Page 52 of Hypnotized By Love

“Oh, no thank you. I’m not a fan of pain, and when I give birth, my happy place will be an IV bag full of drugs.”

He laughed and then said, “So you want kids?”

What a weird question. “Do you?”

“I do.”

An image flashed in my mind of a laughing toddler-age boy, with Mason’s light brown hair and light eyes, and I forcibly shoved it out.

“Me too,” I found myself saying. I had always thought that I’d be a mother someday. That seemed to make him strangely satisfied, so I added, “Not with you, though.”

Just in case he was getting any funny ideas.

I didn’t like the way things felt at the moment. Like we’d decided on something.

My face had been feeling flushed all night, but my internal temperature seemed to be increasing even more. Even though things were weird, I liked his smile and his annoyingly handsome face, so I found myself leaning over toward him and saying, “Mason, can I tell you a secret?”

“Anything.”

“I don’t actually think that you’re the devil.” It felt like a huge moment to admit that. “You can quote me and put that in your article. Which I think is big of me, considering how much you hate me.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” he said.

“It depends on whether or not you want me to remember it. You should know that my superpower is total drunken recall. I never forget anything I did or said while drunk.”

“As far as superpowers go, it’s not a great one.”

“Yep, I got screwed over that day!” I agreed. Especially since the average person very much wanted to forget everything they did while drunk. “What’s your superpower?”

Mason shot me a sexy grin that made my pulse jackhammer. “My boyish good looks.”

He wasn’t wrong.

He didn’t need to know that, though.

“So what’s your secret?” I prompted.

“My secret is that I don’t hate you, Sinclair. I never have.”

My lungs seemed to compress, and I had a hard time filling them back up with oxygen. He didn’t hate me? Then why else had he done what he did? I was very confused, and I was finding it harder and harder to focus. It didn’t help matters that we had apparently reached the losing-my-balance portion of the evening, which Mason seemed to notice.

“Are you doing okay?”

“I’m just feeling like I’m about to humpty-dumpty off of this barstool,” I confessed.

“Maybe don’t do that, because I hear horses are not good at putting people back together again.”

I laughed at that, even though it didn’t really make much sense. This felt like me and Mason again—telling each other silly things just to get a reaction. The way we’d been when we were younger.

It hurt my heart to remember it and how he’d ruined it.

“I think I should drive you home because I’m afraid if I leave you to your own devices, you’re going to end up on the news,” he said.

“Unlike your taste in women, that idea’s not half-bad,” I announced before taking a drink of water. He had been right about hydrating with a liquid that wasn’t amber colored.

It occurred to me that my tequila had been the same shade as Mason’s eyes. If I were sober, I wouldn’t have been taking that as some sort of ominous warning from the universe.

But it was concerning me now.

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