Page 85 of Tempted Hearts
His gaze sharpened. Not defensive. Not annoyed. Just honest.
“Not anymore,” he said. “Not for a long time.”
The words landed exactly where I expected them to.
“Right,” I said.
“I don’t want to pretend otherwise,” he added. “That never ends well.”
Neither does hoping it’ll change, I thought. I didn’t say it.
“I’ll head back Thursday night,” he continued. “Back to meetings and deadlines and a calendar that doesn’t care what I want.”
I smiled because it felt easier than saying what I was actually thinking. “Sounds glamorous.”
He let out a quiet laugh. “It’s not. Just a bunch of stuffy, self-important professors who think far too highly of themselves. Not one of us is curing cancer.”
I asked him about his work, what his research focused on, and we talked until it felt like the right time to leave.
And somehow, the normalcy of breakfast made everything feel heavier instead of lighter.
32
COLE
“Does Parker know you’re here?” Mason asked as he strode into the kitchen.
I was already showered and changed, pulling a handful of water bottles from the fridge. When I was in town, I stayed in the house portion of Heritage Hill, separate from the guest rooms. This kitchen felt more like home than my real one ever had.
“Why do you ask?”
As a former Army Ranger and NYPD cop, very little got past Mason. He gave me a look that saidexactly why do you think?I didn’t bother answering.
“Do you have a small cooler around here or something?”
Without a word, he crossed to a cabinet and tossed a padded cooler in my direction.
“He’s not happy.”
I assumed as much.
“What do you want me to say? We’re both adults.”
I started packing the water bottles. When Mason sat on a stool at the center island, I knew I was screwed. This was not a casual check in.
This was an interrogation.
Mason style.
“I have to agree with him on this one.”
I glanced at my phone. Plenty of time before I needed to pick her up. Not how I wanted to spend it.
“Look, Mace?—”
“Don’t give me some cracked-out line about knowing what you’re doing and not hurting her or whatever else you were about to say,” he cut in. “It’s me. The guy who was in your exact situation a year ago and knows how this ends.”
The parallels hadn’t escaped me.
