Mason (12 page)
Emma stood up, and Patterson just laughed at
her. “You’re going to take that back and stop asking such questions. I don’t
sleep with the bosses to get where I am, and I have no intentions of ever doing
so.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t think I haven’t hinted enough
for you to fuck me.” Emma sat down, stunned. “You have no idea how many times I’ve
tried to get you cornered, but you were just clueless. I’ve figured out that
you’re either a dyke or you just don’t like me. And I think it’s both. Are you
a pussy eater, Emma?”
This time when she stood up, he did as well.
Her temper was hot right now and she could feel Mason right there. If he was
talking to her, she had no clue what he was saying because her mind was running
through all the things she’d like to say to this man. When she picked up her
purse, he came around the table to her and grabbed her arms.
“Don’t touch me.” He just laughed and shoved
her back in the chair. When he leaned against the desk and stared at her, Emma
started to stand again.
“Sit there and shut up. I’m going to let you
suck my dick. Then I’m going to tell Foster that you’re leaving. When you do,
you’re going to never say a fucking word. I figure I’m about done here anyway,
and might as well have something that I’ve wanted for a long time.” When he
reached for his belt, she punched him in the cock. He bent over, and when he
did, she stood up and kneed him in the face. The door opened behind her, and
she turned, fists up.
“Don’t, baby, it’s me.” She had to take
several deep breaths while her vision cleared. When Mason pulled her into his
arms, she let him hold her, but her temper was still on the edge. “Don’t kill
him. He’s not worth it.”
“Do you know what he said to me?” He told her
he’d been in Foster’s office. “What the hell was that all about? I was bait?”
“Yes, and Mr. Foster is going to apologize
profusely as soon as he can move.” She looked up at Mason and asked him what he
meant. “I hurt him. Not as badly as I wanted, but he’s going to think twice
before he asks you to do something like this again.”
“He wanted him to try this.” Mason said she
was right, but Foster had figured that when things got bad, he’d call security.
“That’s just not right. I mean, what if he’d hurt me? And what…I hit him.”
The man in question hadn’t moved since she’d
hit him with his name plate. When he’d been going down, she’d touched it and
picked it up. Just as Patterson reached for her again, she’d hit him. This time
he didn’t move.
“We’re going to go home and in a few days you
can come back here and talk to him again.” She shook her head. “Honey, I don’t
think he’s going to be able to talk to you for a couple of days at least. When
he wouldn’t tell me which office you were in, I sort of let my cat come out a
little and we had some fun. Would you believe that he spoke right up just
before I hit him again?”
“I’m just betting he did. But I’m not working
for a man who could do this to one of his partners.” The door opened behind
them and Emma felt her body being slid behind Mason’s. He was big enough that
she couldn’t see who it was, but when Mr. Foster spoke, she peeked around Mason
at him.
“I want to talk to you about what just
happened.” Emma stood beside Mason and glared at her boss. “It’s not what you
think. I’ve been hearing things he’s been saying for weeks now, and when you
left, things just got worse. I had to catch him in the act.”
“With this?” Mason held something in his hand
and Foster nodded. “You’re not getting this back until she says you can have
it. And as for your little trick here, if I ever hear even a hint of you pulling
this sort of shit again, I will come back here and tear you apart.”
“I’ll need that in the event that Patterson
sues us.” Mason handed her the little thumb drive, and she looked at it for
several seconds while Mr. Foster explained what was on it. “I’ve been recording
all kinds of things around here that he’s been doing. And if he tries to take
me to court—not that I think he’ll win, but if he does—then—”
“I’m suing you.” Mr. Foster just stared at
her. “I will give you my formal resignation and then I’m going to sue you. This
recording will be posted on every website that I can think of, too. What you
did wasn’t just illegal, but it was unethical as well as immoral. To think that
I came here in good faith to tell you that I was going to come back on Monday.
And you pull this shit.”
“I’ve made you partner.” Emma only reached
for her purse in lieu of answering him. “You can’t just walk out on me, Emma. I’ve
been thinking of all the cases we can take on once we clean house here. We’ll
be millionaires in no time.”
“Mason, call the police. And an ambulance
please.” She went to the other side of the desk and placed a call. “Hello,
Margaret…yes, I’m back for right now. Mr. Foster has just made some very…yes, I
guess you have seen it. Could you please make sure that…you’re a doll, and I’ll
have Fox make you some of those cookies that you like and have them brought to
you. Yes, I think I can arrange it so that he brings them to you too.”
“You can’t just have her give you copies of
security tapes.” Emma said nothing and took Mason’s hand. “Emma, think what you’re
doing. No one in this state will want to use us again if this gets out. I can’t
allow you to do this.”
“I did nothing. You did when you asked me to
put on a wire and camera and come in here and let that piece of shit make a
pass at me.” Emma felt her temper rise again, and when Mason put his arm around
her, she calmed. “You’re very lucky my husband came in here with me, or so help
me, I would have beaten the shit out of you too.”
After stopping by the security office, she
and Mason left the building. Emma was shaking so hard that he had to hold her
before they got very far. Now that she’d dealt with the issue, she was hurt.
Mr. Foster had actually used her as bait. She looked over at Mason as he drove
them back to the house.
“Do you suppose we can find a justice of the
peace and get this finished?” He looked at her when he stopped at the light. “I
want to be your wife now, Mason. Right now.”
“All right, but your parents aren’t going to
be too happy with you about running off.” She told him she’d call them when it
was done. Mason pulled up in front of the court house and turned to look at
her. “Gerard is in town, right down the road. And I think that Holly is here as
well. Will they do as witnesses?”
“Yes. Perfect.” He was moving up the steps
with her when she realized that he could contact them like he talked to her. “And
when we get home after you ravish me, I want you to convert me. Tonight. The
thought of being a cat and being able to tear someone’s throat out really
appeals to me.”
“Whoa, baby. We’ll have to work up to that.
Let’s just get you married to me. Then we’ll talk about your anger issues.”
Gerard came in behind them with Jace and Holly. Forty minutes later, she was
saying yes to him and well on her way to being Emma Douglas. After the
afternoon she’d had, this was a perfect ending to it all.
Mason had a wife. It was all that was going
through his mind at any given second of the day. Not only did he have a lovely
wife that he loved more than anything in the world, but he was the owner of one
of the largest, if not the largest ranches in the state. Mason looked at Jace when
he snapped his fingers in front of him.
“Are you listening?” He shook his head no. “Well,
you’d better. This has gone way beyond a spoiled man taking his revenge out on
his mom and dad. Dirk has killed a few people. And hurt a great many more. One
of them being a friend of mine.”
“I had heard about Mark. He’s going to be all
right, isn’t he?” Jace said that once he shifted he was fine, but it had taken
a lot out of him to be hurt in the head that way. “I’m so sorry. I’m paying
attention now.”
“We’re going to set up a way for him to get
into the house. That seems to be his biggest thing right now. That and money. Did
you know that he refers to himself as Dirk McBride? Not me or anything like
that, but as his name? What a fucking moron.” Jace moved some of the papers
around on this desk before handing him some of them. “That’s where he’s been
staying, we think. LeBlanc said that someone from the trash company called his
office this morning with a report of a body in a trash dumpster. She’d been
dead for a few days and he’d put her out to the curb. This guy is really making
a name for himself.”
Sadie James had been eighty-four years old
when she’d been murdered. Blunt force trauma to her head had killed her. The
report that Mason was looking at said that the house had been ransacked and
trashed, as well as any valuables that she might have had were gone. There was
also no money in her purse, something that her neighbors said she had on her at
all times.
“Not that I don’t believe you, but how do
they know it was him?” Jace said that the place was covered in his prints, and
even the rolling pin that he’d used to hit her had his prints on it. “What was
he doing in her home?”
“LeBlanc said that it looked to him like he
was living there. He said it would explain why they’d not been able to find
him. And her car wasn’t used, so he’s either got one stashed somewhere or he’s
walking.”
“Was it a standard?” Both he and Jace stood
up when Emma came into the room. She waved them both to have a seat and asked
again. “The reason I ask is because he’s never been able to drive one. I think
it was just laziness on his part, but he never learned.”
“Yeah, it says here that it was a standard.”
Mason kissed her before continuing with the plan. “We’re trying to get him to
come to us, sort of. Jace thinks, along with LeBlanc, that he’ll go to the
house on the idea that your family is taking him back in.”
Holly joined them, talking as she entered the
room. “I’ve done some research on the law firm of yours, and you are well rid
of them. And so you know, Ed, the family attorney, is going to go after them for
you. I guess he’s had some issues with them before. That guy Foster? He gives
the appearance of being this really dopey kind of fatherly like, but he’s a
prick.”
Emma nodded. Mason had had to hold Emma back
from returning and murdering the man, but Holly told her that she had a better
plan. The two of them, along with Palmer, had been closed up in the study all
morning. He told her whatever she wanted to do was completely up to her.
“Oh, you should know that I’ve taken the
mayoral position as of this morning.” Mason just smiled at her. “You knew I
would, so don’t look all pleased with yourself. It might get you hurt later.”
“I hope so.” She playfully punched him in the
arm, and he turned back to his brother. “This plan to get Dirk to the house,
what then? I mean, once he’s there, what is going to happen?”
“I’m going to have him arrested. I mean…sort
of.” Mason looked at Jace, then at Landon when he came into the room to join in
on the conversation. “He’s going to try and hurt me, and I’m going to take him down.”
“You’re not going to let him try to hurt you.”
Katie told Landon to sit down and behave before she looked at Mason. “He’s mad at
you mostly. I just spoke to him. And before any of you start yelling at me,
that nice man Ed recorded it all. Apparently, Mason, you’re the bane of his
very life, and he wants you out of the picture. He’s most upset, too, that you
and Emma are married. I hung up when I could no longer stand his mouth.”
He figured that once the paper came out today
that he’d be getting a few calls. When Emma had called her parents after the
short ceremony, her dad could be heard whooping it up all the way through the
phone. When he’d talked to him, Landon could barely contain his happiness and
told him he’d talk to him later. Katie told him she was very proud of him, but
to expect a second wedding with all the fanfare later.
“So we get him to the house. I’m assuming
that the police will be there as well?” Jace nodded, and told him that the SWAT
team was also going to be there in the event that something went wrong. “A lot
can go wrong, you know. Not just with him trying to hurt his father, but didn’t
I hear that he had a gun or two? We have to figure that he might try to kill
him, not just hurt him.”
“I’d like to address that if I may.” Everyone
looked at Aunt Georgie. “I’m not going to say that I like this plan, but I
think that sending in a human is going to get someone killed. I think, since he’s
already mad at Mason, that he’d be the best one to confront him. I don’t want
anyone hurt, but Mason is a good deal better able to handle it than you are,
Landon.”
“I like that plan.” Katie looked at him. “I
know that I’m asking a great deal of you, but like your aunt said, it would be
easier for you to come back from him shooting you.”
“Mother? I don’t want either of them hurt,
but sheesh, let’s be a little conscious of the fact that I just married him.” Emma
looked at her mom, then at Mason. “You can’t get yourself killed. I’m your wife
now, and I forbid it.”
“All right, love, no dying. But you have to
agree, Aunt Georgie is right.” He pulled Emma into his arms. “I can smell
silver if he should have some on him, and I’m quicker than your dad is, even
though he is feeling better. If he tries to shoot me, I have a good chance of
getting away before he can do much.”
“Do I get to say anything about this?” Landon
looked like a hurt child, and Mason just barely held his humor in. “I’m an old
man, not to mention the father of the little shit. If anyone should be there,
it should be me.”
“And what do I do if this time he kills you?
Huh?” Katie poked Landon in the chest as she yelled at him. “I can’t do that
again, you old turd. I need you. And I’ve already picked out some of my clothes
to take on this trip we’re planning. I want to see Europe with you, and take a
cruise. You’ll be there or so help me, I’ll…I’ll stuff you and take you along
just so I don’t have to be alone.”
Landon held his sobbing wife. She begged him
over and over to let Mason do it, and Mason thought he was going to tell her
no. But in the end Landon gave in, but he said that he’d like to talk to his
son once it was over. Everyone agreed that if it was possible he could.
The plan was good. And solid. Mason was going
to go to the house early in the morning. His brothers and a few of their friends
were going to be there as well…two inside, the rest of them all over the
property. They would keep each other updated on where Dirk was at all times. Aunt
Georgie and Katie were going to be at Aunt Georgie’s house with the police. LeBlanc
had okayed that they do this their way to a point, but if things went sour, he
was going in full force. The police and the SWAT team were going to wait until
LeBlanc said it was okay to go in and everything was being recorded.
Now that they had a way of contacting Dirk—the
phone being set up for him at the mall had been Katie’s idea—they could contact
him at any time once things were complete. Katie said that Dirk had told her
over and over that she should have thought of that sooner, and she’d had to
bite her tongue to tell him she’d not wanted to talk to him after he’d nearly
killed his father. The phone wasn’t up to his standards either, apparently.
Katie told them that he’d complained about it
not being what he’d had before. How was he to use it in front of his friends
should he need to make a call? And there wasn’t a good camera that he could
take pictures of his clothing to keep for future style issues. Everything about
the phone had been subpar.
Landon was set to call Dirk at five o’clock
in the morning, Dirk’s usual bed time, and tell him to go to the house, that he
and Katie had a change of heart about things. Mason was going to be there
waiting in the event that he was closer than they thought. LeBlanc had admitted
that he’d lost him twice since he’d been following him after leaving the mall.
“He just blends in. Not with the people—no,
not even close—but going in and out of shops. He must know them better than I
do my own house.” Katie said he more than likely did. “I just gave up following
him and had a man put in all the posh stores around town. He might not have any
money to spend, but he sure window shops more than my sister.”
Once he received the call and was headed to
the house, then the department of men would go along with him—out of the way,
of course—and keep an eye on him. It had been Holly’s idea to send a limo for Dirk
so that he could be contained better. But an officer was going to be driving it
should something happen.
At six thirty in the morning, after trying
for an hour to contact his son, Landon called and told him that it was set up.
He was going to come out to the house around five-thirty that night, and Landon
had told him that the car would be there to get him. Dirk was going to be at
the mall. He wanted to make a list of things that he was going to purchase when
he returned with money and cards.
“He gave me a list, Mason. A list of…I guess
you could call them demands. And he wants to have his mom…he wants her to be
altered. Sent to a specialist to have her face lifted and her body toned.” Mason
asked him if he had a reason for that. “Yeah, he said that if she was going to
go out and claim to be a McBride, then she had to suit him. He had a public
image to maintain, and they were going to expect nothing but the best. When I
asked him what he had planned for me, you know what the little shit said?”
“I have no idea. I wouldn’t think he’d want
you to go under the knife. You’re much too tough, and I think you both look
good the way you are.” Landon snorted, but Mason knew he was hurt. “What are his
big plans for you?”
“He’s going to have me put in a nursing home.
Changing my name, of course. He doesn’t want anyone to know that we’re related.”
Mason wanted to go and find the fuck right now and show him how badly he’d hurt
his dad this time. “I don’t even…what the hell am I supposed to say to him? And
he said that a judge would be on his side because, and I quote, ‘there is no
way that we could be of the same mold.’ He’s damned well got that right.”
At four o’clock, Mason and Landon went to the
house. Emma was there as well, but she’d promised to stay out of sight with her
dad. Mason hadn’t wanted either of them there in the event that Dirk started
spouting out more of his demands, but Landon wanted to talk to his son, and
Emma wanted to make sure they were both safe. By five fifteen, the limo was
leaving the mall and had the little shit in the back. Things were about to be
finished.
~~~
Dirk felt good. He was going to go home and
clean things up, and let them get back to normal. Well, as normal as it could
be from now on. And his dad had been very receptive to his changes too. Dirk
thought that was going to go so much easier on them when he told them the rest
of his plans.
He’d seen the paper this morning announcing
the marriage of his sister to Mason. That had to be taken care of first. There
was no way that man was going to be a part of his elite family. There were
going to be higher standards now, and if he had to break a few heads for it to
be the way he wanted it, the way it should have been from the beginning, then
so be it. Dirk referred to his list.
Last night he’d gone over it and numbered it
in order of importance. It had taken him nearly an hour to get the first one
chosen. There had been so many things that he wanted to do first that he’d had
to really work on it. First and foremost had been getting his money taken care
of. Then he’d seen the headlines in the paper and had to move everything back
down one. But money and his establishment into being in charge had to be at the
top. No more fucking around.
When the car slid to a stop, he nearly told
the driver he was fired. The man, for sure, would never drive him around the
way he jerked him to a stop at every chance he got. He’d just have to make sure
that he was fired after his father and he talked. The man might have to take
his dad to the home today, and if he fired him now, then they’d have to prolong
the wait to get it over with.
Fox was still there. Dirk had nothing to give
him, so he just waited for him to speak first. The sooner they figured out who
was in charge around here the better. Of course, Fox had to go. He’d not want
any of the old staff here once he was really in charge. As Fox led him to the
living room, Dirk thought of all the changes he was going to make in the house
too.
