Page 108 of Hypnotized By Love

Then he was peppering my jawline with butterfly kisses. “Do you love this?”

I nodded. “I do love it. And you.”

Then he kissed me on the lips, locked into place with me for a long time. When he pulled away, he asked, “What about that?”

This time I was the one to look deep into his eyes, to show him how much I adored him, how this was where I most wanted to be in the whole world. I brushed my lips gently against his and then said, “I love you the most.”

EPILOGUE

Six months later ...

Mason refused to tell me where we were going. I had forgotten how big he was on surprises, another fun fact I got to be reminded of while we’d been dating. He wasn’t a big-romantic-gesture kind of guy—but he was the type who always surprised me with flowers and told me he loved and adored me every chance he got. It turned out that those little acts of service and reassurance were my love languages, and he happened to be fluent in them.

I had decided to take a semester off school, as I was figuring out whether or not I wanted to continue. Mason had told me he’d support me either way, and I knew that was true. My hypnosis practice had taken off to such a degree that I had to add another hypnotist to help me with the workload. It was a good problem to have, and I was glad that I had taken the time off so that I could focus on building the business that I loved.

Mason would constantly tell people about my job and how good I was at it. He made it so that I didn’t feel quite so embarrassed about it. Even when people did give me funny looks, he was there to whisper in my ear that their opinions didn’t matter because he thought I was amazing.

It turned out that this was all I really needed. The confidence and love of a man who had been made for me.

Things had been going well professionally for him, too. Mason found another outlet willing to print a positive take on hypnosis, and someone did a video about the article, and it exploded all over social media. Which led to him getting tens of thousands of followers and having a much bigger platform. He finished up the novel he was working on about twin sisters who switched places to commit the perfect murder, and it went to auction. His new publisher had promised to put all of their marketing might behind him, and I just could not have been prouder of him.

“Where have you brought me?” I asked him, as it had started to get dark and was relatively cold for Florida. That only meant, like, seventy degrees for us, but it was cold enough that I had to wear a sweater. He parked the car and turned the engine off.

“Before you get out, you have to put this on,” he said and held up a blindfold.

I raised my eyebrows at him, and he laughed.

“Come on,” he said. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Yes, I trust you,” I said in an exasperated tone. “I never should have admitted that to you.”

“Probably not,” he agreed cheerfully. “Turn around.”

I did as he asked, and he put the blindfold on and told me to stay put. I heard him get out of the car and run around to the other side and open my door. He reached in to help me get out and tucked his arm through mine. “This way.”

“If this winds up someplace weird, I’m leaving,” I told him.

“I’m the one who drove,” he reminded me. “I have the keys, so you won’t get very far.”

“That’s what you think. I can walk. I’m not the one who is afraid of alligators.”

He kept me tucked close to his side, which was where I always wanted to be. We hadn’t gone a single day without seeing one another since I’d climbed in his bedroom window to apologize.

“How is Sierra doing?” he asked.

“She’s almost got all the money she needs to qualify for her own condo. She’s hoping to get one down on Harper Street so that she’ll be close to the beach. And apparently her real estate agent is pretty cute, and so she’s been flirting with him a bit. He seems like a nice guy.”

I knew what Mason was doing. He was distracting me so that I wouldn’t figure out where we were. Because I was going to start asking questions and looking down through the bottom of my blindfold. It was clever of him.

“And Bridget?”

“She’s still dating the same guy. It’s been two months now! We’re not sure if she’s in love with him or if he’s emitting some kind of pheromone that keeps her from looking at anyone else.” Bridget being in a committed relationship was throwing all of us for a loop, her most of all.

After Mason had extended me forgiveness for my boneheaded mistake, it felt wrong not to give it to Bridget in return. After a few weeks, I called and asked if we could all start hanging out again, and we did. Bridget, Sierra, and I met up for our daily coffee chats again, and it felt like nothing had changed between us.

“What about Bridget’s mom?”

The funniest thing about his plan was that he already knew all this information and was just having me repeat it to keep me from asking him questions. “She just qualified for a clinical trial, and they have high hopes for it. Are you going to ask me about Vivian next just to distract me?”

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