Mia Like Crazy (34 page)

The office was huge and masculine and cold. The only bright spot was the balcony, which could be seen through a glass door.

The well-dressed, heavy-set man behind the desk, didn’t even look up as we entered. I watched his long jowls waggle as he scribbled on a legal pad.

The receptionist motioned toward the two chairs facing him and we sat down. “Mr. Mason?” the young woman said tentatively. “Mr. and Mrs. Larson are here.”

The man looked up from his work. “Oh,” he said. He looked at Drew, then, turned his attention to me and appeared taken aback. He turned back to Drew. “Drew Larson?”

“Yes,” Drew answered, “and this is my wife Mia.”

Mason turned to me again. As his eyes swept over me, my stomach clenched and a terrible sensation crawled up my arms—the one I’d experienced many times growing up.

“
This
is your wife?” Mason asked with obvious surprise in his voice. “Well, then we don’t have to go any further. She’s not acceptable.”

The feeling had been dead on. I looked at Drew. I could see he was confused and angry, and already fighting for control.

“What?” His voice was strained.

“I knew your father for many years. This is not the sort of woman he would want to be the mother of his grandchildren.”

“Are you nuts?” Drew’s voice was much louder now. “She’s smart, educated, gorgeous—are you blind?”

“Be that as it may, she obviously doesn’t have the right
background
to marry into the Vaughn family.”

This confirmed what I had suspected from his first look. It wouldn’t have mattered what I wore or how I answered his questions. I was too dark to be a Vaughn.

I felt like the little project girl in hand-me-down clothes again, and the humiliation spread through me from head to toe. But the feeling was quickly replaced by anger when I realized Drew was about to lose his inheritance because of this man…and because of me.

Drew started out of his chair, but I jumped up and began speaking first. “You can’t do this to Drew. He deserves
something
after everything he’s gone through.” At the unsympathetic look on Mason’s face, desperate tears sprang into my eyes and I became more frantic. “I’ll sign anything you want. I’ll relinquish all rights to the money—Herbert Vaughn owes
him!” I was leaning over the desk. “You
all
owe him!”

“Look, Miss,” Mason said patronizingly. “Herbert Vaughn left this decision to me because he knew I would carry out his wishes—”

“And all those years, when you were friends, did you help him carry out
those
wishes? Did you help him ignore his son and abuse his daughter? What kind of person could you possibly be, if you were such a good friend? They took everything away from Drew when he was a little boy and you don’t have the right to do it to him again.”

Tears flowed freely down my cheeks, and I didn’t care who saw me crying. I just couldn’t stand to be the reason Drew didn’t get the closure he so badly needed.

“Don’t you understand? He deserves something
.
He deserves
something!”
I screamed.

I felt Drew’s arm around me. As I turned toward him, he looked genuinely concerned. “Mia, It’s okay. I’ll take care of this.”

He escorted me through the door and led me to the couch in the waiting area. He turned to the receptionist, “Could you get her some water?” He strode back into Mason’s office alone.

“I’ll go get you something to drink,” the receptionist said, as she hurried out of the room.

I sat dazed for several seconds. Drew was going to lose ninety million dollars because he chose me, and the reason it was happening was the one thing I couldn’t change or control, no matter what I had done in the past or what I would accomplish in the future.

As I swiped at my cheeks with the back of my hand, I wondered what he was doing in Mason’s office.

I stood and walked quietly over to the half-open door. Mason wasn’t behind his desk anymore, but I could hear Drew’s voice.

“You stupid, bigoted old creep!”

I stepped forward until I saw that he had a fearful, sweating Mason on the balcony. He was holding him by the front of his shirt collar with one hand, and their faces were mere centimeters apart. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about the money,” Drew continued. “You can keep it, but I want you to understand that you’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life.”

“Okay,” Mason babbled. “Okay.”

“
No,
it’s not
okay, because you’ve insulted the most beautiful, perfect person who has ever come into my life.”

I knew that a
truly
perfect person would step in and save this man from the terror Drew was inflicting, but I was sure Drew wouldn’t hurt him, and he certainly deserved to vent his anger, under the circumstances.

“You’re not good enough to lick the bottom of her shoes. She’s too good for me, you, and both of my dead fathers put together.
Do you understand that
?” When he forced Mason backward one more step, the man began to shake all over.

“Yes…yes. I understand,” he stammered.

They were almost against the railing. “Have you had this railing checked recently?” Drew’s voice had become very casual. “You know, I’ve heard of people leaning against them and falling right off.”

“Please…”

“You’ve heard about me, haven’t you? You know I don’t just let people get away with insulting me, and that goes for my wife, too.” Drew was taking his time, and the sweat was pouring down Mason’s puffy pink face. “But you’re a really old guy and you’re going to be dead soon anyway, so I’m going to give you one chance—”

“Th-thank you.” Mason sounded genuinely grateful.

“You’re gonna wipe yourself down, go out there to my wife, and apologize…and say something nice,” Drew continued. “If I like what you say, and you sound sincere, you can just go on with your pathetic, short life.”

“Okay…thank you…okay,” Mason said as Drew loosened the grip on his collar.

Mason started to relax, but Drew tightened his fist once more, causing the man’s cheeks to turn bright red.

“And one more thing,” Drew added. “If you
ever
run into my wife anywhere else, at any time, with or without me, you’d better kiss her ass like she’s your rich grandma, or I’ll come into your bedroom at night and slit your throat.” He removed his hand from Mason’s collar and smoothed the front of his shirt.

I stepped out into the waiting area, just as the nervous receptionist returned with a Styrofoam cup full of water.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” she said. “The cooler was empty and I had to go down to the next floor.”

“Thank you.” I sipped the water and wondered if it was wrong of me to derive such satisfaction from what Drew had done.

In that moment, Mason had represented all the people who had made me feel like less of a human for the first eighteen years of my life. And Drew was the first person who ever stood up for me. That was always my job.

Drew and Mason came out of the office. Drew looked expectantly at the other man and Mason began nervously. “I’m very sorry to have insulted you, Mrs. Larson. You’re really a lovely woman.” He looked at Drew for approval.

Drew took my
hand. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” We left without another word to Mason.

When we got out of the building, I came to my senses and remembered Drew and I weren’t together anymore. I pulled my hand out of his.

“Get in the car, Mia,” he ordered.

“No. I’m not getting in that car.”

He opened the passenger-side door. “I need to talk to you.”

“There’s no point to it now, anyway,” I replied. “Maybe if you find someone else, you can get another chance at the money.”

Drew raked a hand through his hair and looked away. Then he focused that deadly serious gaze on me. “Is that really what this has been about for you?” he asked. “The money? Because that’s not what it was about for me.”

I wanted to reach out and touch him and reassure him it had never been about the money for me. But, instead, I shoved my hands in my coat pockets to avoid temptation. “It doesn’t matter what it was about. It didn’t change anything for us. You made your priorities clear yesterday.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Something has changed. What difference is it going to make if you give me a few more minutes of your time?”

I had a baby to think about. I had to do what was best. “I’m not getting in that car with you.”

Then, Drew repeated the question he’d been asking me since we first met, except this time it was more like a challenge. “Are you
afraid
of me, Mia?” He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, I’m afraid of you!” My hands came out of my pockets, and I didn’t care that they were waving around as I spoke. “I’m afraid we’ll go back to the apartment and I’ll forgive you, just like always. I’m afraid you don’t really want to make a better life with me. You just want someone to control and feed who will
enable
you in your weird little hermit lifestyle. You made it clear last night. You want to be exactly who everyone thinks you are. You’re not that person, Drew, but if that’s what you’re striving for, what chance do we have?”

He acted as though he hadn’t heard me. He placed a hand on top of the open car door and looked at me expectantly. I didn’t budge. He bent down and lifted me into his arms before I realized his intention.

I saw a concerned-looking security guard a few yards away, but I didn’t dare scream because I didn’t want Drew to get roughed up again.

As he set me gently in the passenger seat of his car, he mumbled something about how I really was putting on weight, but stepped away before I could do him any bodily damage.

Once he was behind the wheel, I demanded to know where we were going.

“Nowhere in particular,” he answered. “We’re just going to drive and talk.”

“Why do we need to drive? We can talk anywhere.”

He took in a deep breath and blew it out loudly. “Because, since I met you, I’ve always been sure that one day I would say or do the wrong thing and you’d walk out of my life. It finally happened last night—maybe some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy—but this could be my last chance to be with you, and I don’t want you to leave before I’ve said everything I need to say.” He started the car and pulled away from the curb.

“In other words, you think it’s highly unlikely I’ll jump out of a moving car.”

“Yeah…” He seemed to be gathering his thoughts. “First thing is, I’m sorry for what I’ve put you through for the last six months, and I’m really sorry about that old creep in there. If I’d had any idea you’d be treated like that—” His jaw tightened along with his grip on the steering wheel.

“It’s okay. Well, it’s not okay, but I’m okay. I’m sorry I kept you from getting the money.”

“No, Mia, that’s just it. I don’t care about the money. When Mason said what he said, I didn’t even think about losing the money. All I thought about was how he was treating you.”

As I gazed at his profile, I remembered the things he said to Mason about me and knew he meant them. “But you’ll care, eventually,” I insisted. “It’s a lot of money to lose.”

He shook his head. “No. I mean, money is nice to have. It makes things easier in some ways, but last night, after you left, I went to bed and had this dream about dreams.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s what I’ve wanted to tell you since I woke up at five o’clock this morning. I sat in front of that building for two hours before you came.” He glanced over at me and I truly did see something different in his eyes. “You know how I told you I didn’t remember any hopes or dreams from when I was a kid?”