Wicked Lil' Brat(15)

"Well, I'm still pissed you didn't tell me," Becca says.

"It wasn't my choice," I reply. "That night, I had no way of predicting this."

I can see by the look in Becca's eyes that she still doesn't believe me, but it's too late to convince her any further because I hear Lorna enter the dining room.

"What wasn't your choice?" she asks, her voice sharper than my steak knife.

Fuck my life.

I need to pull something out of my ass to placate her and smooth things over. This should be interesting.





7





Becca





I watch as Mason tries to cover his tracks with my uber bitch of a mother.

"I was talking about this steak," he says casually. "Becca asked how I could possibly eat my steak this rare, and I just said it wasn't my choice."

Mason looks at me, his eyes pleading with me to play along.

I agree to smooth the situation over with him and jump in with the lie. "Yeah, I half expect it to start mooing again at any moment."

"Grow up, Becca," Lorna says.

If that's the harshest thing she's got for me, I can live with that, so I let it go. What I can't live with is the fact that Mason consented to marry my mother. This feels like one big joke, where a camera crew is going to jump out from the kitchen and say, "Surprise! You've just been a part of one giant prank!"

But of course, I know it's far more serious than that. Still, how could he have agreed to the marriage after what we went through—rescuing me from Robert at the bar, the obnoxious banker who thought he was God's gift to women, and then of course what later happened in the bathroom stall… even he has to remember that.

I watch as Mason turns on the charm for my mother. He's completely ignoring me at this point. H's smiling a little wider, and his body is turned in her direction.

"Beautiful spread," he says to her, motioning at the table, and my mother smiles.

"I can show you a different kind of spread," she purrs, and I want to gag. I mean, literally fucking gag. But this feeling of disgust is mixed with something more … is it jealousy?

Yes, I admit that Mason can be a cocky asshole at times, but he's confident, successful, driven, powerful … and it helps that he's hot. Scorching hot. The good outweighs the bad. Believe me.

Yes, he's technically old enough to be my father … and I guess he is my father now … well, stepfather, but that doesn't make it any less strange, and I mean, if I'm honest, the moment I placed my hands on his chest and my fingers traced the hard edges of his rippling muscles, I knew he was truly a god among men.

He's ripped. Just thinking about those eight, perfect squares of muscles in his abdomen makes me wet. And I can't even think about his faultless 12-inches of manhood … unless I want to be instantly soaking wet during dinner.

If Mason is feeling the same as I am, it's impossible to know because he's completely playing along at this point. He smiles and places his hand on hers.

I watch as the two of them engage in friendly, albeit slightly flirty banter, and I decide to take the evening into my own hands.

"You two are perfect for each other," I say, taking another sip of wine. Carl's been doing a good job of keeping our glasses full all evening.

They both turn and look at me, caught off guard by my remark.

"I thought it was too premature to suggest congratulations," mother says.

"Oh, it is," I continue, smiling, "but who knows? Maybe two wrongs will make a right?"

Now I have Mason's attention. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asks.

"I just mean that I could never seriously date a man who publicly blows his load on one of the biggest financial news networks."

I figure I should use reverse psychology. If I talk about what he can't have, he'll want it even more.

"That's not my proudest moment with the MarketWatch anchor, Stacy Sawyer," he says. "It wasn't planned; it just happened."

"Just happened?" I ask. Give me a break. Things like that don't just 'happen.'

"Well thankfully you've got me, dear," Lorna purrs devilishly. "That'll never happen again."

I can almost detect a grimace on Mason's face, but he does a good job of hiding it. It goes undetected by my mother.

"You should really think about settling down, Becca," my mother says. "You aren't getting any younger."

I've heard this spiel before. Settle down. Get married. Have kids. As unconventionally career-minded as my mother is, she's also annoying conventional in terms of the advice she insists on dishing out to me.

"I'd settle down if I ever found a man worth settling down for," I reply.

I can feel Mason's eyes on me. He has a look that says he's mentally undressing me. Good. That just means my approach is working.