Mason had managed to look worse than the last time I saw him. I kept my eyes on him as he made his way into the office. I knew I wouldn’t see Fiona because it looked like they had an unspoken agreement. When one person showed up, the other person tried to make themselves scarce.
He placed the file in his hand on my desk and offered me a smile. The most forced smile he has ever sent my way.
“Alright, what went wrong this time?”
Mason waved his hand in the air and sat opposite me. “That’s not important. I hear that your mother ‘caught’ you with Fiona.”
He made air quotes around the catch, and it made me tilt my head to the side. “Caught me?”
Mason nodded, “that’s what I hear. Do you know what you’re doing?”
“What do you mean?”
Mason shrugged. “With her?”
I looked over to where Fiona was sitting before the computer on her desk. She seemed engrossed with whatever she was doing, and I couldn’t help the smile on my lips.
“Christian, seriously.”
I snapped my head over to him. “What is your problem with her?”
Mason let out a deep sigh, and drew his chair closer to the desk. “She’s trying to ruin your life. Next thing you know, she’s taking you away from your girlfriend.”
I blinked because what was he even talking about? “What are you talking about?”
“Since she showed up, you’ve never mentioned Aurora.”
“We broke up a long time ago; I remember telling you about it.”
“Yes, you seemed torn up about it, and then Fiona shows up out of nowhere, and you’re all over her.”
“I’ve known her since we were kids,” I said carefully, trying to imagine where this was actually going. I didn’t want to lose my temper, especially since I was trying to find out what this feud was between them.
“And?”
“And?”
Mason ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “Office romance is not ideal, you know that, right? When you date someone from work, you start to cheat, and then you’re leaving the person who cares about you-”
“In this case, Aurora.”
Mason snapped his finger and pointed at me like I just gave the best answer in the world. I wondered at that moment if I had never told him about Aurora. There was no way he would have wanted me to end up with her.
“Aurora is not a good person, but Fiona is.”
Mason shook his head, “Fiona is pretending to be a good person. She is just like all of them.”
“All of them?” I asked, suspecting that this conversation was not in any way about me or Fiona.
“You know the man Cherie is with right now?”
I thought back to the man I had seen around Cherie’s house, tall with brown hair, the smile on his face whenever he saw Cherie, the smile on Cherie’s face whenever she saw him even though I always thought it didn’t look as real as when she was around Mason.
“He’s her co-worker. They are all the same. Nothing good comes out of office romances. It’s not like the books.”
I nodded slowly because this wasn’t why I expected he couldn’t stand Fiona. I thought she did something horrible to him, or maybe ignored him, or didn’t carry out a task he asked her to do.
There were a lot of reasons on the list I came up with. I even thought he just didn’t like her for no reason. There could be situations like that.
“Fiona is nothing like that.”
“Of course, you’d think that,” Mason said, disappointed in my reply.
I wanted to stay and reassure him, but I had a meeting with Aurora and her parents. Going through my parents didn’t seem like a good option; I would nip this drama with Aurora in the bud.
“Mason, I say this with love, and I hope you listen to me because I want nothing but the best for you, okay? Talk to Cherie, tell her you miss her. Sure, it’s been seven years, but that is also enough time for her to figure herself out. Tell her exactly how you feel; even if she doesn’t feel the same way. Get it off your chest. It’ll be easier to live with whatever comes next.”
******
I didn’t tell Fiona about the meeting because I didn’t want her to worry. My plan for the meeting was to tell Aurora and her family that I had no intention of being forced into marriage with her.
If she still loved me, as she claimed, that would be something for her to deal with. I had no idea why she was trying her best to make it my problem.
The restaurant I picked was one of the best in town, but I chose it simply because they offered a private room. The cuisine was the last thing on my mind, but Aurora and her parents thought I invited them over to dine because they complimented the food non-stop.
I suppose the pasta we were served was good, and the lighting in the room, dim and warm, made it look like we were there for an intimate conversation. Aurora sat next to me, trying to move her seat closer to mine. And no matter how many times I moved away from her, she never seemed to get the hint.
I cleared my throat to get their attention back on me. Now that I was thinking about it, I shouldn’t have allowed them to dig into the meal. I should have just gone right ahead and told them why I’ve invited them over.
