“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.”
“And I love you. There’s not a doubt in my mind that you’re it for me. Don’t leave me. I love you, Nina, and I’m sorry. Let me make it right.”
“Mason—”
I step forward and slide my hands across either side of her face. “I’ll be the man you need me to be, I swear it. Don’t leave me again,” I beg, unashamed.
Her dainty hands wrap around my forearms with a tentative grip as if she is afraid to touch me. “You sold my studio.”
“I couldn’t have you involved. If what happened ever came out, and my girlfriend was renting the studio that the woman I blackmailed owned. Can you imagine how it would look?”
“This is ridiculous,” she mutters. “all of it.”
“I couldn’t risk it, Nina. I wasn’t willing to put you in that position. Baby, please.” I smooth my thumbs across her cheeks, knowing if she leaves now, it’s done. She won’t come back.
How do you live without the woman you love?
My father couldn’t do it, so why would I be any different.
“You have to stay.” I wet my lips and my eyes drift closed, feeling completely bared to her. “You’re my Pixie.”
THIRTY-TWO
Nina
My mother never begged me to stay. Not once. Most weeks, I’d leave to stay with Maggie and John, and she wouldn’t ever put up a fight. She wouldn’t tell me to stay or that she would try to be better. She let me go. Every. Single. Time.
I should leave him. I should protect myself and run far away. But I can’t. For the first time in my life, I want to plant my feet and throw myself into somebody else’s world. I want a home—a forever one.
“I don’t want you to help me buy a studio.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t want you buying me anything, period. It’s too much, and everything needs to be slower. We are moving a million miles an hour.”
“But you will live here?” He means it as a question, but he is telling me, his tone definite.
“I will live here because I chose to, yes. And I will contribute to the bills.”
He narrows his eyes at me. He doesn’t like that. “I only want to look after you.”
