Things were starting to get out of hand when Mason groaned and reluctantly freed her mouth.
“We don’t have time, Daisy,” he whispered regretfully, while still rubbing himself up against her. “Christ, this is hard.”
“Yes, it is,” she giggled, and he growled, before nipping her bottom lip.
“Behave.” He dropped her thigh, and Daisy wobbled unsteadily. He grabbed one of the luxurious white hotel robes from behind the door and stuffed her arms into it.
“Cover yourself up, you shameless hussy. Stop trying to tempt me with your charms. Now go get dressed while I shower.”
She saluted smartly, just like he’d taught her, and he winked before ushering her out of the bathroom and shutting the door behind her. It reopened seconds later, and he tossed her pillow at her before closing and pointedly locking the door again. Daisy hugged the pillow to her chest and did a happy dance around the room before the fizzing in her veins settled down long enough for her to finally get dressed.
“You know you’re going to have to talk to Lia about Edmonton, right?” Mason muttered somberly in the lift forty minutes later.
“Yes.”
“Preferably before he touches you again,” he continued dangerously. “He lays another finger on you, and all bets are off. You’ll have to wind up explaining why her fiancé will be eating through a straw for the rest of his days.”
“Mason, don’t do or say anything until I’ve had a chance to talk with Lia or Daff, okay?”
“No promises.”
“Mason.”
“Daisy, if he touches you, I’m going to kick his ass. There’s no debating that. He has been gaslighting you for months, making you doubt yourself and your instincts. Fuck that guy; he lays a hand on you, I’m breaking it.”
They stepped out of the lift, and Daisy turned to him and reached up to cup his jaw and tug him down for a kiss. His stubble tickled the palms of her hands, and she moved her hands to the back of his head to the soft, fuzzier stubble of his hair.
“My hero,” she whispered after ending the kiss, and he smiled at her before claiming another quick kiss.
“And don’t you forget it. Now come on, we’re already late for dinner.”
They were twenty minutes late, and everybody was already seated when Mason and Daisy walked in. Daisy paused for a second, suddenly intimidated by the sheer number of people they were attempting to fool with their ruse, but Mason took her hand and tugged her toward the family table. She followed meekly, smiling and nodding as she went along, but not really making eye contact with anybody. She could see the speculation and blatant disbelief on some faces and immediately started panicking.
Mason’s arm crept around her waist, and he dropped a kiss on her cheek before whispering, “Relax and smile. You look like a deer trapped in the headlights.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she hissed. “This was a crazy idea. They all know.”
“Calm down, angel,” he whispered. He lifted her hand to his lips and planted a kiss onto her knuckles before acknowledging their table with a warm smile.
“Hey, kids, how was the drive up?” Dr. McGregor greeted with a smile, and Mason extended his hand to the older man.
“Uneventful, but the scenery was stunning,” Mason supplied, shaking her father’s hand firmly. He bent to drop a kiss on her mother’s cheek. “Mrs. McGregor, you’re looking ravishing this evening.”
Her mother actually blushed and waved aside his compliment, even though everybody could see she was flattered by it.
Mason helped her into an empty chair next to Daff and took the one on Daisy’s right. Daisy was aware of her great-aunts staring at them curiously and smiled at the older ladies shyly.
“Hello, Aunties.”
“Daisy, aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?” Aunt Ivy, the oldest and scariest, asked, staring down her regal nose at both Daisy and Mason. How she managed to stare down at people when she was only four foot eleven in stature was a mystery.
“Mason Carlisle, these are my great-aunts. Ivy, Gert, Helen, and Mattie,” she introduced them from oldest to youngest, and Mason turned his charm on them.
“Ladies, I’m very happy to meet all of you.” His smile was polite with just a hint of roguishness, and the ladies all seemed to unbend a little.
“Nice to see Daisy bringing a gentleman friend to a family event,” Gert, the sweetest of the four, said in her tiny Minnie Mouse voice.
“We all thought she was one of those lesbians,” Mattie offered in her usual blunt way, and Daisy winced. Mason’s left hand crept beneath the table to squeeze her thigh reassuringly.
“I assure you, ma’am, that is very much not the case.” He sounded just the teeniest bit smug. Daisy slanted him a horrified look that he met with a wink.
“Well . . . good.” Mattie, for once, seemed at a loss for words and eyed Daisy speculatively from beneath her formidable gray eyebrows—those things hadn’t been waxed or shaped in ever and always reminded Daisy of hairy white caterpillars.
Daff slanted her a sideways glance before muttering, “Remind me to implement a similar plan for the next family event. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so effectively silenced before.”
Daisy took a sip of wine to hide her smile.
Mason was chatting with her father, and Daisy took the opportunity to have a look around the large family table. Everybody was present, the aunts, Daff, her parents, Lia, Clayton, and his parents and younger brother, Carson. One big, happy family, she thought caustically.
Clayton and Lia were sitting almost directly opposite her and were involved in a whispered, seemingly heated conversation. Daisy elbowed Daff, who grunted in pain and glared at her indignantly.
“What do you suppose is going on with those two?” Daisy asked, ignoring her sister’s annoyance. Daff glanced across the table discreetly.
“Don’t know, but they’ve seemed out of sorts all evening. Definitely something’s up. I was thinking of taking Lia aside later to ask her about it.”
“I’ve been thinking about what Mason said the other day,” Daisy confided, and Daff nodded.
“Me too. The guy’s an ass, but he made a good point. She hasn’t been herself lately.”
“He’s not an ass,” Daisy defended, and Daff’s eyes flashed with annoyance before sharpening as they took in Daisy’s flushed face.
“What have you done?” she asked on a loud whisper.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Daisy said, before attempting a subject change. “This soup is fantastic.”
“How would you know? You haven’t even tried it yet,” Daff rejoined, and Daisy glared at her.
“It looks fantastic.”
“Daisy, you have stubble burn all the way down your neck,” Daff whispered, shocked. “It’s unmistakable!” Daisy clapped a hand over her neck, knowing exactly which spot Daff was referring to because it had been tingling since her shower. “Daisy McGregor, what have you been getting up to with that man?”
“Stop it, you sound like Nana,” Daisy hissed, and Daff grimaced before glaring at her.
“Don’t deflect.”
“We’re not talking about me right now; we’re talking about—”
“What are you two talking about so seriously?” Their mother’s voice interrupted the whispered exchange, and they both sat up straight beneath everybody’s curious regard.
“Soup!”
“Burns!”
The words emerged simultaneously, and the sisters peered at each other wryly.
“Uh . . . soup burns,” Daff improvised quickly, and Daisy threw her a disgusted look.
“Specifically how hot soup can scald your soft palate and/or tongue if you’re not careful,” Daisy added with what she thought was admirable poise.
“Yep. So, soup burns.” Daff nodded. Daisy could hear Mason snorting softly beside her, and she kicked him softly. He gripped her knee, his fingers tightening in warning when she drew back her foot for a
nother tap. His hand lingered, sliding farther up her thigh, creeping up under her skirt. Daisy gasped and clamped her knees together, effectively trapping his hands between her thighs. She could tell from the slight smirk on his nearly impassive face that he wasn’t exactly dismayed by the turn of events.
“What an odd thing to be discussing,” Aunt Gert squeaked, and the other aunts sent her frankly disbelieving stares, since nobody else had fallen for the blatant lie.
“Anyway, so who will be going horseback riding tomorrow morning?” Daisy asked with false cheer, deliberately changing the subject and trying not to think of Mason’s warm hand resting so docilely between her thighs. The horseback ride on the beach was one of the events Lia had arranged for some of her more adventurous guests.
“I intend to be too hungover to even contemplate getting up at such a disgustingly early hour,” Daff said. The ride was at dawn, and Daisy secretly agreed with her sister that it was much too early to be up.
“Daff, you can’t be hungover, I’ll need my bridesmaids to be ready by nine,” Lia piped up. Were her eyes red-rimmed? Had she been crying? Daisy couldn’t tell for certain in the dim light of the restaurant, but it certainly looked that way.
“Crap, I forgot about that,” Daff groaned. Daisy had as well. Lia had organized a spa session followed by a champagne brunch for her bridesmaids. Clayton and his groomsmen as well as some of the other men would be playing golf.
“Mind giving me my hand back?” Mason whispered, his lips brushing against her ear as he spoke. “Not that I have any complaints about its current situation, you understand, but people may start to wonder why my hand is under the table. And probably jump to wholly accurate conclusions.”
Aghast at the possibility, she opened her knees immediately, and after one last little pat of her thigh, he moved his hand back to the table to pick up his knife.
“I hope your soup burns aren’t too bad,” he murmured wickedly. “You’re going to need that tongue later.”
She groaned; the man was irreverent and incorrigible, and she was starting to adore him. He made her want to throw caution to the wind and just be very, very bad. It was a giddy sensation. Entirely uncharacteristic for her, and she loved it.
Dinner wasn’t quite the ordeal Daisy had been expecting; the aunts were effectively muzzled by Mason’s appearance, but Daisy knew it was only a matter of time before they regrouped and started firing on all cylinders. For the most part it was a pretty casual, low-stress evening.
Casual and low stress until Daff decided that she needed to go to the bathroom and that Daisy really needed to go too. Her sister’s crazy eyes and not-so-subtle head jerks toward the powder room aside, Daisy played along because the “chat” was inevitable.
She excused herself, and Mason—who was having a very serious conversation with Aunt Mattie about the British royal family’s security details—gave her an absent nod. She reluctantly trailed after her sister’s slender figure and admired the way Daff’s sexy sheath dress clung to her perfect body in all the right spots. The same dress on Daisy would look borderline indecent, what with her abundance of curves. She smiled quietly to herself as, for the first time since puberty, she didn’t feel a pang of envy. Her sisters had often told her she was lucky because she had breasts, a booty, and a small waist, and she had always dismissed it as them being kind to the “fatty” in the family. She no longer felt like the “fatty.” She felt voluptuous, sensual, and she walked with an enigmatic smile on her lips and an extra sway in her step because she knew Mason would be staring at her butt as she left the room.
She wasn’t blind to the other appreciative male glances coming her way either, and it made her feel empowered and sexy and in control. She wasn’t used to so many eyes on her, but for once she didn’t hunch her shoulders in an effort to fade into the background. She owned her femininity and threw it down like a gauntlet.
Take me or leave me, but this is me, and here I am!
“Okay, what the hell is going on between you and Mason Carlisle?” Daff asked after a cursory glance around the powder room to confirm its emptiness. Daisy said nothing, going to the mirror to check her appearance. She was annoyed to note that her hair was coming out of the bun she had forced it into. Everything else still looked fine, and the pretty blue silk chiffon cocktail dress—one of several new items she had purchased for this weekend—looked nice too. It was a little bustier than she was used to—it felt weird to look straight down into her cleavage—but she was glad she’d bought it. It had a form-flattering sweetheart bodice, with tapered ruched straps, and flared from the natural waist into a deceptively simple circle skirt. The floaty skirt merely skimmed her body as it fell to her knees, but it kissed her curves when she walked, flowing beautifully with her slightest movement. The saleswoman had been genuinely enthusiastic in her recommendation after she’d seen Daisy in the dress. And the spark of desire in Mason’s gaze when he’d clapped eyes on her had made it worth the while and the expense.
“Hey, you look really hot tonight, so stop admiring yourself in the mirror and answer my question,” Daff said, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at Daisy.
“That’s between Mason and me,” Daisy said casually as she tried to tuck her hair back into the bun.
“Daisy, don’t get too involved with him. You’re going to get hurt.”
“He’s done nothing to hurt me so far.”
“You mean other than acting as his brother’s wingman at the hen party?” Daisy flushed at the reminder.
“Nothing since then.”
“Because he feels guilty? Daisy, you blackmailed him into being your date; there’s no way in hell this ends well.”
“Blackmail implies coercion; he wasn’t coerced. I wanted to back out, but he insisted we do this.”
“Just watch yourself around him. This isn’t real . . . don’t convince yourself that it is.”
“Why can’t it be real? Because no man would be truly interested in the other, ugly McGregor sister?” she asked, the old doubts resurfacing with a vengeance from where they’d been lurking just beneath her fragile new layer of self-confidence.
“Daisy, no! Look at you, you’re beautiful. Stop denigrating yourself. I just want you to find something genuine, and while Mason puts on a great show, it’s all fake. Don’t forget that.”
“How can I?” Daisy asked bitterly. “When I have you around to constantly remind me?”
“Daisy . . .” Her sister looked both remorseful and unapologetic at the same time. How was that even possible? Daisy shook her head and held up her hand to forestall whatever Daff wanted to say next.
“Leave it for now. I’ll take your words under advisement. Thanks for your concern. I’d like to get back to my fake date now, if you don’t mind.”
She turned and stormed out of the bathroom with Daff hot on her heels. Both women unaware of the fact that the corner stall snicked open after they left and a grinning Zinzi Khulani stepped out, her phone already in hand to text her friend the juicy bit of gossip she had just learned.
“What did she do to piss you off?” Mason asked, while he politely helped Daisy back into her chair.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Daisy said, trying to hide her trembling hands as she fought to get her temper under control. Daff, in the meantime, summoned the waiter over to order a whiskey sour, which she tossed back immediately before demanding another one. Lia looked both concerned and disapproving but didn’t say anything, keeping a strained smile on her face when Mrs. Edmonton leaned over to speak with her.
Daisy tried to take in great big gulps of air in an attempt to get her anger and hurt under control. She was aware of Mason looking at her with a concerned frown, but she forced a smile for him even though he knew her well enough by now to be able to tell when she was faking it.
She watched as some of the younger couples started making their way to the tiny dance floor, laughing and looking carefree as they started to sway together. She knew most of them and env
ied their ease and self-confidence.
“Dance?” he asked quietly, and she shook her head.
“No. Don’t dance, remember?”
“We could try to break the chicken dance curse?”
“I thought you didn’t dance either,” she reminded him, and he grinned. She forgot her self-pity party for a moment and tilted her head as she ran her speculative gaze over him. “Why don’t you dance? You never told me.”
“Hmm, I said it was second-date material, if I recall correctly, which means I should have told you at MJ’s. My bad.”
“We’re not really dating, and if we were, MJ’s was our first date, not our second.”
“Yeah? Howdya figure that? What about Ralphie’s?”
“That was . . . that wasn’t a date,” she spluttered. “It was a con job.”
“We talked, we laughed, and I bought you a drink. It was a date.”
“You didn’t buy me a drink.”
“I’m sure I offered to buy you—” He broke off what he’d been about to say and tsked before wagging a censorious index finger back and forth in front of her face. “Stop distracting me. I asked if you wanted to dance.”
“I already answered.”
“We don’t have to dance in here,” he said, his voice a low, sexy rumble. “We could go out onto the patio. We’d still be able to hear the music from there.”
Daisy glanced longingly at the huge glass wall and doors that led out to the hotel’s private terrace overlooking the ocean. It was a chilly evening, and none of the other guests had ventured out.
“I wouldn’t mind getting some fresh air. Maybe just a walk on the beach or something instead of the dance?”
“If you promise to save your first dance at the wedding for me.”
“Only if you tell me why you don’t dance,” she countered, and he grinned.
“You’ve got yourself a deal. Now let’s get out of here.”
Daff anxiously watched Mason smoothly making excuses before taking Daisy’s hand and leading her through the tables toward the exit. Daisy didn’t look back. She had been pointedly avoiding eye contact since their earlier chat in the powder room. Daff stifled a sigh and tossed back another drink, ignoring the weight of Lia’s disapproving stare. She could perhaps have handled the conversation a little better, but she didn’t trust Mason Carlisle.