She considers me carefully then shakes her head. “No, thank you.” She smiles. “I don’t deserve you, to have found you and to have fallen in love with you.”
Fuck! She has done her thing with the words falling out of her mouth and as endearing as I find that I am totally unprepared for her declaration of love, her admission that she has fallen for me. I know she is as shocked by those words as I am. Her shocked, scared expression confirms it. I know I should be reassuring her again, responding to it in a reciprocal way but I am speechless.
“Shit, Mason, I am sorry…”
I decide to follow her lead and not think or plan, but just do. My lips are crashing against hers while my hands are fisting through her messy up do that looks amazing, leaving her neck and ears exposed. God, I want to kiss her everywhere and then bite her soft, pale flesh until she is covered in my marks.
“I’m sorry,” she repeats when I eventually withdraw my tongue from licking and tasting her, but I am not ready to let her go, not yet, so drop my hands to rest on her hips while my lips come to rest on hers.
“Ssh, you don’t need to apologise, baby. I think I fell for you the second I set eyes on you dancing in that red lace dress. Now, are we going to a baby shower where you’ll meet my motley crew or are we going home to cement our love?”
We both laugh at the final cheesy comment I make but she still answers me.
“Motley crew, but if they hate me you need to take care of me.” She sounds nervous again.
“Deal, and you do the same for me when I have to meet your lot,” I say and instantly regret it when her face crumples again. “Olivia,” I stammer as she untangles herself from my hold and lap.
“I don’t have any. Come on, let’s go or we’ll be late and that’s rude.” She has lowered her voice, so it has an eerie flatness to it. She is either trying to shut conversation down or shut me out which really does concern me, but for now I let it go.
Pulling up in front of my mother’s house I realise I have fucked up again by not preparing Olivia for the grandeur that is the house we are about to enter.
The electronic security gates we entered and the drive we have just made our way up should have prompted me to point out that my mother is very rich and likes luxury, that she is married to an incredibly well off man who indulges her every whim.
“Mason, this is a mansion, not a house. I know you’re not exactly poor but I really wasn’t expecting this.”
I park next to Dec’s car. “It’s a house, a big house, but a house, no more. My mother is married to a very rich man, has been married to a succession of rich men—” I am interrupted by a strange expression on Olivia’s face as she looks past me towards the front door.
“What is she doing here? She’s rich too, but I had no clue your families were connected.”
“What?” I turn to where her eyes are fixed and understand as I too see the woman heading towards us and realise another oversight of mine. The woman is my mother and she, my mother, is Mrs Tyrell, she of theDante’s Infernosunroom.
That thought does remind me that I need to kick Christian’s arse into gear to sort it out because the more fraught my mother becomes about it the more fraught we all become, although Olivia could help her out.
“That’s Mrs Tyrell. I hope she doesn’t realise who I am and want me to smooth her pissed off feathers again,” Olivia says in her cute as fuck whispering voice, but before I can explain or respond at all my door is flying open and my mother is leaning in to kiss me.
“Sweetheart, we wondered where you’d got to. Everyone is here already.” She looks across at Olivia. “Hello dear,” she begins and then recognition registers. “You work for Christian, the receptionist. You were a friend of Ronaldo’s, Liv?” my mother queries but before Olivia can answer I do.
“Olivia, this is Olivia and yes she works for Christian and she was a receptionist, but she is actually an interior designer and is working on my office.” With an apologetic glance in my girl’s direction I introduce my mother. “Olivia, this is Charlotte Tyrell, my mother.”
I could cheerfully kick myself for not preparing her for the shock that my mother’s identity is judging by her stunned expression.
“Oh, Mrs Tyrell. I had no idea that you and Mason were related,” she says, already offering my mother an outstretched hand across my body while a slightly peeved sideways glance comes my way.
“He’s brought you all the way here and not told you about us all?” my mother asks with a smile to tone down her etiquette outrage. “I assure you he was brought up with better manners than that.”
“Shall we go in?” I am hoping to remove myself from being physically wedged between two disapproving women, especially when they are the two most important women in my life.
That thought is something of a shock to my system too, but the women are dispersing. I take a moment to get my bearings and watch Olivia get out of the car that she circles to stand before my mother who hugs her warmly and offers me a smile of approval.
“I’ll be a moment,” I tell them and while my mother links her arm through Olivia’s my girl shoots me another look, of thewhat the fuck, you’re supposed to be taking care of mekind, although that was if they hated her and so far no hatred has been noted.
I watch them stroll arm in arm to the door, my mother looking effortlessly elegant in her simple black Capri pants and cream twin set, complete with pearls and Livy dressed in the sexiest pair of slouchy boyfriend fit jeans I have ever seen; they cling to her hips and arse, but not so much that nothing is left to the imagination. The way they cup her curves, just hinting at her soft womanly shape is going to drive me mad all afternoon. The light blue marl t-shirt she is wearing is brand new, I saw her remove the tags this morning after our daily shower romp and yet it manages to look faded and worn in just the right way. For all that my mother’s elegance is effortless my girl’s sexiness is equally natural.
On her feet she is wearing a pair of flip-flops that have beads on, even her feet are sexy, small and delicate with her little nails painted in a pretty pink. I really do need to get a grip my inner voice tells me and although it might have a point if pretty pink nails are impacting on my life, I am regretting leaving the house today. Another weekend in bed would have been no bad thing I decide as Dec appears in front of me.
“Are you coming in? Olivia is being paraded around all the family members and seems to be struggling,” he tells me and the idea of her being uncomfortable shifts my mood and my arse.
“Has Mum shown her the sunroom yet?” I stifle a small snigger.
