Chapter One
Piper Thomas grippedthe steering wheel of her seen-better-days car and took a couple of deep breaths. It didn’t help the nerves tying her stomach into knots.It’s only for one hour.One hour, once a year, for the last five years.How many more years do I have to go through this?
She peered along the tree-lined avenue, in one of the quieter London suburbs, at the house where she was expected in exactly two minutes time. Agonizing over it wasn’t going to make this any easier. Gerald and Barbara Hunter, the parents of her long dead boyfriend Colton, were waiting for her.
The mid-January weather was dull, windy and froze the marrow in her bones as she trudged through the melting snow. Her sister had told her a thousand times she needed to end this, and Piper knew that. She just couldn’t. As far as Gerard and Barbara were concerned, Piper was their future daughter-in-law that Fate, one black winter’s night, had snatched from them when Colton had wrapped a motorbike around a tree.
It wasn’t even his bike. But instead of blaming their golden-haired blue eyed boy for stealing it, they’d blamed Colton’s brother Mason, because the bike belonged to him.
She hesitated at the front gate, with its overhead arbor of winter-dead roses.Don’t think about Mason.He was everything Colton had never been. Their parents thought that was a bad thing.Sheknew different.
And it was something she’d take to the grave.
Sixty minutes.Of reliving those fleeting months when she’d been seventeen and dated Colton. Sixty minutes when she pretended she agreed with every glowing word they said about him. When inside her head she was screamingyou didn’t know what he was like.
And then the guilt would eat through her again.
The door opened. She steeled her nerves and pasted on her fake smile before looking up.
Jesus, no.Her heart slammed against her ribs as Mason stood there, looking just like he had the last time she’d seen him three years ago.No, he doesn’t look the same.He was bigger. His hair was shorter, like he’d been in the military and his black t-shirt stretched across his shoulders and pecs as though one false move and his muscles would come ripping through the fabric.
“Hey, Piper.” His sexy rumble reached deep inside, heating her way down low in the way only he’d ever managed. He didn’t smile, didn’t look especially pleased to see her, but then he never had.
“Mason.” She dredged up her fake smile from somewhere, relieved her voice sounded cool and collected even if she was falling apart inside. “How are you?”
Bloody hot.She ignored that thought and tried not to stare at his powerful biceps, or the intricate tattoos that had fascinated her from the first moment they’d met more than five years ago.
“I’m okay.” He stepped back to let her into the house and for one panicked second she almost turned tail and ran back to her car. An hour with his parents was bad enough. If Mason was there, it was going to be sheer torture.
“Piper, dear, is that you?” Barbara came into the hallway and opened her arms. There was nothing else for it. Piper stepped into the house and Mason’s body heat wrapped around her, stealing her breath and her legs wobbled.
For fuck’s sake…
Barbara hugged her and she heard the door shut behind her. But it wasn’t the cloying sweetness of the older woman’s perfume that filled her head. It was Mason’s woodsy cologne that invaded her senses and caused her nipples to tighten.
Barbara chatted away as she led her into the front room. Mason didn’t say a word, but Piper knew he followed them. She could feel his gaze boring into her back, as though his green eyes were lasers that could see right through the lie she showed the world.
She shrugged off her coat and Mason took it, his fingers brushing against hers. Electric sparks sizzled along her arm from the brief contact and she only just stopped herself from rubbing her hand over her black pants.Focus.
“Thanks.” She offered him another fake smile. It was either that or drool all over his boots. He gave her another of his unsmiling looks and combined with the dark stubble that shadowed his jaw, it was a miracle her knees didn’t give way.
Barbara ushered her onto the sofa and while Gerald brought in a tray of tea things, she surreptitiously glanced around the room. Nothing had changed. It was still a shrine to Colton, with framed photos of him accepting prizes at school, captaining the football team, and being accepted in his top choice university to study law.
She stole a sideways glance at Mason, who leaned against the doorframe like a malignant shadow.How can he stand it?There weren’t any photos of him in the room other than a couple from when he was a toddler.
Gerard handed out the tea cups, even giving one to Mason who accepted it as though it was a snake. From nowhere she remembered the first time she’d seen him. In this very room; and he’d been leaning against the doorframe, staring at her, while he tipped a bottle of beer down his throat.
A shiver inched over her arms and she took a hasty sip of tea. Why could she remember that so clearly, when it was hard to recall the very first time she’d met his older brother?
Barbara and Gerard droned on. She even felt guilty thinkingthat. But she’d heard all this so many times before. Her sister was right. She needed to finish this.
“What’re you up to now, Piper?” Mason’s voice cut through his parents’ reminiscences. For several seconds a shocked silence hung in the air, as though he’d just performed an unspeakable act. In a way he had. Piper couldn’t think of a single occasion when his parents had ever asked her that question since the night Colton had died.
“I,” she cleared her throat and resisted the urge to squirm. Mason’s undivided attention had always had that affect on her. No way was she telling him that even after five years she still hadn’t managed to pick up all the pieces of her life. “Oh, you know. Pretty busy. Nothing very exciting.”
*
Mason watched Pipertake a sip of tea after she’d basically told him to fuck off and mind his own.So why the hell don’t I?
