Chapter 15
Mason
It was my first full day of work in a long time, but I was getting restless at home and needed to start branching out. There was always a place for me at York. I had my own office and a secretary who worked for both me and Overly since I was barely ever there. I had to admit it felt good to go to work like everyone else on a Monday morning. My father had me get acquainted with the new protocols and had patched me in silently on conference calls so I could learn again from all the time I’d had off. I had to admit, I had forgotten how damn boring those meetings were. All the bigwigs sat around listening to the smaller employees tell them about the work they had done that they would never get recognized for. I knew that financially, the system my father had created worked, but on a personal scale, it was a terrible way to treat the employees. My father’s company had to be more than a moneymaking machine. I had thought my father was about quality, but from the looks of it, it was all about financial quantity.
I tried desperately to pay attention during meetings that day, to ask questions and really listen to what was being said, but by the third one, my mind was drifting off somewhere else. Of course, the first thing on my mind was Ava. I had her phone number now, and it was eating away at me. All I thought about all day was picking up my phone and calling her, hearing her voice, trying to really talk to her about what had happened with us. I fought myself on it, staring down at her number on the screen and coming up with a million reasons to press send. Still, one reason not to call stood out more than all the ones to call, the reason I knew she wouldn’t want to hear from me: the family feud. She had absolutely no interest in engaging with me any further than the meeting I had arranged with the modeling agency. Even then, she hadn’t been interested in hearing me out, though I had learned a lot about our families’ history during that meeting.
The things she had talked about haunted me now, and it was extremely confusing. She had so many claims against my father, claims I wasn’t sure could actually be true. Who knew? Maybe I didn’t want them to be true, and that was why I was denying them. I was in the perfect place to figure it all out, though, and finally put it to rest. I had full reign of our computer systems, but the files I would be looking for would be in the basement filing room because they were over ten years old.
I excused myself, letting the secretary know I would be gone for about an hour, and headed downstairs to check it out. I could pull up my father’s purchasing history, and there would almost certainly be a file from the Spencer Hotels case. He kept immaculate records, almost to a fault sometimes, but that was a good thing since this particular transaction was key to me reconnecting with Ava and possibly ending this feud once and for all. When I got to the room, I scanned the cabinets until I found the year I was looking for. I opened up the files and scanned through them, finding a Spencer Hotels one shoved in the back. I pulled it out and sat down at the table before opening it up and pulling out the pages. The first sheet showed my father’s and her father’s partnering interests about a year before we had first slept together.
I remembered that merger because our parents had celebrated together, had been excited for the future of the two hotel chains. I rummaged through more files, coming to an envelope at the back. I pulled out the folded paper inside and looked at it. It was a legal document giving my father the right to sell off pieces of Spencer Hotels, and it was dated shortly after Ava and I had slept together. The problem with it was that the handwriting was most definitely not Ava’s father’s, and it was roughly scratched in. The documents were forged. I sat back in my chair and stared at the paper, pulling other contracts out and comparing the handwriting. I couldn’t believe it. My father had actually done it. He had destroyed Spencer Hotels, and from the date, it matched perfectly what Ava had told me. He’d sold off a man’s company in spite, doing so piece by piece to the lowest bidder and dispersing the funds into separate accounts so he wouldn’t be legally liable to pay him for them.
I was completely beside myself. My father’s deception and moral reprehensibility were far beyond anything I could have imagined. When he’d been done, he had filed it away like it was any other transaction, going about his life, acting like he’d never destroyed the Spencers’ business. He’d made a story up about how businesses sometimes went bankrupt like that and blamed our family feud on Ava’s mother. My whole young adult life was predicated on the idea that the business world was volatile and rough. All I had to do was look at Spencer Hotels to see that. Turns out it was only volatile because of men like my father, who were hell-bent on destroying other people. I grabbed my phone and dialed Ava’s number, needing to see her right away. I didn’t think she was ever going to answer, but by the third call, she finally picked up.
“What, Mason? Sheesh,” she said with irritation. “I’m in the middle of something. You could have just left a message.”
“I need to see you. It’s really important,” I said. “I know I’m the last person you want to see, but I’m asking you to reconsider. No tricks, no secret places, just me and you sitting down and talking. It’s really important, and you know I wouldn’t call unless it was.”
“How do I know that?” she said. “From the shady way you got me to talk to you last time?”
“I know,” I said. “I know it was stupid of me, but I’m serious this time. I need to talk to you in person.”
“Mason, I know you think your life is so simple, so everyone else’s should be, too, but that isn’t the case,” she said. “I actually have things going on in my life, like finals for school that I pay for on my own. I have plans with my parents, who need to see me and talk to me on a regular basis because I’m pretty much all they have left. I have a job. I can’t drop what I’m doing and run to you when you call.”
“What about tonight when I get off work?” I asked. “You can come to my penthouse, and we can sit down and talk. I promise no tricks, nothing more than you and me sitting down across the table from each other and talking.”
“Why are you so frantic to see me?” she asked. “For the last ten years, you haven’t tried to contact me once. Is it because I turned you down, and no one turns down Mason York? Well, I have news for you: I’m not some silly little girl anymore, blinded by charming smiles and sweet words. I know your game, Mason, and I don’t need it in my life. I don’t want it in my life.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” I said calmly. “I just need you to look beyond that for a moment and hear me out. I promise what I have to say is really important, urgent, and you’ll want to hear it.”
“Why can’t you just tell me over the phone?”
“I don’t want to take the chance of someone overhearing me,” I said. “I have something you’ll really want to know about.”
“Even if I wanted to sit down with you, I can’t,” she said. “I have modeling gigs every night for the next few nights. Someone found out you hired me, and now the agency is getting all kinds of calls.”
“I wonder how that happened,” I said.
She scoffed. “My agent probably told them. He knew if he circulated the rumor, people would jump on it, thinking you were actually using me for your hotel chain advertisement. They think I’ll be the next hot model, which is absolutely not true. It’s kind of annoying, though I’m making enough to cover my tuition for the remainder of my time in school, so I’m not going to be too upset with him.”
“Well, what about Friday night? Can you come meet me then?” I said. “I wouldn’t be begging you like this if it weren’t absolutely necessary. You know I’m not the kind of guy who begs. This isn’t about me and you. It’s about our families.”
“Ugh,” she said. “I can try to swing it on Friday. I have a study group during the day and nothing booked as of now with the agency, but if they offer it, I’m going to take it. It’s my job.”
“I understand,” I said. “I can even meet you at a shoot if you want me to, though I’d rather do this in private.”
“No,” she said. “The last thing I need is for you to show up at one of my gigs. There’s already a quiet rumor from the mattress store. I’m trying to keep this from my parents, not rub it in their faces.”
“I completely understand. To be honest, right now, I’d really rather not have my father know about us meeting either. I understand now why it would cause such a huge problem for him,” I said.
“Now I’m really curious what has you all tied up in knots.” She chuckled. “It’s kind of amusing to see you this way, actually.”
“I’m glad I can be here for your amusement,” I said dryly.
“Anyway, I have to go,” she said. “I’ll let you know about Friday later on this week. And please, unless it’s an emergency where you’re on fire, don’t call me. The last thing I need is to be with my parents and have your number pop up on the screen.”
“Right,” I said, about to say something sweet, but she hung up before I could.
I took the file over to the copier and made copies of every page and slipped them into a manila envelope. I put the file back so no one would notice I had pulled it out and then went back up to my office. My father was at lunch, so I had at least a good hour or two until I was called back into meetings. I sat back in my chair and thought about the conversation between Ava and me. She was so angry at me all the time, but I had somehow talked her into possibly seeing me on Friday night. I knew this information would calm her down, and that was important because I wanted to be able to sit and talk with her without it turning into a fight. I wasn’t sure whether to feel accomplished or defeated for forcing her to make time in her schedule.
Ava obviously didn’t like me and was trying to stay away, but there was no denying the passion that still lingered between us. She was incredibly hard to read and even harder to crack. All I could do at this point was sit back and wait, hoping she would come around.