Beauty and the Billionaire

“I just want out of this,” I tell the lawyer. “I want nothing to do with it. I’m not going to talk to anyone, I just want to—”

“Get out,” Johnson B. Witherton VI, Esq., who had previously been so nice to me, says. Maybe nice wasn’t the word, but he wasn’t this hostile when he was bragging about getting me into the pee room.

“John, please,” mom says.

“It’s fine, really,” I say. “You guys have a fun trip to Uruguay. Let me know if you’re going to be extradited back home and I’ll come visit you at whichever white-collar resort they send you to.”

Before anyone utters another ridiculous syllable, I open the car door and get out.

The door’s barely closed before Johnson peels out of his spot, though given the space between the rows, he has to stop again just as quickly and make a three point turn to get pointed in the right direction.

I really don’t think that’s the guy I’d choose to be my lawyer, but what do I know?

Now comes the thing I’ve really been dreading: I pull my phone from my pocket and dial Mason’s number.

When I was coming out of the jail, I considered telling the lawyer that I already had a ride and call Mason to come pick me up. It was more a fantasy than a real plan, though.

Whatever he feels about Chris being locked up, there’s no way it’s going to go over well that I’m already out on bail while Mason’s brother sits remanded. Town’s five miles away, though, and I’d just really like to get as far away from this building and this parking lot as possible.

Chapter Nineteen

La Petit Mort

Mason

This is so stupid.

I was trying to get some kind of answer out of the clerk at the city jail when Ash called. I guess I should have figured they’d take her to county.

I’m about half a mile away from the same building my brother’s locked up in, and my knuckles are white as I grip the wheel. He’s there on remand and Ash is out the same day.

I’m not mad at her, though.

When I get close enough to the county jail to see into the parking lot, I immediately spot Ash sitting on a low concrete barrier. Her shoulders hunch forward a little as I can see her letting out a deep breath.

I pull up in front of her and unlock the doors to the car. She gets in.

“Hey,” she says. “Thanks for coming to get me. I’m sure you’re sick of this place by now.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I wasn’t just going to leave you here, though.”

“Mason, I want to start by telling you that—” she starts, but I interrupt her.

I tell her, “Let’s just get you home and then we can go from there. You must’ve had a pretty rotten day.”

“You can say that again,” she says.

I wonder if Chris is having a worse one or if he’s already conned the people in his cellblock into thinking he’s everyone’s best shot at getting out early. That seems like the kind of thing he’d do to make friends in there. Of course, his inability to get out of there when someone finally catches on might have him behaving very differently.

“It’s kind of weird that they have both men and women in there,” Ash says. “I think we’re on different halves of it, but still, don’t they usually break that sort of thing into gender?”

“I really don’t know,” I tell her.

She bites her bottom lip and turns toward her window.

It’s a quiet drive.

We get to my house and we’re barely through the front door when Ash starts, “It’s always been like this. As long as I can remember, they’ve been pulling something and I’ve never seen either of them take sincere responsibility for anything.”