Mason:Inked Reapers MC(64)

Chapter 33
                       
       
           



       


"Kait … Kait!"



Kait jumped in her seat as her eyes snapped wide with attention. The  smartly dressed men and women gathered around the grand meeting table  were all directing their gazes at her, waiting intently for her to  speak.



"Um … yes," Kait began to flick through the papers placed on the table before her.



"The figures for the last quarter were our strongest yet," she began, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt.



Marie, who was sat beside her, placed a hand on Kait's arm and leaned close to whisper to her.



"We've already been over the figures for last quarter. We need to talk about projections now, Kait."



Kait nodded and shoved some of her hair out of her face.



"Yes," she replied briskly. "Yes of course." She spotted the piece of  paper with the correct data and took a deep breath. "We are all  extremely optimistic about projections for the rest of the year."



The people around the table leaned back in their chairs and commenced listening to her report.



Kait breathed a sigh of relief when the meeting finally concluded. She  began gathering her papers as people dispersed from the room, eager to  grab a much needed cup of coffee.



"What was that?" Marie was standing beside her, patiently waiting  instead of leaving. Her neat eyebrows were knotted together, and her  shoulders were tensely gathered by her neck.



"What was what?" Kait innocently blinked at her.



"That-" Marie gestured back towards the meeting table. "You totally  spaced, Kait. You can't keep dropping the ball like that, especially if  you want to make your fixture in these development meetings a more  permanent one."



Kait's cheeks burned with understanding. "I'm so sorry," she uttered nervously. "I lost my focus. It won't happen again."



"It had better not," Marie said sternly as she folded her arms across  her chest. "When you look bad, the company looks bad. Have I made myself  clear?"



"Crystal."



"Okay, good." Marie left and took her cloud of vanilla perfume with her.  With a sigh, Kait dropped back down in to her chair. The meeting had  been crucial. Her team had been prepping for it for weeks. Yet in the  middle of it all, she'd allowed her mind to wander. And she had of  course been thinking about Jasper.



Kait held her head in her hands. It had been a whole month since she'd  last heard from Jasper and an impressive twenty four hours since she'd  felt compelled to check his Twitter page. Shouldn't she be getting over  him by now? Instead, he was pretty much all she could think about. She  remembered how amazing it felt to kiss him, and her body would tingle as  though being caressed by thousands of fireflies.



"I'm over him," Kait told herself firmly as she stood back up and smoothed down her pencil skirt.



"I'm over him," she repeated as she walked out of the meeting room, but  sadly her voice lacked the conviction she'd hoped it would have.





Chapter 34



Kait found that the nights were the worst. She'd sit alone in her  apartment and see Jasper everywhere she turned. She was still waiting to  hear about the promotion at work. Her life felt as though it had been  bizarrely put on pause, and she was unable to go forwards or back. She  just had to wait. And wait for what? Did she expect Jasper to send more  flowers, to offer more dates? She'd received that one text from him and  then nothing.



It didn't help that Anna was all loved up. Gone were the girly nights  out that Kait surely needed. Each time she called Anna she was either  with Robert or about to go and see him. And when they did meet up, Anna  was so buoyed up with new found love that Kait would leave seething with  jealously, and she hated to feel like that. She wanted to only be happy  for her best friend. And she was; she truly was. She just wanted some  happiness for herself.



In a bid to kill time, Kait ran a long, hot bath. One change which had  come about since her initial meeting with Jasper was that she no longer  worked late. She had told her boss about the attack in the parking lot,  leaving out the part where a handsome stranger saves her. She just said  that the men with the knife got spooked and fled but it had shaken her  up and she no longer wanted to work late.



To both Kait's surprise and relief, her boss completely understood, and  now she left the office at the same time as everyone else. This was both  a blessing and a curse. It meant that Kait was more rested and felt  less frazzled and wrung out. It also meant that she was spending more  time at her apartment. More time dedicated to pining over Jasper.                       
       
           



       



Lowering a hand, Kait checked the temperature of the water. It was just  about right. Removing her robe, she got in and gave a sigh of  contentment as she slid beneath the scented bubbles.



She'd bought in a glass of wine to enjoy whilst in the bath along with a  book. But after having several sips of the wine, she put down her book  and reached for her phone. Before she could talk herself out of it, she  looked up Jasper's Twitter page. There were numerous comments referring  to a recent fight of his. From what people were saying, Jasper had taken  quite a beating in the ring despite being the victor.



Woah @J_Duboix that look rough but congrats on the win bro!



You'll be sore tomorrow @J_Duboix but think how sweet victory tastes!



Next time you might not be so lucky @J_Duboix



Kait was intrigued. The last big fight Jasper had been in he'd barely  won. Were his struggles in the ring becoming a regular thing? She  thought of how badly beaten up he'd seemed in the park. He needed to  stop pushing himself. It was getting crazy.



A quick internet search on her phone pulled up a detailed account of the  fight from a sports journalist who was there. It made for grim reading.



Several times throughout the tense match, I feared that reigning  champion Jasper Duboix might not get up. His blood was streaked across  the ring, and he'd lost two of his teeth during the last round. But  showing the grit and determination which only a true champion can  possess, he pushed through and managed to secure himself another crucial  victory.



Kait felt cold despite the warm water around her. Jasper had basically  had his teeth knocked out during his last fight. How powerful must a  punch be in order to do that? Her teeth chattered fearfully, terrified  to just imagine such an impact.



"Jasper, what are you doing?" Kait muttered to herself as she read more  about his latest fight. People were quick to speculate about why he  wasn't showing his usual prowess in the ring. Many believed he'd simply  lost his touch and that his time as champion was drawing to an end. This  pained Kait. She knew how much his career meant to Jasper. He'd be  devastated if he was to lose it, and despite all that happened between  them, she wanted Jasper to be happy. If victory meant so much to him,  she hoped he would always win, but it seemed he was dangerously close to  experiencing grave losses or worse: an injury he just couldn't come  back from.





Chapter 35



Worry gnawed at Kait even after she'd dried off and was sat on the sofa  watching the television. She kept thinking about the state Jasper must  be in. His big match was just the night before. He must be holed up  somewhere sore and miserable. A part of her was desperate to go and see  him. She yearned to reach out and tell him that he was so much more than  the man the public saw in the ring. He was kind and decent; he didn't  need all the championship titles to prove that. He had stepped in and  saved Kait, endangering his own life when most men would have walked  away.



The sound of her phone ringing made Kait jump. For a few exhilarated  seconds, she thought that perhaps it was Jasper calling, that he'd been  thinking about her as much as she'd been thinking about him, but her  heart sunk when she saw Anna's name flashing on the screen.



"Anna, hey," Kait answered as brightly as she could.



"Hey, Kait. You okay?"



"I'm alright."



"So you're feeling better?"



Kait suddenly remembered that she was supposed to have a cold. It was  the excuse she'd used the previous Friday to avoid going on a double  date with Anna, Robert, and one of Robert's friends. She just wasn't  ready to meet someone new no matter how wonderful Anna insisted he was.



"I'm getting there," Kait coughed a few times for dramatic effect.



"These stupid viruses," Anna moaned down the line. "Daniel was so disappointed not to meet you."