Page 21 of Writing Mr. Wrong

GEMMA

G emma woke to a text asking whether she was awake. She was tempted to answer no. Instead, she shook her head groggily and peered at the name—

Mason. Of course.

Gemma: It’s one in the morning, Mace

Mason: I’m downstairs. Can I come up?

Now she was tempted to copy and resend her last text. She supposed she should just be happy that no one had let him through the secure entrance at this hour.

Mason: I read the book

Shit. Gemma squeezed her eyes shut.

Gemma: I asked you not to do that

Mason: I thought you were just being humble

Mason: Can I come up?

Mason: Please

It was the “please” that did it. She stumbled to the front hall and hit the button to let him in downstairs. Then she lurched back to her room and pawed through a drawer for sweats. She’d barely gotten her sweatshirt on when Mason rapped at the door.

She opened it to see him standing there, not leaning against the doorpost, not posturing and grinning.

His five-o’clock shadow was two days old now, and his eyes were bleary and downcast. If it were anyone else, she’d suspect them of putting on a show of looking dejected.

But Mason didn’t know the meaning of humility enough to fake it.

“It’s one in the morning, Mason,” she repeated.

His shoulders slumped. “I know.”

She could point out that she’d been sleeping, but if she expected an apology for that, they’d be standing at this door until Christmas.

“You have a game tomorrow— tonight .”

More slumping. “I know.”

Why the hell couldn’t he be angry? Why didn’t he come storming over to ask why she’d based such a despicable character on him?

She’d never seen that side of Mason, though. Call him out on his shit, and he was either confident that you were mistaken or he was… this. And “this” was impossible to ignore.

She waved him inside and strode to the living room without holding the door.

She plunked onto the love seat and waited.

She wasn’t offering him a beverage. She doubted he was staying that long.

He’d just come to make sure there wasn’t some terrible misunderstanding, and then he’d walk away and she’d never see him again.

Rip the bandage off. Tell him the truth. If he was angry, she’d deal with it.

If he was hurt…

Shit. That was so much harder to deal with. Maybe it shouldn’t be. He’d hurt her. Tit for tat. Revenge best served cold and such.

She didn’t want revenge. She’d just wanted to sell a damn book and maybe exorcise an old ghost. The old ghost was not supposed to show up at her door in the middle of the night and haunt her with his sad-puppy eyes.

“So you read some of the book,” she said as he slouched into the recliner.

“All of it,” he said. “Listened to it at least.” His gaze rose to hers. “Argyle is me, isn’t he?”

She bit the inside of her cheek against a denial. Those puppy eyes pleaded for that, but Mason was not a stupid man. To deny it only insulted his intelligence.

Gemma exhaled and pulled her legs up, hugging them. “You were the starting point.”

“Why?”

She flinched. But he had a right to that answer, and a right to the real one. “It’s a bit of a story.”

“Tell me.”

She shifted in the seat, knowing she had no hope of getting comfortable for this conversation.

“I got back into writing after the divorce. I wrote a romance, and I loved it, but no publisher expressed even marginal interest. I joined an online writers group, and they said the problem was my hero. He was too nice.”

“The sort of guy you like.”

She ignored the implied question and kept going. “They gave me a bunch of romance books to show me what was selling.”

He frowned. “You didn’t read romance before writing it?”

“I’ve read romance all my life, Mason. I just have my preferences, and these weren’t the books I was reading. One thing those bestsellers had in common was that the guys were…”

“Assholes.”

“Yes, and the writers in this group pressed for me to figure out what kind of alpha hero I could write. A guy who fit the mold but wasn’t cruel or abusive. Just…”

“Me.”

Gemma rubbed her hands over her face. “Yes, okay? You were the first guy who sprang to mind.”

She looked at him. “You hurt me, Mason, and I’m not going to lie. Was this catharsis? Putting the worst of you on a page and pairing you up with some simpering heroine and shoving you off into the sunset? Happily ever after and out of my head forever?” She met his gaze. “Yes.”

“Because Edin isn’t you. You’re Lilias. The friend who tried to warn her. The friend who wouldn’t put up with Argyle’s bullshit. The friend who had to die so they could get together.”

“That’s not—”

“You had her fall off a cliff, Gemma. A literal cliff.”

Gemma sighed. “Lilias isn’t me, but if you want to get analytical, maybe she represents the part of me that I had to throw off a cliff to finish the damn book. And Laird Argyle is not you, Mason. You were… like the sourdough starter.”

“There’s stuff in there that was definitely me. The masquerade ball and—”

She raised her hands. “Okay, I mined some of our history. I was an idiot not to realize someone like Ashley might notice. But I never intended for anyone to see you in Laird Argyle, and if anyone asks, I’m going with what Cal said at the coffee shop. That Ashley was mistaken.”

“Except she wasn’t.”

She looked at him again. “I am honestly sorry about all this. If it’s any consolation, most readers do see Argyle as a hero. A hot warrior alpha hero. You can read the reviews. Ashley certainly didn’t see anything wrong with the portrayal. But if it embarrasses you, I am sorry.”

His gaze lifted to hers. “I deserve it, though, don’t I? For what I did to you back then?”

“No, Mason. That’s not what I wanted.”

He looked down at his hands again, folded between his knees. “Because you’re a decent person who wouldn’t do that, even if I deserved it.”

“The portrayal was based on the you I knew as a kid, Mason, and I didn’t even know you all that well then.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice low. “You did, Gem. But if you’re telling me I’m not like this anymore…” His gaze lifted. “I read that book, and I didn’t want to see myself, but I did.”

She sighed.

“I messed up our date,” he said. “I didn’t warn you about the problems I was having, and then I put you in a cab and sent you home. That was a dick move.”

Should she let him have that? Just roll with it?

Oh hell, it was the middle of the night, and she was Gemma Stanton.

“ That wasn’t the dick move, Mason.”

He hesitated, as if replaying her words, trying to make it fit a narrative where she was telling him he hadn’t screwed up.

“What was the dick move then?” he said slowly, as if sure he didn’t want the answer.

Okay, she was doing this. “You told me our fake date was all about helping me, and it wasn’t. You were getting PR from it, too.”

His mouth opened, but she barreled on.

“I wouldn’t have minded that,” she said. “You just needed to be honest. But you weren’t. Then you promised me the date of my dreams, whatever I wanted… and arranged everything yourself. The gift cards were—sorry—insulting.”

His mouth opened and shut. Then he said, voice strangled, “How?”

“Because you don’t know me well enough to offer that. If we were dating, you could treat me to a new dress and a spa day. Without that connection, it felt as if you were saying I needed a new dress—and salon-fresh hair and a manicure—to be your date.”

“What? No. I just… it’s what I do.”

“For every woman you go out with.”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t see how that makes it worse?

Like Laird Argyle having a box of necklaces, pull out one for every woman?

” She waved off his response. “The date and the cards are minor offenses. Making me think the PR stunt was all for me is a bigger one. And what you did today? Just as big. Maybe even bigger.”

“Today?”

“I thought we were just spending some time together. Two old classmates hanging out. Yes, we discussed releasing photos, and I was fine with that, but I asked to approve any photos you sent. Hell, before that, you literally said, ‘No personal pics without your consent,’ and I thanked you for it.”

He went still. Very still.

“Did someone hack your phone and release those beach selfies of us, Mason?”

He hovered there. Then he sunk back down. “Shit.”

“You released them.”

“My publicist asked for photos, and I sent them.”

“Without my approval?”

He slumped into the chair. “It wasn’t like that, Gem. I swear. I took the photos for myself, and he asked for more, and you looked really good in it, so I… I forgot what we’d said earlier.”

She stood. “I really need to get back to bed. And you need to go home and sleep for the game tonight.”

“I can’t. Not until I’ve fixed this.”

She squeezed his shoulder. “There’s nothing to fix.”

“Yeah, there is. Me.” He looked up. “I need your help.”

“What?”

He pushed to his feet. “Like in high school, when you helped me with my writing. Only now, you’d be teaching me how not to be an asshole.”

“How?”

“With lessons and stuff.”

“Reform school for assholes?”

A small smile reached his eyes. “Exactly.”

She shook her head. “And what would be in that for me?”

He paused, as if this hadn’t occurred to him. Because of course it hadn’t.

“I could pay—” he began.

She cut him off with a raised hand. “You throw money around like water. It doesn’t mean anything to you. I’m not running a reform school—”

“Your new book,” he blurted. “You’re having trouble finishing.

” He started to pace, gesticulating like he was presenting a TED talk.

“It’d be a reciprocal arrangement. We’ll go somewhere.

I have back-to-back away games, followed by three days off.

We’ll take a mini-holiday. Anywhere you want.

Sand, snow, safari. Your dream location. Just the two of us.”

“A holiday while teaching you—”

“Two hours a day for asshole-reform lessons. The rest of the time is yours to write. I can just… cheer you on.”

“Cheerleaders are not conducive to the writing process, Mason.”

“Then I won’t be there. Except for the two hours of lessons and meals, you’ll be on your own to write. Everything will be taken care of. Dinner out if you want it. Dinner in if you want it. Housekeeping done. You’ll only need to think of coffee and it’ll magically appear at your elbow.”

Damned if that didn’t sound…

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. It did, however, did give her an easy escape hatch.

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to be going out for dinner or having dinner dropped off. I wouldn’t want maid service. Too much of a distraction. You’d need to do all that yourself. Make the beds, take out the garbage, cook the meals…”

“Done.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“Done.” He smiled. “I can’t guarantee it’ll be good , but I cook for myself all the time. I take out my own trash. And I can make a bed.”

“I’ve seen your room, Mason.”

He lifted a finger. “But I can make it. When I billeted with families as a junior, I needed to keep my room tidy, and I always did.”

She wanted to say no. She should say no. But she’d been so certain that the housekeeping and cooking would put an end to this that she’d boxed herself into a corner. She couldn’t outright refuse after he agreed to her terms.

Which meant she needed new terms.

She thought. Thought some more. She had nothing on her calendar. She could lie, but that wasn’t right.

“I… I don’t know,” she said. “It’s very sudden and…”

“Think about it. That’s all I ask.”

She should refuse. Find some excuse. Instead, she heard herself saying, “Okay, I’ll think about it.”