Betting on You (17 page)

“All right.” Lark hung up without saying goodbye, too frustrated for good phone manners.

“What was that about?” Mason asked as he pulled out onto the highway, aiming them back toward Summerville.

Lark shook her head. “I don’t know. Aria said she has bad news, but she won’t tell me what it is over the phone.”

“Or with me around,” Mason added, clearly having overheard.

Lark reached out and took his free hand in hers. “You heard what I had to say about that. It’s you and me, and she’s going to have to get used to it.”

Mason gave her fingers a light squeeze. “Don’t worry. Whatever it is, I’ll help. We’ll get it through it.”

Together
, didn’t need to be said aloud. Lark could feel it in the air between them, a fact of life as undeniable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

From the second she had opened her eyes to find Mason watching her sleep with a smile on his face, Lark had felt the change in their relationship. There was no more doubt, no more fear, only a deep gratitude and a beautiful peace and a feeling of…lightness that was their love lifting them up and carrying them along, making every step, every breath, easier than it had been before.

They were truly Mason and Lark again, but even more deeply connected than they’d been before. Now that they knew what it was like to lose each other, they were both determined to hold tighter, love harder, and never put their future together at risk again. She was sure of it.

Lark remained sure all the way home to Summerville, and held tight to Mason’s hand as Aria led them to the picnic table behind the house where a blue folder was waiting on top of the freshly stained wood.

It was a harmless looking thing, that folder, but Lark’s pulse raced anyway. Aria hadn’t been in the best mood lately, but she was never one to create drama where there wasn’t any. If she thought Lark was going to be upset about the contents of the folder, then she was probably right.

“Since you wanted to look at it with Mason, I brought it out here,” Aria said, motioning to the folder, refusing to meet Lark’s eyes. She hadn’t look up from the ground since she met Lark at the door. “I’ll go inside and give you two some privacy.”

“Aria, can’t you just tell me what’s going on?” Lark asked, not wanting her sister to leave for some strange reason. She had been angry at Aria on the way home, but now she just wanted as many people who loved her around as possible.

Aria paused by the back door, casting a sad look at Lark over her shoulder. “I think it’s better that you and Mason do this alone.”

And then she was gone and there was nothing left to do but cross to the picnic tale and pick up the folder. So Lark did, her hands shaking as she flipped it open and pulled out a bunch of papers stapled together at the upper left hand corner.

“What is it?” Mason asked from across the table.

Lark shook her head as she skimmed the first page of the document. “I don’t know. It looks like a contract.” She flipped another page. “A rental agreement or something.”

“What?” Mason asked, sounding as confused as she felt. “A rental agreement for what?”

“I don’t…” Lark reached the last page and her words trailed away.

It was a rental agreement for an apartment in New York City. Signed by five men, one of whom was Mason Stewart. She recognized his crooked, scrawled signature immediately.

For a second, Lark thought the document was something he’d signed recently, and her stomach hardened into a knot around the egg and cheese sandwich she’d eaten on the way home. But then she looked at the date next to Mason’s name, and her muscles relaxed with a spasm of relief.

It was an old agreement, dated August tenth, four years ago.

August tenth…

Lark’s stomach clenched all over again. Mason had proposed to her on August fifteenth. Five days
after
he’d signed an agreement to live with four other boys in New York City. Five days
after
he’d decided to leave her and maybe never come back.

“What is it?” Mason asked, suddenly at her side though she didn’t remember him circling around the table. “What’s wrong?”

Lark pushed the folder and rental agreement clumsily into his hands and moved away, stumbling a few feet across the patio. Mason followed her, but she lifted one hand, motioning for him to stay back, feeling like she might shatter if he touched her.

“Lark, what’s going on?” Mason asked in a deep, concerned voice. “You’re scaring me.”

“Look at it,” Lark whispered, fighting to speak past the misery tightening her chest.

Mason’s sighed in frustration, but he finally looked down at the papers in his hand, flipping to the back page, going still when he realized what he was holding.

“How did Aria get this?” Mason asked, his tone oddly flat.

“I don’t know,” Lark said after a moment. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters,” Mason said, scowling as he snapped the folder shut and tossed it back onto the table. “A rental agreement isn’t a matter of public record. I want to know how she—”

“I don’t care!” Lark said, far louder than she intended.

She balled her hands into fists at her side. “It doesn’t matter,” she added in a soft, wounded voice, a voice like a big, black bruise that was going to take forever to go away. “I think you should go.”

“What?” Mason started toward her, but stopped when she took a quick step back. “Lark, please, this is crazy. There’s no reason to—”

“I’m not crazy. You lied,” Lark said, pointing an accusing finger at his chest.

“I didn’t say
you
were crazy, I said—”

“You lied,” Lark said again, struggling to maintain control. “You went looking for apartments in Atlanta with me, acting like we were going to move in together like we’d always planned, acting like you
loved me
, while behind my back you’d already signed a lease for an apartment in New York.”

“Please, Lark. Just listen. Please.” Mason lifted his hands, palms up, in a gesture that said he had nothing hide.

A gesture Lark knew was probably just another lie.

“It was four years ago,” he said. “I told you I was messed up.”

Lark shook her head. “Messed up and confused is one thing, lying to me for almost a week, proposing to me when you were planning to leave for New York the very
next day
is something else.”

“I didn’t plan to leave the next day,” Mason said, frustration and desperation warring in his tone. “I didn’t plan anything. I was so mixed up, I didn’t know where I was going to go, or what I was going to do.”

“You knew you weren’t going to stay here.”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” he said, driving a clawed hand through his already messy hair. “A part of me knew I wasn’t ready to give you the kind of life you wanted. That’s the part that signed the lease in New York. But the other part of me couldn’t imagine leaving you. That’s the part that went looking for apartments in Atlanta, and the part that proposed. That part couldn’t imagine going off and starting a life without you in it.”

“But you did,” Lark said. “And I had no idea there was a war going on, Mason. You seemed exactly the same.” Lark swallowed the lump rising in her throat. “I’ve been over those days before you left a thousand times, looking for clues that would have told me you were planning to go, but there was nothing.”

“Lark, please—”

“Nothing!” Lark repeated, tears filling her eyes. “Not a single sign. The only thing I could think of was that it was an impulsive, last minute decision. That you ran because you were afraid of marrying me or afraid of moving forward or…something. Just something had spooked you and you’d run without thinking.”

She took a deep breath, making herself meet Mason’s eyes before she continued. “But now I know that it
wasn’t
impulsive, and that you deceived me in a way I never even imagined.”

“It was four years ago,” Mason said, voice breaking. “Please, Lark…I’m not that person anymore.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Lark blinked, sending the water in her eyes rolling down her cheeks. “But how can I ever know for sure?”

Mason’s breath rushed out. “You can know because you were there with me last night in that hotel room. That was more than just sex, Lark. That was me and you, together, with nothing to hide.”

“That’s not true.” Lark crossed her arms at her chest defensively, not wanting to think about last night. “You were hiding something. That lease proves it.”

“I wasn’t
hiding
it,” Mason said, his frustration clear. “I’d forgotten about it.”

Lark’s eyebrows shot up. “You’d forgotten that you’d made plans to move to New York and then lied to me about it for a week before—”

“No!” Mason shouted before tucking his head to his chest. “No,” he repeated, regaining control. “I just didn’t think it mattered. That’s part of the past, Lark.”

He lifted pleading eyes to hers. “I’ve already told you I regret the way I treated you back then. That lease and everything else I did are all part of the same, stupid thing. I screwed up; I know that. But I’m not going to screw up again, and that’s the truth. I’m not hiding anything from you.”

“How can I know that, Mason?” Lark asked, voice breaking. “How can I trust a single word you say?”

Mason frowned. “Because you
know
I’m telling the truth. You knew it last night when we were lying there talking about having kids together.”

Lark shook her head. “We talked about that before. You still left.”

“Please, Lark, it’s not the same,” he begged. “There is no doubt in my mind about what I want. I’m ready to promise my life to you. I want to start a family as soon as we can. I would marry you this afternoon if I could. Everything I’ve said from the moment I came back to town until now is the absolute truth.”

“I’m sorry, but…I can’t trust that,” Lark said, swiping the wet from her cheeks. “I can’t trust you, and without trust this… This isn’t going to work.”

Mason froze for a long, silent moment. “So that’s it? It’s over?”

Lark pressed her lips together until it hurt—refusing to cry again, at least not in front of Mason—and nodded.

“No.” Mason shook his head. “Don’t do this, Lark. This isn’t what you want, and it sure as hell isn’t what I want. If you force me out of your life, we’re both going to regret it. Forever.” He took a careful step closer. “Just…let’s work this out, okay? I know we can. I know I can make it better if you’ll give me the chance.”

Lark hesitated.

Give him a chance.

She wanted to give him a chance, she wanted to believe that the past five days and the love they’d rediscovered was real, but…it had only been
five days
.

That lease proved Mason could fake anything for five days.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the way they had giggled together four summers ago as they’d visited one cheap, Atlanta apartment after another, imagining what they were going to name the cockroaches they’d be sharing a kitchen with in their crappy new living space. They’d been so excited to finally live together that not even the reality of what they could afford on their very limited budget had been able to dampen their spirits.

And then, the night he’d proposed, when he’d gotten down on one knee and told her he didn’t want to wait to promise her forever, when she’d cried and laughed and hugged him so tight…

He had hugged her just as tight, and there had been happy tears in his eyes. There had been no sign, no clue,
nothing
to warn her to expect the worst.

If she gave Mason a chance, she might end up with that happily ever after she’d been imagining last night. Or she might end up deceived and broken all over again. There was no way to know for sure. Mason was too good at hiding the things he didn’t want other people to see. He was more of a master than she’d ever assumed, so adept she would never be able to trust what he showed her on the surface.

Never. No matter how much she wanted to, no matter how it was going to rip her apart to lose him all over again.

But, in the long run, it was better to lose him now than months down the road, when she was already pregnant and tied to a man she couldn’t trust for the rest of her life.

“I’m sorry,” Lark finally whispered in a calm, defeated voice.

“That’s it?” he asked, breath coming faster. “You’re not even going to think about it?”

“I have thought about it.” Lark lifted her chin. “It’s over, Mason. For good.”

He took one stunned step back and then another, shaking his head back and forth. “Just like that,” he muttered beneath his breath, crossing to the table and snatching up the folder. “Because of some stupid piece of paper your poisonous sister found.”

He drew back his arm, hurling the folder across the yard with a combination shout-growl that made Lark flinch.

Mason spun back to face her, a wild, angry, miserable look on his face. “You’re throwing us away for nothing!” he shouted. “Nothing!”