“Is it cynicism? Or is it realism?” she asks. “Mason, I like you and I do believe your version of events with Arianna, but trust, unconditional, believe every word you tell me trust isn’t necessarily healthy I don’t think, I know. It can be destructive and abusive.”
I am beyond stunned by the words leaving her mouth now. Where the fuck have these messed up in the head ideas come from? She has issues, clearly, but what issues and why? I resist the temptation to question her further, not that I’d get very far, she tells me as much in her next comment.
“We have a connection, but I have known you less than a week and your ability to deliver mind blowing orgasms is not enough to make me open up and serve myself up on a silver platter for you.”
“What the fuck,” I say with a start.
“I believe you. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be here, but I know that if there was something you didn’t want me to know you might avoid telling me, or cherry pick the details and I don’t know you well enough to be able to say that I trust you to do what is in my best interests ahead of your own, not yet.”
“Not yet?” A grateful smile I could cheerfully punch myself for spreads across my face.
“Not yet,” she confirms. “And the unconditional, unquestioning trust is unlikely to ever come because I know the flip side of that.”
“You’ll have to tell me what that means eventually.” I mean it, although for me eventually needs to be sooner rather than later.
“Maybe, but not after less than a week, not tonight, nor tomorrow, nor anytime soon,” she says firmly making me realise that I might need to pick my battles with this woman.
“Fair enough.” I try to sound convincing.
“Why did your marriage end?” she asks causing me to choke on my wine which only serves to amuse her. “This is us talking.” She giggles as I attempt not to lose wine down my nose.
“Funny.” I smile at the flickering amusement in her eyes. “I told you that we dated for a year before we married but it was probably a mistake for us to remain together romantically never mind marry.” I’m surprised that I find it so easy to be this honest and open with a woman who openly admits to not trusting me. That is going to piss me off and become an irritant, I can feel it already.
“So why did you?” Her question is blunt but there’s no judgement in her voice.
“Fuck knows.” My reply making her laugh again. “You really do have a sexy laugh,” I seem to announce making her arch her brows at me.
“Are you trying to seduce me Mr Harding?” she asks, flirtatious suddenly.
“Constantly, and what is with the Mr Harding?” I ask but like it.
“I’m practising for Monday.” She grins, emptying her glass before replacing it on the table.
“Monday?”
“Mmm, I don’t want to slip up and start calling you Mason, or Mase, otherwise I may forget where we are and start begging you to do dirty things to me.”
I roar with laughter at her coy words,dirty thingsand yet I am unsure whether I prefer them to her begging to be fucked.
“You have no idea just how close you are to dirty things right now.”
Her face is conflicted at my comment. She is turned on. I can read her like an open book and yet something seems to be holding her back.
“We can finish talking first,” I assure her.
“Okay,” she agrees hesitantly and then clarifies her previous inner battle. “I am kind of uncomfortable.” She flushes and explains further. “Sore.”
“Ah,” I reply with a smug smile knowing exactly how she got that way and see that she is crimson now. “Do you want me to tell you about my marriage then?”
“Please.”
I explain, well at least in an edited way how Arianna and I met through the company she was running, one I was buying; that she was a little older and that we immediately hit it off and began dating but it later transpired that about a year into it we both felt it was a great friendship with benefits but no more. Unfortunately, by that time I had proposed, she’d accepted, and the wedding was planned, so we went ahead with it. The relationship, the friendship side of it remained solid, going from strength to strength but the marriage was flailing and ultimately had been from day one. Eighteen months into the marriage, on a holiday, a cruise where there was no escape we both got drunk and admitted our feelings, then seeing that we were on the same page we fucked like bunnies for the next two weeks at sea and filed for divorce as soon as we hit home soil. I omitted that final part in my Olivia edit other than the divorce part.
“So, you’re friends and colleagues then, no benefits?” She refuses another glass of wine.
“Nope. She met Russ about three months after we filed for divorce and married him within a year of our divorce being final and they’ve been married for, three years?” I ask of myself, thinking it must be that long.
“You get on with him?” Although I don’t make a habit of sharing this much information so quickly for fear of having to deal with women’s insecurities, I like Olivia’s need for reassurance that there is no beef between me and Russ and that Arianna and I are done.
