, and you do it with a beauty and grace I’ve never witnessed until I met you.”

Fuck him. Fuck him and his beautiful words and his beautiful eyes and his beautiful chin. The tears brewing in my eyes rolled down my face in globs of wetness, leaving trails of makeup in their wake while I stared at the most beautiful man my heart had ever screamed out for.

“Mason—”

“Let me finish,” he said.

“Okay,” I whispered.

I was petrified of what he was going to say next. Everything he had said already was nothing short of perfect. A part of me worried that it was manufactured. I had already trusted him with my heart twice, and I just wasn’t sure if I could do that again.

Not with him.

“No, wait,” I said, holding up my hand to stop him.

Mason’s eyes widened, and that was when I decided to take the reins. I’d made a lot of progress over the past few days with not allowing people to walk all over me, and I wasn’t going to let some rich boy with stunning eyes and an expensive smile throw me back to square one.

“Mason, I don’t know if I can trust you with my heart again. I mean, you want to talk about setting precedent? You haven’t done a very good job.”

“I know,” he said, nodding.

“I was in pieces when I came back from Milan,” I said sternly. “It was the only place I’d ever wanted to travel to, and now it’s tainted by having my heart broken there again.”

“I’m so sorry, Ash,” he said.

“And now you waltz back in here with your smooth words and your tailored suit and your beautiful lips, and you tell me that I’m supposed to trust you again so you can try to get this ‘new thing’ right?”

Before I knew it, he wrapped me up in his arms. He gathered me close to his chest, and I caved to everything that was him. His arms rippled around my back, and his cologne was the familiar scent of everything I’d fallen in love with. His lips came down on top of my head, and he said the most beautiful words into my skin.

“I promise to never let you down again. I promise to always defend you, to always stand by your side, and to always make sure people understand the prize you are. It is not your job to prove your worth to me. Or to anyone for that matter. It is their job to prove it to you. Give me one last shot to prove myself to you.”

His chest felt so good against my cheek, and the warmth of his body coddled me in a way no man’s body had ever done before. But I still couldn’t relent. He’d pulled this routine once already, and it had lead to another heart break soon after that idiotic brunch we’d had.

“I don’t know, Mason,” I whispered.

He let go of me, and I thought that was it. I mean, a man could only come prepared with so many words, and I figured he would simply bow out gracefully and slink out the door with his tail tucked between his legs.

But instead, he pulled out his phone before he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me close.

“Mason, what are you doing?” I asked.

A video chat window opened, and a voice spoke from his phone. “Mason? Mason, sweetheart, is that you? Where in the world are you?”

“Is that your mother?” I whispered harshly.

“Mother, do you see this beautiful woman on my arm?”

He panned the camera over to me, and I forced a smile.

“Hello,” I said.

“This is Ash, the woman I’ve been telling you about. This is the woman I am in love with, wholly and completely. And understand, Mother, that this is the woman I will eventually marry—if she’ll have me. She’s the only one for me, and that’s that. You can get with the program, digest it, and support it, or you can disown me and throw me out. Either way, the choice isn’t yours because I’ve already made mine.”

I was rooted to the floor in shock, but the kiss he placed on my cheek with his mother right there on the phone ripped me back to reality. Mason, the man who had been beating around the bush for god knew how long, had called his mother and given everything to her straight.

Right in front of me.

He had just sacrificed his entire fortune, reputation, and lifestyle to be with me.

“I love you, Mason,” I said.

He whipped his gaze to mine and hung up with his mother. His hand cupped my cheek delicately as he gazed deeply into my eyes.

“Say it again,” he commanded.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“Again.”

“I love you, Mason.”

Our lips were close, and I could feel his breath pulsating on my skin. I fluttered my eyes closed and wholly surrendered my body to his long, strong arms. He ghosted that beautiful phrase against my lips before drawing me close to his body.

“I love you, too, Ash.”

When we kissed, the entire shop stood still. In that moment, I knew I was kissing the man I would spend the rest of my life with. In that moment, I knew I was kissing the future I’d cried tears over for years as I sifted through douchebag after douchebag.

In that moment, I knew we had finally done it. We had finally found the best of one another that each of us deserved.