The Price of Mason (Forbidden Men 10)

Cursing under my breath, I pushed open my door and stepped into the warm, stifling night.

“Good evening, Mason,” her voice came through the dark from the direction of that glowing cigarette. “Coming in kind of late, aren’t you? The Country Club closed nearly two hours ago.”

There was a teasing quality in her voice.

“Fuck you,” I said mildly, keeping a steady pace toward my back door and not even bothering to glance her way. Nothing she said could rattle me anymore.

That was, until she laughed and said, “What? Are you still upset over crying out the wrong name when you were with Monica tonight?”

I didn’t mean to miss a step but I totally stumbled over my own fucking clumsy feet.

And Patricia saw it all.

Dammit, I should’ve known the client tonight—Monica, or whatever her name was—would’ve already contacted Patricia and told her everything… Petty, vindictive Patricia who liked to gather information about me like weapons so she could find some way to hurt me with them.

Knowing I was already fucked and that she’d already seen my stumbling reaction and knew how bothered I was, I straightened myself and kept walking as if she hadn’t just shoved my entire world on its axis.

Patricia’s laugh followed me through the dark. “You know I’m going to find out who Reese is, don’t you, baby? You can’t hide a girlfriend from me forever.”

I was tempted to hiss, “Good luck with that,” but responding to her could only make things worse. It would probably present her with a challenge, feed her power trip, make her think Reese was important to me, and most likely land Reese in hot water right alongside me. So I kept my trap shut and continued inside at a normal pace so she couldn’t perceive any other reaction from me. But fuck, fuck, fuck. I had a bad feeling I’d already buried my sister’s new babysitter in a whole world of problems anyway.

I wished I had never learned her name. If I hadn’t learned it, I wouldn’t have been able to say it at the worst possible moment ever, and she never would’ve been placed on Patricia Garrison’s radar. This was my fault.

I went straight to the back bathroom and stripped, needing these clothes off me as soon as possible. Stepping into the shower, I turned the water to scorching hot and scalded my guilt and shame off my flesh with as much heat and soap as I could stand.

By the time I shut off the water, there was a good chance I had first-degree burns, but my nerves had calmed enough that I could convince myself I was probably just being paranoid and overreacting. Just because I’d said one single name and turned down one single client didn’t mean it was the end of the world. My family was still safe. Hell, the babysitter was probably still safe. It would take the two rich, powerful, vindictive hags I’d crossed tonight too much energy to mess with them. This would blow over. Everything would be okay. I was worrying for nothing.

Except, as I opened the shower door and reached for a towel to wrap around my waist, I still felt jittery. Tonight had sucked in more ways than one. I wanted to know how Monica—or whatever her name was—had so easily drawn me into her play world. Why had I let the offer to pretend she was Reese tempt me so thoroughly? So instantly?

I’d had exactly four encounters with Glowing Girl—three that she even knew of—and all of them probably lasted less than five minutes put together. I knew nothing about her, except that she apologized to inanimate objects, defended strangers when they were teased, and ran into a shit load of things. That might tell me a couple things, but it certainly shouldn’t have pulled me into the role-play it had tonight.

God. Was I just that desperate for something different and fresh and new that I’d thrown all caution to the wind and attached my interest to some girl I knew shit about?

That was just pathetic.

I was pathetic.

I looked at myself, and all my pathetic-ness gazed back, trying to apologize to me with a sorry, regretful gaze. No longer able to face myself, I bowed my head, gripped the edges of the sink, and squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to God I hadn’t fucked up some poor, completely innocent girl’s life as much as I’d already fucked up my own by merely saying her name.

When a gasp came from behind me, I jerked my head up, not expecting anyone to be awake. For some reason, the only person I thought it could be was my mom. Sarah usually had too much trouble transferring herself from her bed to her chair by herself to get up in the middle of the night and wander around, so I naturally assumed Mom. But when I met neither the gaze of my sister nor my mother in the mirror’s reflection, I yelped, “Shit!” and whirled around.

Reese, the glowing girl babysitter, leaped a step back, gaping at me from huge blue eyes as her gaze darted and skipped, taking in everything she saw…which was me wearing nothing but a towel around my waist. And most bizarre of all, she was holding a freaking doll.

Why the hell was she holding a limp doll?

She looked so young and innocent and shocked. It was the opposite of what I’d come to know and loathe from my clients. So it appealed to me on every level. My body instantly reacted, heating and hardening.

In an attempt to hide my reaction and the possibility of anything poking from the front of my towel, I grabbed the waistline and bunched the terry cloth within my fist, so the rest would ripple and help conceal any other possible lumps that might want to protrude.

Then I instinctively grabbed the door that was hanging half open, cursing myself for never having fixed the damn latch.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded before I even knew what I was going to say.

She wasn’t supposed to be here. Mom should’ve gotten home hours ago. Plus, I already felt shitty enough about possibly dragging her into my problems with my landlady; seeing her only ratcheted the guilt up more.

Being half naked in front of her didn’t exactly make me all that comfortable either. I was used to playing a role when my clothes were off, acting out the part. I had no clue how to be real—how to be me—at a time like this.

“I…I’m babysitting,” she answered in a small voice as if she were afraid I was going to cuss her out, making me realize I hadn’t been very gentle with my question. Shit, I was really raking in the mistakes tonight, wasn’t I?