Page 89 of Hypnotized By Love

She seemed to take this as some sign that my anger was relenting. “Tell me how I can make this right,” she said. “I’ll do anything.”

This was so hard. I found myself wanting to tell her that things would be fine. That we would find a way through this.

But this wound was too new, too big. “I don’t think you can. You can’t undo the pain, the hurt, and the loss that you caused. I was the butt of every joke for an entire year. For someone like me, who always has to be the best, who craves approval, you can’t imagine what it did to me to have everyone whispering about me and laughing at me. The kind of cruel and anonymous texts and DMs I got. It nearly broke me,” I told her. “I need to go. I can’t keep talking about this. You’re not the same person to me anymore.”

I walked back to the car. I half expected her to follow me, or to call after me, but she just went quietly back inside her house.

When I got into the SUV, I said, “Please take me home.”

Mason took me by the hand again and held it the entire way back to my house, and I was glad for that bit of comfort. I cried the whole time, great heaving sobs that shook my entire body. I cried so hard that my eyes actually hurt and my lungs ached.

When he pulled into my driveway, he undid his seat belt and then mine. Then he reached for me, holding me against his chest while I cried. He stroked my hair and said sweet things to me about how it was all going to be okay, pressing kisses against my forehead.

After I’d calmed down, I took in a big gulp of air and then said, “I’m ... That is to say, I feel like I should, you know, uh, apologize. To you.”

I felt his mouth curl up into a smile. “Are you saying you’re sorry?”

“You know I’m not very good at saying when I was wrong.”

“No,” he agreed. “You’re much better at throwing things.”

I lifted my head from his chest and reached up to kiss his mostly healed cut. “I am sorry.”

“I kind of hope it leaves a scar so that I can show it to our—show it to people and tell them you did that to me.”

“You are not going to tell people that I did that and—”

His mouth was on mine, swallowing up the rest of that sentence. I let him kiss me for a bit before I smiled against his lips.

Kisses didn’t mean that things were better, though. I thought of how much pain I must have caused him by cutting him out of my life, because I knew how much it had hurt me. I pulled back so that I could look him in the eyes and said, “I blamed you for something you didn’t do for so long. Do you think you could ever forgive me?”

“I could forgive you for anything, Sinclair,” he said, and despite being wrecked emotionally, his words made my soul feel lighter than it had in a long time. “I only wish I’d known sooner.”

“Me too.”

Mason reached into the seat behind us and handed me the gift bag. Through all of this, I had kind of forgotten about our evening together. “There’s something I don’t understand. If Sierra didn’t tell you that I was the one coming over, how did you know to get me presents?”

“Your sister was making such a big deal about winning that I knew she was up to something. I guessed it might be you coming over, although I wasn’t sure. I did order Chinese food in case she was the one who showed up.”

“You really knew it was me?”

“The second I opened the door. I always know you, and I always will,” he said in that sappy tone of his that made my stomach flutter. “But you tipped your hand by showing up on time.”

Sierra was always late. Why hadn’t I thought about that? More to the point, why hadn’t she? It was probably because she was so excited and proud of her plan that it hadn’t occurred to her, and she just wanted to get me out the door before I changed my mind.

“You’re right. The only cardio my sister gets these days is running late.”

He smiled at that and then said, “What I don’t get is why Sierra wanted to make sure that everyone at the PTA meeting knew she had won.”

“There’s more to that story.” I filled him in on Timothy and the censuring and on the Vivian / Mr. Franklin connection. “I’m just worriedthat if anyone here in town thinks you’re my client and someone sees us together, if there’s any kind of gossip about us, there’s an actual direct pipeline for the Board to find out, and I might lose my certification.”

He took my hand and brought it up to his lips so that he could kiss the back. “Thank you for trusting me with your story. I know how important your job is to you, and how much it matters to you what other people think. That’s why you said we couldn’t kiss or date.”

“Yes. That, and how much I hated you.”

“Hated?” he echoed. “Past tense?”

“If I’m being totally honest with you, it’s hard to just shift gears. I’ve been angry with you for so long that I don’t know how to be normal around you. Especially after you told me that you love me.” Might as well go for broke and put all my cards on the table. “And some paranoid and totally irrational part of me is afraid that you’re only saying those things so that you can lull me into a false sense of security in order to ruin my career.”

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