Page 12 of Meet Mason, the Billionaire

“So,” I said. “What did you have planned for us?”

He gestured at the sidewalk. “I was going to suggest a movie, but then we couldn’t really talk. How about a walk instead?”

Normally, I would think a guy was trying to be a cheap date with a line like that. With Mason though, it sounded so very natural.

“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “Let’s take a walk.”

He offered me his hand, and for a moment I felt anxious about taking it.

Stupid! He’s already stuck his dick in you. Holding his hand is hardly an escalation from that.

I took his hand, big and powerful and warm, and felt my pulse quicken.

This is—this is—

This isn’t so bad.

Chapter Six

Mason

The breeze off the ocean cooled and freshened the city streets, scrubbing them free with an invisible brush. The fading sunlight stretched long shadows across our path, like the fingers of giants doing shadow puppetry.

I found myself enthralled with the woman beside me. Megan’s unique perspectives on life in general and art specifically kept me guessing.

We stopped at a sidewalk cafe to rest our feet and a quick bite to eat. I sipped on an espresso, a half-eaten biscotti in front of me, giving her an incredulous stare.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I shook my head, face split in a grin. “There is no way that a banana duct-taped to the wall is art.”

“Oh, I beg to differ.” She leaned on her elbows on the thick tablecloth covering the wrought iron table. Her eyes danced with challenge. “It IS art, and I should know. I’m kind of the expert witness here.”

“True, I have an MBA and not an art degree.” I cocked an eyebrow. “But surely one doesn’t have to have an arts education to understand what makes art, well, art?”

“I’m not being elitist, I swear.”

She sipped her tea, then doffed her felt hat and set it on a protruding knob on the back of her chair. The wind stirred her midnight black hair, and it was hard not to be mesmerized by the way it caught the dying sun’s rays in a cascade.

“I’m just saying that when you look at this picture—” She turned her phone so I could see the pic of a banana literally duct-taped to a wall. “—what you see, and how you feel about it, is where the art happens.”

“Well, I look at it and I just want to laugh. Mockingly.”

She grinned, stirring her iced tea, agile fingers gripping a thin swizzle.

“Then that’s how the art affected you. Someone else might look at the banana, and how it’s starting to blacken, and see the piece as a commentary on the temporary, fragile nature of existence. Still, another might see an absurdist juxtaposition of our consumer-driven culture.”

I leaned forward, fascinated. I’ve been around a lot of smart people in my time—Stan the Man has a genius-level IQ, for example, though he seldom showed it—but I could say without a shadow of a doubt that Megan was the most intelligent of them all.

My mind saw things from several sides. She saw things from dozens, if not hundreds of sides, finding permutations and specifics which I hadn’t even dreamed of.

“I stand corrected. I suppose that it really is art after all.”

I toasted her, acknowledging her win physically.

She gave a little bow.

“Art can take so many different forms. It’s elitist to think that it can’t.” Her eyes grew a bit darker. “You know, Hitler was an art student, right?”

“Yes, I’ve heard that. Apparently not a very good one.”

---