Page 18 of Writing Mr. Wrong

MASON

M ason had dropped Gemma off at her place. He’d offered dinner, but she had work to do, so he sent steak to make up for her missing the rib eye last night.

He parked in the back lot at Nonna Jean’s. His grandmother was always there on Saturdays. It let her pretend that she hung out at the restaurant to avoid cooking during Shabbat, but really she was there to putter and to terrorize.

Mason snuck in the rear door and nearly mowed down a server he didn’t recognize. The young woman backed up fast with a yelped “Oh! Mr. Moretti!” He waved without looking back and continued to the kitchen, where he found his eighty-two-year-old grandmother on a stool, peering into a simmering pot.

Even this early, the kitchen was pure chaos.

Or it looked that way, though Mason knew the chaos was as synchronized as a clock.

Prep cooks zipped about but never got in each other’s way.

The two chefs guarded their stations. Pots clattered, someone shouted orders, food sizzled and popped and boiled.

It smelled like Mason’s childhood—olive oil and balsamic vinegar and garlic—and he could taste zucchini carbonara in the air.

He slipped past a station where a few misshapen pieces of deep-fried artichoke had been rejected.

He popped one still-hot piece into his mouth and then headed for his grandmother’s station.

When one of the line cooks glanced over, Mason raised a finger and she quickly looked away.

Then he crept up and put his cold hands over his grandmother’s eyes, making her yelp.

She turned around and swatted him. “You want to give me a heart attack?”

“Testing your ticker. Seems okay.”

She swatted him again, and then gestured at his boots with a string of Italian for tracking in dirt.

So he removed them right there, which earned him a third swat.

He grinned and went to pick up the dirty boots, but she stopped him, catching his face between her hands, turning it this way and that as if examining him for signs of illness.

“What?”

“You look happy,” she said. “I should take a picture. I don’t see that very often these days.”

He rolled his eyes and squeezed her hands before moving his boots to the back.

When he returned, he grabbed a bowl and headed for a pan of Pharaoh’s Wheel, but Nonna stopped him and, out of sight of the cooks, made a face.

In other words, the baked pasta dish wasn’t up to her standards.

That always made him laugh because if he’d cooked it, it wouldn’t have been nearly as good, but it would still be perfect to her.

She took a plate and went around loading it up, ignoring the cooks’ protests that those were guest orders.

For herself, Nonna would have placed an order and waited.

But her grandson shouldn’t. There was no point arguing.

Mason was the only son of her only son, which made him a proper little prince, even long after he’d grown up.

Once he had his plate—kosher-compliant carbonara, crusty fresh bread, and salad—and she had a bowl of soup, she waved him to her office. As they were about to step in, the manager appeared, saying, “Mr. Moretti—”

“No,” Nonna lifted a wizened finger.

“I just want—”

“If you have a question, you will ask me after my grandson leaves. You will not bother him. He must eat and have quiet. There is a game tomorrow.”

Again, Mason didn’t interfere. He’d speak to the manager later and find out what she wanted.

Inside the tiny office, Nonna pointed at the little table and chair. “Sit.”

He did, and he dove into the food while she sat across from him and watched.

“There is a girl,” she said.

He arched his brows.

“Everyone is talking,” she said. “You have a girl.”

“I’m thirty-six, Nonna. If I have a girl, someone should be calling the cops. Yes, I spent the day with a woman .”

“This one they are talking about? A writer?”

He nodded as he tore off a piece of bread. “We went to high school together.”

“Wait. Is this…? What was her name? Jenna?”

“Gemma. Yeah, that’s her.”

His grandmother’s stern face lit up. “No wonder you are so happy. I remember little Gemma with the curls and the saucy tongue. The girl who used to help you with your reading. You once brought home a story she wrote and read it to me. The whole thing.”

His cheeks flamed. “I don’t remember that.”

“I do. You had such a crush. And now you have found her again.” She leaned forward. “Keep her. That is an order.”

He smiled and shook his head.

“I mean it,” she said. “Why did you not bring her for dinner?”

“Because I don’t think she’s ready to have my grandmother taking her measurements for a wedding dress.”

“Ha! I would only have tried to get her finger size so you can buy the ring. First things first.”

“She had to work. She’s on a deadline for her next book.”

Nonna’s grunt said this was a satisfactory answer. “Good priorities. I hope you ordered dinner for her so she does not need to cook.”

“I did.”

She patted his hand. “That’s my boy. So you went out with her today?”

He fished out his phone and thumbed through the pictures. As he did, Nonna’s hand tightened on his.

“You look so happy,” she said. “I told your mother you only needed time and then you would meet someone.”

Mason’s chest clenched at the thought of his mother. She’d never pushed him to find a girlfriend. Never hinted about a daughter-in-law or grandchildren. But that was how she’d been. She didn’t expect life to give her a damn thing she wanted, and so she never admitted to wanting anything.

His mother had wanted that daughter-in-law and grandkids, though, and if the end had come slower, maybe cancer instead of a heart attack, would Mason have tried to find someone, just to make her happy in the time she had left?

Probably, which would have been a disaster, but he still couldn’t help wishing he’d done it for her. That he’d done something right for her.

“She’ll know,” his grandmother said. “And she will be so happy for you.”

“It was one date, Nonna.”

“You will get more. You always get what you want, if you try hard enough. You just haven’t wanted this before.”

Except he had wanted it before. With Gemma. And the only person he had to blame for losing it was himself.

Nonna squeezed his hand. “Do you know what the trick is to winning this girl?”

“Be myself?”

Did he imagine her hesitation? Her hand patted his again. “Be your best self. Now eat.”

He was about to set the phone aside, when it vibrated with a message.

He’d had it on Do Not Disturb, where it only let in messages from his grandmother and his coach, the two people he never dared ignore.

After dropping off Gemma, he’d turned on all messages again, in case she tried to get in touch.

Instead, it was his publicist, and apparently far from the first message Terrance had sent that afternoon.

Mason opened the thread.

“Mason,” Nonna said, clearing her throat dramatically. “Put the phone down.”

“I know.” He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “But I’ve had it off all afternoon, and someone’s been trying to get in touch with me.”

“Your phone should be off. It’s still early. The sun hasn’t set.”

“Five minutes?”

She sighed and rose. “Torta margherita or torta tenerina?”

“Margherita, please.” While he liked a good flourless chocolate cake, he preferred the simple sponge one.

“Finish your dinner while you play with that thing.”

He scrolled down the list of texts.

Terrance: Where have you been?

Mason: With Gemma. Remember?

Terrance: Yes, and the last thing I got was two photos outside a coffee shop, with gorgeous scenery that had me sitting by my phone waiting for more. I did not get more

Mason thumbed through his photos and sent a few.

Terrance: Excellent! Is she okay with using these?

Mason: Sure

Nonna returned with their dessert, and he was about to put the phone away when he got another notification. A Highland Fling had just been delivered to his audio library.

He smiled, pocketed the phone, and dug into his cake. Guess he knew what he was doing this evening.

Mason found a pair of earbuds in his jacket, so he started listening to the audiobook as soon as he left the restaurant. Yeah, having headphones on while driving a motorcycle wasn’t safe, but he couldn’t help himself.

By the time he got to his condo, he was a little confused.

The book was good, obviously. He knew nothing about eighteenth-century Scotland, but Gemma took him there.

By the time he was a half hour into the story, he was immersed in historical Scotland while being whisked along in an action-packed story about a young woman traveling alone through the Highlands, a governess who’d been going to meet her new charge when her coach driver turned out to be a grifter who stole everything she had and left her by the roadside.

That was all good. The confusing part was that he expected he’d have met the main character by now, but there was just this young woman, crying at the roadside in her tattered gown.

That was not Gemma. Gemma would have grabbed the reins, twisted them around the coach driver’s neck, and left him by the roadside.

Then along came this total asshole who gave the young woman shit for flagging him down.

Okay, at first, he mistook her for a thief, but even once that was cleared up, he kept going on about how he had an important meeting because he was an important guy, and sure, he eventually let her ride in his carriage, but he made a big deal out of it, like he was doing her such a favor.

Then it turned out that he was the guy whose children she was going to be governess-ing. Which meant she was stuck with this asshole.

Wait, this asshole’s name was Laird Argyle. Wasn’t that…?

Nah, couldn’t be.

Still, he was confused. This wasn’t the first romance he’d read, and he was pretty sure you usually met the main couple right up front. Gemma must be doing it differently.