“You don’t think I’m fucked up? Mase, I dream about the men who took my mother every night. I dream about wrapping my hands around their throats and squeezing until they can’t keep their eyes open and on me.” She throws her hands out to the side, shocking the shit out of me with her words. “I wanted it all with you. All the ugly parts. All I’ve ever wanted from you is you.”
My eyes close briefly as I absorb her words. The more she gives me, the more I know I don’t deserve her.
“I thought you’d run if I told you. I never thought it would bring you back to me.”
“I never said I was staying.” My chest aches as she utters the words.
I don’t know how to be without her anymore.
“I want to know everything,” she says. “About Cara, or Erin. Whatever her name is.”
I look past her and out the window. “Lance found out about the piano and knew we’d have to do something. I was freaked out about Marcus and hadn’t heard from Vinny. I knew I needed to go to work, but Elliot and Charlie would have known something was up, and I couldn’t have them finding out. Charlie wouldn’t have been able to live with it.”
“I think that was your first mistake.”
I nod in agreement with her. Maybe if I told him that day things wouldn’t have gotten so bad.
“Cara took the piano. She was smart, and she took something she knew I treasured and made sure I couldn’t find it.”
“The studio. You didn’t know it was there.”
“No, not until that day I came to you.” I give her my eyes, pleading with her to believe me. “Vinny looked into Cara. We found things.”
She looks off to the side, shaking her head. “Do you realise how disgustingly toxic it is that you prey into the lives of other people, Mason?”
She takes a deep breath in, and I can see how conflicted she is.
Wetting my lips, I continue, needing to get my side of the story across. “She has multiple, stolen identities. Vinny found a paper trail that allowed us to track her down. She blackmails men. Rich men specifically, using different identities to keep herself covered. Thousands of pounds stolen over the past seven years.”
“What?!”
“She would have done it to me, too, if it wasn’t for Lance. He threatened to expose her. We had more money between us and more connections. She didn’t have a choice but to listen. We sold her businesses, her home.” I swallow thickly, knowing how this all sounds. “Then I sent her to Australia and made sure she had nothing to come back to.”
“You made her leave?”
“I needed the control, Nina. She was blinded by greed and went willing. She doesn’t have a bad life, and I couldn’t have her here.”
Her face screws up in pain, and I avert my gaze, not being able to stomach that look. “I met her in a café. She told me she had to find a tenant within three weeks. She said her mother was ill.”
“Bullshit! Her mother lives here, and she begs to come home for that very reason. I didn’t know about the studio, Nina. I swear I didn’t. She put it in a different name, Erin O’Connor. It’s why I never found the piano before now.”
“So, you still pay her? To stay in Australia. Why?”
I don’t miss the disgust in her tone. “Lance never set her straight about what happened that night. It was easier to let her believe I was dangerous than risk her wandering around London thinking she had something on me, and I didn’t want to give her the advantage of knowing the truth. I took control of the situation when I could. I pay her way, and she keeps quiet. She stays in Australia, and I don’t go to every one of the businessmen she is blackmailing and expose her.”
“You threw money at it. Always money,” she whispers, her expression one of defeat.
“It was the only way. It was on me, and I couldn’t let it fall back on Vinny, Scott, and Lance. I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Mason. And yours somehow always comes down to the same thing. You’d be in prison without your wealth. You let it define you, but you are so much more.”
“We did what we thought was best in the moment. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
She shrugs, throwing her hands out to the side. “I don’t even know what to think anymore.”
“I can’t live without you,” I tell her, reaching for her hands.
Her face sours. “Don’t be ridiculous; it’s been a matter of months.”
