Page 85 of Hypnotized By Love

Celebrating our half birthday was something Sierra and I used to do. We didn’t always like having to share our birthday, so every year we would switch off who got to celebrate our half birthday as their own special day.

We hadn’t done it since high school.

But Mason had remembered.

“This is really sweet,” I told him.

“That’s just the kind of guy I am,” he said. “Make a wish.”

I didn’t make just one wish.

I wished for things I couldn’t have. To be able to go back in time and stop Mason from doing what he had done. To not let him be aclient now so that I wouldn’t get in trouble if I was caught spending time with him.

To be able to get over my anger at him and maybe give ourselves that chance he’d said he wanted.

It had been my secret wish to have this night—a date with him with no baggage, and it was exactly what he had given me. He couldn’t have known that this was my ideal date—a quiet night at home with takeout and a movie. It felt like the best gift.

I leaned forward and blew out the candle, and he applauded and whooped when I did it, which made me laugh.

Then he reached over on his side of the couch and pulled up a gift bag with tissue paper coming out of the top. “This is for you.”

I knew he had done all of this for Sierra, but it was still really thoughtful. Another chunk of my defense wall fell.

At this rate, I wasn’t going to have any wall left.

I pulled out the tissue paper and found a large bag of M&M’s. The bag had been cut in half and taped shut. “It’s half a pound of candy,” he said.

That alarmed me. This was my favorite candy, not Sierra’s. But maybe he’d chosen it because it was easier to cut a pound of M&M’s in half than it was to cut, like, a pound of 3 Musketeers.

“Thank you.” I placed the M&M’s on the table.

“There’s more,” he said, looking very pleased with himself. “At the bottom.”

I looked into the gift bag and found a black velvet bag. I glanced up at him questioningly and then reached inside to pull it out. I tugged at the drawstrings, and inside was a silver necklace with half of a white heart on the end.

“This is pretty. Is the other half for Savannah?”

“I have the other half,” he said. He tugged at the top of his shirt and pulled out a black half heart that was on a leather string instead of a chain.

My heart accelerated so quickly that I felt a little like I might pass out. “What is happening right now?”

“What’s happening is I think you should come over here and give me a kiss as a thank-you.”

He had confirmed all of my worst suspicions about him and my sister. Red-hot anger flared in front of my eyes, and I reached for the nearest throw pillow, then started hitting him with it. “You lying, cheating snake! I knew you had feelings for Sierra!”

“Sinclair!” he said, reaching for my wrist and holding it gently to prevent me from hitting him. “I knew it was you. I knew from the second I opened the door that it was you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“You did not.”

“I did,” he said, using his free hand to reach for his phone. “I sent myself a text as soon as you came over. Look.”

He handed me his phone, and his text-messaging app was open. There, at 6:58 p.m., it said:Sinclair is here, pretending to be Sierra.

I let the pillow drop, and he released my wrist. “Sierra told you.”

“She didn’t.”

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