Page 79 of Hypnotized By Love

“You asked.”

“You told me to ask you.”

He really needed to go, but instead he said, “You didn’t have to. You’re not being mind controlled, either.”

“Go home,” I told him and started to close the window. I had just finished shutting it all the way when my dad knocked on my door and said my name.

I ran over to my bed and pulled the covers up. “Come in!”

My dad opened the door and stuck his head in. “Are you doing okay? I know you hate power outages.”

This one hadn’t been so bad. “I’m fine.”

“I thought I heard a loud thud.”

When I’d pushed Mason off me. “Oh, I rolled out of bed. But I’m okay, though.”

“Good. Well, I’ll be in my room if you need me. I’m turning in. Good night.”

He closed my door, and I kicked my blanket off, lying like a starfish as I tried to cool my overheated body down.

I thought of what Mason had said when he was leaving. That I wasn’t being mind controlled.

That was the problem. I felt like I was. As if I had no free will when he showed up and couldn’t keep him at arm’s length.

And I had no idea how to move forward.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

When I got home from work the next day, Sierra was waiting for me in my room.

This couldn’t be good. I wondered if she knew—if her best buddy, Mason, had told her that we’d made out in my bed. Although given that I had imagined it so many times as a teenager, part of me had started to wonder if I’d made the whole thing up, like it was some kind of realistic fever dream.

My twin sister announced, “I have solved all of your problems!”

She knew a way to get me to stop kissing Mason?

But that was not her solution. She said, “You’re going on a date with Mason.”

That didn’t solve anything. “What?”

“So last night at the silent auction, I was the top bidder for his writing package. And I made a very big deal about winning, going around and telling everyone that I, Sierra Sinclair, was the winner.”

She said this in a way that made it sound like I should know exactly what she meant, but I still wasn’t getting it. “And?”

“And you go on the date as me. Nobody can tell us apart, and everybody at that event knows that I was the highest bidder, so you can spend time with him and keep your job.”

To be fair, he and I could just continue sneaking around like we had been, and as long as we didn’t tell anybody else, I wouldn’t get in trouble with the Board. “That’s not really enough of a reason to—”

She cut me off. “You can go talk to him without all of the issues that come with being you. No baggage. Give him the info as someone else, and see what he says. He might have a reason to lie to you—I don’t think he would lie to me.”

“That sounds like a healthy plan.” I said it more sarcastically than I’d meant to and immediately apologized. “I’m sorry. The heat and my personality make me rude sometimes. Plus, Mason just puts me on edge.”

In more ways than one.

“This is what you said you wanted. In the hospital. To go on a date with him without any of the baggage.”

“It’s not a date, though. It’s him helping out with my—I mean,your—writing. But you don’t write. Neither do I.”

---