Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 21501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 108(@200wpm)___ 86(@250wpm)___ 72(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 108(@200wpm)___ 86(@250wpm)___ 72(@300wpm)
To distract myself, I take a turn around the kitchen, investigating the cabinets and the open concept living room. My eyes light on a long hallway behind him.
“So what’s behind the mystery door then?” I ask, suddenly a little nervous. What if he has a weird hobby and there’s two hundred frogs in that room or a taxidermy of, well, anything?
But Mason simply ignores my question and does his own casual shrug. “Off-limits, and definitely unrelated to anything little Velvet would need. So, in that case, I guess you’ll never know.” He grabs his suit jacket and slides into it, grinning like he’s quite clever.
Of course, the joke’s on him, because I’m so opening that door the second he leaves.
“I’ll see you later, Miss Parker,” he tells me as he walks to the door. “Don’t get into too much trouble.”
I just nod, and he leaves. I wait until I hear the sound of footsteps down the hall and the plink of the elevator.
And then, like the nosey little future librarian that I am, I bolt straight for the door to the sex dungeon.
Chapter Five
Spoiler: it’s not a sex dungeon.
For a brief moment, I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed. There isn’t a fluffy handcuff or mask or sex swing in sight. But then I realize it’s something even sexier than a sex dungeon.
Because it’s a fucking library.
A library with floor-to-ceiling shelves with one of those rolling ladders—the kind every girl who’s seen Beauty and the Beast has always coveted. Huge windows with a view of Central Park. Big, cozy chairs made of leather. And the leather’s worn in places, meaning he must actually use this room. In fact, he definitely does, because there’s a heavy desk settled near the window covered with notebooks and an assortment of pens. There’s a stack of books on a side table with bookmarks marking his place. I breathe a sigh of relief knowing he’s not the kind of demon who dog-ears pages, something that would make him a librarian’s worst nightmare. But then the relief evaporates because it’s much, much easier to dislike Mason when I think of him as a page-ruiner.
But no. He has to have the world’s most perfect secret library.
Even worse, I love his entire apartment. After spending an hour lying on the library floor, staring at the elaborate woodwork, I check out the rest of the place. I had imagined, based on his glittery pictures on his Insta, that I was in for a mirror-covered bachelor pad that was cold and unforgiving. Instead, the whole place is modern but cozy. Chairs and couches you want to sink into, a bathroom with soft-to-the-touch towels, the smell of coffee in the kitchen. A bedroom with a giant bed and lots of blankets.
Pictures of him with his parents dot the bookshelves in the library and the walls in the living room. Some were clearly from Mason’s childhood, showing him with his dad in a kayak or with his mom in the garden. Tucked into bed with a stuffed rabbit under his arm.Their smiles are so, so big in those photos.
They were still smiling in the later pictures, but there’s clearly a point where something happened. His dad starts to look thinner, and then the pictures of the three of them stop. Then it’s Mason, a bit older, and his mom on vacation on a beach somewhere. But that’s where the timeline seems to end.
I swallow. I should’ve put it together, based on what I saw, that there was a reason Mason took over the family’s publishing business. Now, it’s obvious that it was after he lost both his parents. I check my phone, and sure enough, he inherited Cooper Publishing after they passed five years ago.
I don’t like feeling bad for Mason. I try to hate him again when I read that he’s turned Cooper Publishing into a place that mostly publishes gross, ghostwritten celebrity tell-alls. But it’s not enough. I’ve seen too much. That library, after all, is full of novels from all different genres. And the desk is clearly a place he actually works at.
Ugh, it’s all fucking librarian catnip.
Still, I remind myself that neither having a library nor having a tragic past makes Mason a good guy. Sure, there might be more to him than I thought, but guys like Mason are not to be trusted. Like, there’s a reason none of the girls in the pictures are still around. There’s a reason they all only appeared a few times. Clearly, he slept with each of them once and then abandoned them to brood in his unreasonably nice apartment.
My phone pings with an incoming text. It’s a number I don’t recognize. I open it.
Found the sex dungeon yet?
I smother a smile. Of course it’s him.
I think you have the wrong number. Don’t make me report you to the authorities. I press send and sink into one of the plentiful cozy chairs, grinning like a fucking teenager when another message comes through.