My Best Friend's Brother(6)

"I'm not researching Sarah Williams for you."


"Good idea but no. Figure out the name of her assistant. Well, the assistant she just fired."


"You got her assistant fucking fired?" he asked.


"Why'd you assume it was me?" I exclaimed.


"Because it's always you, Mason. I can figure out her name. What do you want me to do?"


"I don't know, offer her a job or something. See if she's a good fit somewhere. Do we have jobs in Dallas?"


"No."


"Then make a job in Dallas and give it to her. I feel like shit. I didn't mean to get her fired."


"Is that compassion I hear?" he asked.


"No, fucker. It's business. I got her fired for a lie I told, and that  was my heat to take. I'm making it right. Like I always do. All right,  I'm pulling up to get food now. See you in a bit."


"See you soon," he said.





Chapter 5


Sarah


I couldn't believe my assistant was stupid enough to dole out my  personal fucking information. What the hell was she thinking? I didn't  give a damn if the President himself asked for my fucking number. Mason  had the resources to find it if he wanted it. I needed to surround  myself with people who protected my privacy, not people who just doled  out my shit whenever they were schmoozed by a handsome man in a tailored  suit.


"Sherry!"


"Yes, Miss Williams?"


"Pack your shit," I said.


"I'm sorry?" she asked.


"You're fired."


"What? What did I do, Miss Williams?"


"Cut the bull. You gave my personal information to Mason Baker when he  came in here flapping his handsome jowls and dazzling you with his  emerald eyes. I need people I can trust with my information, and I can  no longer trust you. Pack up your shit. It shouldn't be much anyway."         

     



 


"But he told me he wanted to call you because-"


"I don't care if he was calling because a nuclear bomb was headed right  for Dallas. I didn't call him for a reason, and you blew my trust. Get.  Out."


Even as she packed up the few things she had and ran down the hallway  crying, he kept blowing up my phone. It would ring and I would silence  it, and he'd leave a voice message. Then it'd ring again, I'd silence  it, and he'd leave a voice message. I had half a mind to change my  fucking number altogether and only give it out to Emma, Angie, and the  crew. I had half a mind to block his number and have the security guards  watch out for him.


The nerve of that handsome fucker.


I put up with his relentless calls all day, and I was getting tired of  it. He wasn't getting the hint. Not one bit. And I was getting tired of  my phone ringing off the fucking hook. So finally, just as I was leaving  to go home, I answered his call.


"What the fuck do you want?" I asked.


"I want to take you out."


"No."


"Yes."


"Not a chance."


"It'll be fun," he said.


"I've got no intentions of being photographed out on a date with you," I said.


"Good, because I've got no intentions of parading you around photographers," he said.


Wait. Seriously? Why the hell not? He was Mason fucking Baker. It's what he did.


"It's just dinner. I'll pick you up, we'll cruise around, we'll go get  dinner somewhere obscure where no one will find us. Hell, I'll rent out a  restaurant just to get us some privacy. Then I'll take you home, maybe  back to my place."


"We're not going anywhere near your place," I said.


"So I'll pick you up tomorrow night?"


"What?"


"Tomorrow night, say around seven?" he asked.


"When did I agree to a date with you?" I asked.


"The moment you answered your phone."


I could hear his smug fucking grin through the phone. I wanted to bash  his head in and simultaneously kiss his beautiful lips. I sighed,  thinking about how monotonous my life had become. If there was anyone  who understood the intrusion fame had a tendency to become, it was Mason  Baker.


And it was just one dinner, right?


"Fine. I'll go out with you. Once. To dinner. Just dinner. Tomorrow night," I said.


"Wonderful. Shoot me your address, and I'll pick you up at seven. Wear something that makes you feel breathtaking."


"So, my bathrobe and pajama pants?" I asked.


"Whatever works for you works for me, beautiful. Talk to you soon."


He hung up before I could get a word in edgewise, and I'd wondered if  I'd made the right decision. I thought about it all night and about the  trouble this could spiral into, the pictures that could possibly  surface, and how this could completely backfire on me with what just  happened a month ago.


But I was intrigued. I hated that I was, but it was the truth.


I was intrigued as to the kind of time I might have with the Mason Baker.


I woke up Thursday morning incredibly nervous. I wasn't really sure what  I was nervous about, but getting through my show was a nightmare. I had  to diffuse lavender into my room and drink chamomile tea just to calm  my mind down. I was interviewing an elderly couple who had opened up  their own bar right in the heart of downtown Dallas and was pumping out  their own original cocktails and crafting their own wines. It was a  heartfelt interview, and I could see the love radiating between these  two.


They didn't make people like them anymore. Women were too wrapped up in  how they looked, and men were too wrapped up in the legs of other women  to see the prize that could be a hardworking, independent woman anyway.


But once the interview was over, I found myself rushing back home to get ready.


I'd never been this nervous going out on a date with someone before. I  was always confident, and I always knew what I was getting myself into. I  prided myself on my ability to read people, and Mason Baker was as  topical as they came. Playboy. Rich. Flaunted his money and had no  issues talking to the press. He loved the attention, the glamor, and the  women he attracted with his money. He was just that type of person.


That type of man.


But then there was the tension. The sexual tension that permeated  between the two of us when I was interviewing him. The sly, barely-there  winks and the underhanded sexual comments that had me deep breathing  while he was answering my questions. My attraction to him was purely  carnal. A blood-in-the-nostrils affair. But there was that one looming  issue.         

     



 


The issue that I didn't trust men.


Maybe it was the fact that my exes had all driven me into the ground.  Maybe it was the fact that I was ripped from my family when I was twelve  years old because my father was peddling drugs out of our garage. Maybe  it was the fact that every single man I ever thought was supposed to  love me only ended up doing things to drive me away in the end, showing  me I was always second-best to something else, to someone else, to  anything else.


"Calm down, Sarah," I said to myself in the mirror. "You're not getting  serious with this guy. It's just a date. It's just dinner, something to  get your toes wet again and see how it makes you feel."


I smoothed my hands down my dark green dress before I slipped into my  heels. I hung my sparkling earrings from my ears before I piled my black  hair on top of my head.


"If it goes well, make it a fling. You could use the stress relief, and you know he's packin'," I said to myself in the mirror.


The idea of seeing what was underneath those clothes sent a shiver cascading down my spine.


Right at seven, a buzz rang out into my apartment. I knew that was the  front desk alerting me to the fact that Mason was here, and I didn't  even think about meeting him outside. I lived in a complex that was  known for its privacy, but the people coming in and out of the complex  didn't have to abide by the same rules.


"Yes?" I asked.


"You have a visitor downstairs," the front desk said.


"A male visitor?"


"Yes, ma'am. Shall we send him up?"


"Tell him I'll meet him at his car."


"Yes, ma'am."


I took one last look in the mirror before I grabbed my purse and locked  the door behind me. I took the elevator down and scurried across the  lobby, trying to avoid people's gazes as I looked around for Mason.


There he was, in all his swagger and cocky confidence, leaning against  his beautiful red convertible with that dastardly grin on his face.


"When I said breathtaking, Miss Williams, I didn't mean in a deadly way," he said.


"Uh huh. Flattery gets you nowhere," I said as he opened the car door for me.


"Ah, but it's so much fun to watch your milky skin color with that telltale blush."


My eyes widened. He had seen it during the interview. He chuckled as he  shut my door, and I watched as he walked around and got in. He rode us  out of town before he dropped the top of the car, and I took my hair  down so it could blow away in the wind. I sat there with my eyes closed,  breathing in the scent of the countryside as we traveled up the barren  highway that skirted along the farmland.