CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Brandon

MASON’S FACE IS STILL COMPOSED, but I can see something percolating under the surface. The welcoming, almost joking way he was speaking thirty seconds ago is gone. As he listens to the message I left for Riley before coming in, I can hear the loudest inflections in my own voice. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but two competing thoughts war for my attention while I’m watching Mason’s hard eyes.

First, it’s clear he doesn’t like what I said, seeing as I kept things more factual and less lovey than Bridget would have liked.

And second, I’m bothered that Riley isn’t hearing the message, and that sincerity I had to summon the courage to voice has been twisted to impale me.

“What is this?” he says.

Riley seems confused. She must know, from my death gaze, that the message is from me, not the banker she’s been waiting on. But she doesn’t know what I said. She might never know. And even if she does, those words will be tainted by what’s about to happen, and the fact that her father heard them first.

“I … ” Riley begins.

“I’m talking to you, Brandon.”

For a half second, I consider playing dumb. He’s listening to Riley’s phone, to a message left for his daughter, so how should I know what’s on there? But even if I didn’t begin the message with my name (I did), Mason isn’t stupid. He knows a voice when he hears it, just like he knows a guilty face when it’s right there in front of him.

“It’s nothing,” I say, knowing how lame I must sound.

“What about ‘the other night’? What happened ‘the other night,’ Brandon?”

“I just meant dinner.” Already, a nervous twitter in my voice might be betraying me. I don’t recall my exact words because I didn’t expect to find them under scrutiny. I could have left a vague message that conveyed my meaning without specifically saying damning things if I’d known Mason would hear it, but I didn’t. Silly me, I’d thought Riley would be the one to hear her own messages.

“Dinner.” He says the word like it weighs a thousand pounds.

“Yes.”

“That’s your honest answer.”

He’s missing part of the message while he talks to me, so suddenly my frantic mission is to keep his attention on me and away from what I said to Riley. It’s pointless, seeing as he can merely rewind and I doubt Riley will insist that he give it back, shocked as she seems. But it’s all I have.

“Yes.”

“Mmm. And what about dinner?”

I’m a wounded mouse next to a cat wanting to play. The way Mason’s looking at me, it’s clear he knows everything. Will I dig myself in deeper by trying to lie and play him as a fool? Have I already said something truly damning? Did I specifically say that we slept together? Oh, God … did I say where we did it — on the dark roadside, like animals?

My heart is beating in my temples. My fingers are starting to shake. Mason hasn’t raised his voice, but I feel like I’m being crushed. He’s just looking at me, but I want to run and hide.

“I … ”

Riley comes closer. “It’s not what you think,” she says, blowing any chance we had, if there ever was one.

“Funny how people only say that when it’s exactly what you’d think,” Mason says.

“It just happened. It … ” Riley trails off like I did. There’s no way to win this. Even the truth will dig the ditch deeper.

“It just happened,” Mason repeats. He looks at me. “So this is how you thank me. This is what happens when I leave you alone with my little girl.”

“I’m not a little girl, Daddy,” she says, inadvertently using words that make his point.

Mason turns to Riley. “And this is why you defended him.” His eyes squint, unpleasant realization piling atop unpleasant realization. To me, he says, “This is why you said all those things about her! Now I understand. Now I get it.”

“That’s not it at all,” Riley says.

“Is this how I taught you?”

“I’m a grown woman.”

“Is this how I raised you, Riley?” 

My breath catches at his semi-shout. His office door is open, and the blinds are drawn. Anyone in the outer office will be able to hear this. It’s not even private. Everyone will know. Everyone will think they understand us.

The ambitious man who decided to climb the ladder by climbing Mason’s daughter.

And the spoiled little rich girl who couldn’t resist her urges even with careers at stake.

“Keep your voice down, Dad,” she says, eyeing the door.

“This is my office. This is my company. Don’t tell me what to do.” He turns back to me. “Where did you go? You broke down. So where did you break down? A sleazy little motel?” His head shakes with baffled fury. “Is this why you were late to the meeting? You were too busy fucking my daughter?”

“Daddy!”

“And you,” he says, turning on her. “You could run around and do what you wanted. Whom you wanted. I’m not stupid. I know you’re a woman. I know I’m kidding myself if I still insist on seeing you as this virginal little girl in white, skipping around in a meadow of daisies. But I thought you had more sense than this.”

“He’s — ”

“He works for me, Riley! How long did it take? Tell me that? Did you know each other before you met here, in my office?”

“No!”

“Did you do it when I sent you out to the new land, too? Did you even survey it, or did you spend the whole morning rolling around on a blanket in the grass?”

“Of course not!”

Mason is pacing. “I knew something was going on. Even then. After that first day, when Margo sent you out. But it’d just been a goddamned day. Of course nothing would happen. I figured you were grown up enough that I didn’t have to keep tabs on you every second like I had to in high school. I — ”

“You don’t! And you didn’t have to in high school, either!” Tears of frustration form in Riley’s eyes. Her fists are balled. She looks seconds from becoming what Mason is accusing her of being: a petulant teenager, about to stomp her foot and start shouting.

“But that was how it started, wasn’t it? And then at dinner … ” Mason’s eyes flick to mine, and it’s as if he’s punched his fist through my skull. “You must think I’m a fool.”

“No! No, sir.” I hear the servility in my voice, but as angry as Mason is, servility only seems safe.

“I feel like an idiot. Not seeing it. Being played. You must have laughed when I suggested we all have dinner together. Were you planning all along to stay after? To … ”

It dawns on me what he must have realized — or thought he realized. I move to counter it, but countering too early will only make us both look guilty.

“That fake message. From the financiers. Did you have someone do that so I’d run off to the Hunt Club and leave you alone?”

“No!” Riley shouts.

But he’s glaring right at me. “Figure you’ll have a nice dinner on the old man’s tab, maybe? Then run off and take out your goddamned … ”

“No, Mason! That’s not what happened, I swear!”

“Don’t call me Mason!”

I flinch back. Somehow, that one hurts most of all.

“Get out of here,” he says.

I look at Riley.

“Don’t look at her. Me. Look at me. I’m telling you to get the hell out of my office.”

“Dad, we’re adults!” Riley says.

Mason looks at her, and there’s a moment where I think she’s said something profound — something that somehow, he never considered. Something that gets through to him and makes everything okay.

It’s true. We are adults. She’s twenty-two, and I’m twenty-seven. Not only is it insane for either of us to think that her father can tell her what to do; it’s also the kind of thing he’s due to realize for himself, and to let his girl grow up and make her own decisions.