Reluctantly,I left the opera house, feeling like I’ll leave behind a part of my soul forever. I curl into Mason’s side as we walk back to our hotel, knowing I will never get to experience it ever again in the same way.
The memory of this evening will be engraved in my mind for a lifetime.
“Mase?”
“Hmm,” he hums into my hair.
“Thank you. You have no idea how much this all means to me.”
“Maybe you can show me.” He smiles deviously down at me.
“You have to makeloveto me first, Bossman.”
“I have a lifetime for that. Tonight, I want to fuck you.”
My mouth drops open, and I slap his arm playfully. “Mase, how can you be so romantic and then that?”
“Forgive me,” he murmurs, taking my lips in a heated kiss and moaning against them.
We come to a standstill on the pavement, lost in the moment.
I go to pull away but he palms my cheek, pulling my bottom lip down with the pad of his thumb. “Forgive me at my worst and I will love you at yours.”
“I thought you said I was perfect,” I say, biting the pad of his thumb.
“Then I watched you dance,” he deadpans.
“Oh my god, Mase!” I step back in shock from his words.
His head drops back, and he laughs so freely it makes my heart soar. I’ve never seen him so carefree.
“Baby, I’m joking. You were unlike anything I have ever seen before. I wish the whole world could have watched you on that stage, but now it’s solely my memory, and that means the world to me.”
I roll my eyes, pulling him by the lapels and onto my waiting mouth.
* * *
I feelemotional as the plane starts to glide down the runway; my memories of Paris locked away in a special part of my heart. Mason is on his laptop catching up with everything he missed on Friday afternoon in the office.
I’ve been sat watching him for the last half an hour, unable to focus on anything but him.
Yet the farther we get from the hotel suite, and as the plane hurtles down the runway, my life back in London, the reality that will forever keep me on my toes, it screams at me.
My mother, the showcase, and my possible father situation. It’s everything I allowed myself to forget this weekend, and now I have to go back and face it before it drags me down.
“Nina.”
My eyes find his dark ones, and the promise they hold would be enough, but he doesn’t care, choosing to slay my woes with his words. “I promised you forever. I’m here. Always—no matter what.”
I nod my head, not knowing how else to express what his declaration means to me. His key sits in my purse, and for the first time in forever, I feel excited about something that I haven’t earned myself.
He sees me coming and snaps his laptop closed, placing it on the seat next to him as I crawl into his lap. For the first time in my life, someone wants to shield me, protect me, and I believe it.
I believe him.
* * *
Mase
