Page 95 of Home Grown Talent

The heat in Mason’s cheeks turned into a burn. “Of course I bloody do.”

But Owen wasn’t listening, shaking his head as he retreated a step. “Was… Was any of this real to you…?”

“This? You mean us?” Mason’s eyes pricked, his throat thickening. “For God’s sake, you know this is real.”

“Do I?” Owen backed away further, although his gaze was still locked on Mason. “Maybe it’s just a story you’re telling on Instagram. Maybe it’s all part of the show. Maybe it was Misty’s fucking idea in the first place!”

Mason stiffened, felt the betraying rush of blood to his face.

“Jesus,” Owen said, recoiling in horror. “Jesus, it was, wasn’t it?”

Staring at Owen’s pale, angry face, Mason knew there was no point in denial. Owen had seen the truth in his reaction, and denying it now would only make things worse. Voice cracking, he admitted, “Sort of.”

“Sort of? What the fuck does that mean?”

Mason closed his eyes, blotting out the sight of Owen’s outrage, and made himself say, “Misty…suggested our dynamic might be more authentic if you and I—”

“Fuck,” Owen said, hands on his head, bunching into fists as if to tug at the hair he no longer had. His eyes were screwed tight shut. “Christ, I’m a fucking idiot."

“No! Owen—”

“Don’t.” Owen held up a hand to stop him, his face growing bleak. “Just… don’t.”

And then the bleakness seemed to drain away, leaving only that blank coldness in its wake. A mask of indifference as effective as any ‘keep out’ sign.

Mason knew him well enough by now to guess that, buried beneath the stony surface, there would be pain and confusion, but Owen wasn’t letting him see those vulnerable parts of him any more. Owen was closing that door on him, and Mason’s throat ached to be cut off like that.

It was then, in that moment, that he realised something: when it came to Owen, he’d failed in everything he’d tried to do. And he’d especially failed at keeping things between them casual. In that, he had failed spectacularly because it was suddenly, painfully, obvious to him that he’d fallen in love with Owen. That he’d betrayed and hurt the man he loved.

It turned out that he really was no better—no less selfish—than his father.

That realisation crashed over him with such force that it punched the breath from his lungs, leaving him airless. After a struggle, he managed to whisper, “I’m so sorry. I should have told you. I just—I didn’t think you’d understand.” When Owen said nothing, Mason added desperately, “But it has always been real between us. For me it has, anyway. And that’s the honest truth, I swear.”

As soon as the words were out, Mason knew they were too small, too ordinary, to give Owen any idea of how he really felt. And sure enough, Owen just gave a bleak laugh, shook his head, and walked away, shoulders hunched and hands shoved into his jacket pockets. It was like watching the tide turn, inevitable and inexorable.

Mason lurched after him anyway. “Owen, please!” He needed to say more. He needed to put himself out there. Even so, he balked for a moment, before he forced out the painful truth in a hoarse cry. “Owen, please, I love you!”

Owen’s stride faltered, just for a moment, but in the end, he didn’t stop, and he didn’t turn around.

A hopeless, jagged pain stabbed into Mason’s chest, driving his eyes shut. Into that aching darkness came the slam of Owen's van door and the roar of the engine starting, each sound driving the pain deeper. Turning back towards the studio, Mason began walking blindly, his vision blurring and his throat thick. He scrubbed at his eyes and sucked in a shuddering breath.

He’d lost Owen. He knew it with bleak certainty. As kind and caring and gentle as Owen was, there was an immovable, unyielding side to him. Mason instinctively knew that there were certain things he would not forgive, and this was one of them. Honesty mattered to him.

Mason had thrown away the best thing that had ever happened to him, and for what?

A shot at a career that would never make him happy.

A career that, when it came down to it, he didn’t even really want.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Owen

Work. That was the key. Keeping busy so there was no time to think. No time to remember the video of Mason in the greenhouse or the nervous guilt in his eyes that had betrayed his complicity.

Or those words, flung so carelessly after Owen in the car park.

“Owen, please, I love you!”