Page 14 of The Proposal Planner (Ever After #2)

But the way Mrs. Patterson said his name like he wasn't involved but responsible makes it hard to breathe.

No. Not Mason. Not the man who brought my ideas to life. Who made this barn feel like home. Who looks at me like I matter. I cling to the version I know. The one who flies drones and alphabetizes tools. Who never tells me to dream smaller.

But the doubt slides in anyway. Slow and sickening.

What if I've been wrong?

My hand stalls halfway to my mouth, teacup trembling. A slow, sick twist unfurls in my stomach.

"No," I say, shaking my head, too fast, too defensive. "That was Richard. Not Mason. Mason wasn't, he wasn't like that. He worked for him."

"According to Denise," Mrs. Patterson says, eyes narrowing, "Richard wasn't the first one swinging that ax."

The air in the barn shifts colder.

"There was this one place in particular," she says.

"A little town called Silver Creek. It was famous for its artisanal glassworks, a family-run company that had been there for over a hundred years.

The whole town depended on it. But Richard Kingston wanted the land for a shipping warehouse.

He saw the river access and didn't care about the rest."

She doesn't need notes. She's obviously memorized the whole tale.

"The first offer was insultingly low. The Hadley family refused.

That's when the pressure began, lawsuits from shell corporations, patent infringement claims that made no sense, a surprise audit triggered by an anonymous tip.

And then the local bank, which held their business loans, got acquired.

Overnight, the new owners called in the debt. No options. No warnings."

I feel the weight settle in my chest, heavy and unrelenting.

"The Hadleys did everything they could to save the business. Thomas Hadley mortgaged their home, sold his wife's jewelry, even emptied his children's college funds. To keep the furnaces burning."

She swallows hard, then sets down her teacup with trembling fingers.

"But it wasn't enough. When they lost everything, the workshop, the house, the land, Thomas went home, wrote letters to his kids, and…"

She doesn't finish.

"He couldn't live with it," she says. "Not in a world where a man's life's work could be taken with a signature. Where everything he built, his business, his purpose, his name, could be erased by people who never even saw what they were destroying."

The barn hasn't changed. The lights are still on. But nothing feels the same. And I can't breathe.

Mrs. Patterson pushes back her chair. Her movements are careful, reverent somehow, like she knows the air in here is different now, heavy with things we can't take back.

She smooths her cardigan with shaking hands, then glances toward the loft.

"Mason might not have pulled the trigger," she whispers, "but he's still responsible.

Every step was legal. Every document was flawless.

And Denise said the strategy, the cold, surgical way it unfolded, that was the work of one man.

Richard's golden boy. His shark. The same man who's upstairs right now, drinking coffee and eating my pie like none of it matters. "

Her hand finds mine for a fleeting second, light, motherly, final.

"Take care, Maddy."

And then she's gone. Out the door with quiet steps that feel louder than any goodbye.

The silence that follows is brutal.

I can hear my pulse in my ears. The heart I let hope again now feels like it's turning to stone. All the warmth, all the moments that felt like beginnings, they dissolve. Melt away like spun sugar in the rain.

I never thought of Mason as a killer.

But there's more than one way to end a life.

My brain tries to hold onto him. To the man who fixed the fog machine. Who laughed with me over glitter.

Who looked at me like I was the answer to a question he'd been asking his whole life.

But my mind has turned into a courtroom.

Exhibit A, the last couple of weeks.

My chest tightens. The denial fights to hold the line. That's not who he is.

But the images come anyway.

The way Mason took over the loft, what once seemed efficient and thoughtful, now plays back like a strategy. Daniel did the same thing. Claimed space. Claimed me. Slowly, expertly, without ever saying it out loud, I know better.

The critiques I thought were helpful and encouraging?

I've heard them before, too. Daniel used to compliment my creativity, then follow it with a gentle nudge in a more 'sensible' direction.

Mason's done it too, except he doesn't nudge.

He restructures. He systematizes. He makes it impossible not to follow his lead.

Even the drone lesson ... his hands over mine, his voice calm and patient. I thought it was intimacy. But now I can't shake the feeling it was calculated. Rehearsed. Measured. Another step in a pattern I promised myself I'd never fall for again.

He didn't step into my world. He reorganized it.

So did Daniel. And I swore, after him, never again. Never let someone wrap their control in charm and call it care. Never confuse support with surveillance.

And yet, maybe I've done that.

Maybe he hasn't changed. Maybe he never meant to. Maybe the redemption arc I imagined for Mason was fiction. A prettier version of a story I've lived before.

I think of River Bend. Did he save it ... or did Henry? Would Mason have lifted a finger if it weren't for Savvy? If it didn't serve a bigger plan?

Then Thomas Hadley fills my mind. A man who gave everything to preserve beauty. Who lost it all, because someone like Mason deemed his dream too small. Too soft. Too inconvenient. How many more Hadleys has Mason gutted on paper? How many quiet towns, family businesses, lives?

Who is the man upstairs?

The one who made space for my craziness?

Or the one who studies it, labels it, then bends it into neat categories and predictable outcomes, less dangerous to him?

I glance at Clara's proposal, stacked neatly. Every dream accounted for. Every risk calculated. Every ounce of magic I'd imagined confined to a spreadsheet.

It's not a foundation.

It's a blueprint for control.

And the worst part? I handed it to him. Like I handed it to Daniel.

The realization crushes me. My breath turns shallow. My stomach churns.

Above me, his footsteps move across the loft floor.

I go still. Then I move.

I reach for the stereo, not for inspiration or creativity, but for noise. For anger. For armor. I crank the volume until the bass rattles the rafters. The sound is industrial and merciless. Nothing pretty. Nothing soft.

A warning.

Not to him.

To me.

To the part of me that still wants to believe in fairy tale fixes and hand-over-hand drone lessons. The part that doesn't want to admit I've been here before. That I fell for a polished man who made me feel seen, until I realized his gaze isn't tender. It's tactical.

The music screams louder than my heartbreak. I let it.

Because this time, I'm not going to lose myself to someone else's version of me.