Page 63 of Hypnotized By Love

That made me stand up in alarm. “Tell Mom I’m not feeling well.”

“I’m not going to lie to our mother. Especially as you stand there on your healed ankle.”

I coughed. “Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

“I’m an actual nurse. You think I don’t know a fake cough when I hear it? You know Mom will come up here and drag you downstairs if she has to. I just wanted to give you a heads-up so that you could mentally prepare or whatever. You can’t fight with him in front of Mom and Heather. It will make them upset.”

She was right—it would.

“I have to get changed,” I said, running over to my closet. I’d been lounging around in pajamas because I was resting, and my casual attire had made it so that my dad had called me Sierra no less than three times already.

“Why would you need to get changed?” she asked as she flopped onto my bed and picked up the fantasy book I had been reading. “You don’t like him.”

“I need ... to look nice.” I didn’t know how to explain it, but I wasn’t going to let him see me looking like this. I started pushing hangers aside, trying to find something that would work.

“Gotta get that armor on, right?” she asked.

I quickly changed, as I didn’t know how much time I had. I had gone over to my mirror and pulled my hair up, intending to do a French twist, when I heard Mason’s voice.

“Knock, knock.” He stood in my doorway holding a bunch of flowers. Heat started to prickle along the back of my neck.

“Who’s there?” Sierra responded playfully.

He shook his head. “I don’t have anything prepared for that.”

“Even that’s funnier than Savannah’s joke. I said, ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’ and her response was ‘Sidney Poitier.’”

Mason started laughing.

I put a hand over my stomach. We used to watch old movies together all the time, especially ones that he had watched with his grandfather before he passed away. Of course Mason would get it.

Sierra shot me a you’re-so-made-for-each-other look before she stood up. “I’m going to go see if Mom needs help.”

I wanted to tell her to stay because I didn’t want to be alone with Mason Beckett in my bedroom.

She smiled at him as she left, and he walked into my room, uninvited. “Fall off any good trellises lately, Sinclair?”

Despite what my sister had told him, he wasn’t funny. I glared at him, but he didn’t get the message. Instead he looked around, taking everything in. “Just like I remember.”

I didn’t respond, because him being so close was making it a bit hard to breathe. All I could think about was how much I’d embarrassed myself the last time we were alone together. Then I reminded myself that if the wrong person saw us together, I could kiss my job goodbye, and I summoned up all the hate I had for him.

It was necessary to keep him away.

Mostly to remind me to behave.

Because as much as I had wanted to dismiss it as a drunken impulse, I still really wanted to kiss him.

I was clearly deranged.

“It looks pretty down,” he said, and it took me a second to realize he was talking about my hair, which I hadn’t finished styling. So I put it up into a ponytail, using the scrunchie on my wrist.

Not how I would normally do it, but it was better than him thinking I was leaving it down for him.

“Who are those for?” I asked, pointing at the flowers he was carrying.

“Maybe they’re for you. Maybe I’m wooing you.”

That set off internal sirens just as loud as the fire alarm in my office had been. “Woo somewhere else. You’re not allowed to woo. Your woo is being cut off.”

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