Restraint (Mason Family 1)

I roll my eyes again—this time, at myself. The excitement in her voice has worked its way through the phone and into my veins. I fidget as I try to put together a proper response.

“We had lunch today,” I say. “I’m just curious.”

“Oooh.”

“Sienna.”

She sighs. “Let me love this, Blaire. Please? I’m supposed to love this.”

“There’s nothing to love.”

“But there is. You don’t know how this works, obviously.” She sighs again for effect. “See—when you call a girlfriend and bring up a hot guy, that means you’re interested or there’s a story there. It’s your way of bringing the item to the table. So, my job, as your girlfriend, is to be excited for you. Or to be ready to throttle him, but I don’t think that’s the direction this conversation is going to go. Is it?”

The end of her question is loaded with innuendo. It’s clear she’s giddy over the idea of something happening between her childhood crush and me. And by the smile spreading across my cheeks, it would be clear to her—if she could see me—that I am a little bit happy too.

“He is hot, isn’t he?” I ask.

She laughs. “Yes. He so is. Now tell me all the things.”

I pace in a circle and attempt to slow down my thoughts. “My building in Chicago has asbestos, and I can’t get back in for a week or so.”

“And …”

“And I could stay with you and Walker.”

“Of course.”

“I was thinking about staying with Nana, but if she’s ….” I wince. “I’m not staying with Nana.”

She pauses, letting the silence work between us before speaking. “No, you’re not. You’re staying with Holt.”

I suck in a quick breath. “Well …”

“Blaire!” she shrieks. “You are? I mean, I was just throwing shit at the wall and hoping something stuck. You’re going to stay with him?”

“I don’t know,” I say, rushed. “I’m not sure. He offered to let me stay with him, and I’m thinking about it. I just don’t know a lot about him and wanted to at least … explore the possibility, I guess.”

She giggles. “Say yes.”

“You’re not thinking clearly, Sienna.”

“Oh, but Blaire—I am,” she says with exaggerated sincerity. “He’s from a great family. Smart. Kind. He’s funny and always smells amazing, and I know he’d show you a good time—in any way you might want to take that.”

She drones on and on about Holt’s virtues, but I stop listening. Mostly because my mind starts imagining what it might be like to actually be in his home.

I pretend to say yes and allow that decision to sit in my stomach. I close my eyes as Sienna veers away from Holt and onto the virtues of getaways and try to see what it feels like to take him up on his offer.

And strangely, it feels good. Fun. Exciting. Those are three things that are a bit foreign to me but tap pleasantly through my veins.

“Are you listening to me?” Sienna asks.

“Yes. I should agree to his proposal. I hear you.”

“Yes, you should. So … are you?”

Am I?

While the idea has nested itself in my psyche, I’m still not positive. Rushed judgments tend to lend themselves to trouble, and I know better. I need to think clearly.

“Maybe. I’m going to think about it for a while first. Good decisions come after a lot of thought.”

“Well, good experiences come from impulsive decisions, so don’t think about it too much.”

“You’re crazy,” I say with a chuckle. “I gotta go, Sienna. Talk to you soon.”

“Don’t overthink this!”

“Goodbye, Sienna.”

“Ugh. Fine. Bye.”

I end the call.

Twelve

Holt

“I can move this building here and change the interior concept,” Wade says, moving his finger across the paper on my desk, “but it will be an engineering nightmare.”

My chair squeaks as I rock backward and take in Wade’s point.

“Oliver said Landry won’t agree to sell until we demonstrate our intent with the property,” he continues. “Ollie tried to gloss over it as best as he could, but Landry wanted visuals.”

I tear my eyes away from the design and look at my brother. “With this version, we still have hotel space, two restaurants—”

“Three.”

“Okay. And some office space too, correct?”

“Correct.” Wade takes off his glasses and sighs. “Boone has been working his ass off, believe it or not—”

“Or not,” I mutter.

Wade grins. “I’m confident we have solid interest in all the spaces except for the retail section on the east end. If you can get Landry to sell the land to us, we can start securing merchants and investors. It will make us a motherfucking fortune.”

And if we don’t get him to sell to us, it might cost us everything.

I sigh. “I know.”

I push my chair the rest of the way back and get to my feet. My right hand clasps against the back of my neck where the muscles are rigid. As I work my neck back and forth, my thoughts veer from Wade’s monologue on architectural symmetry to Blaire.