New Home

It wasn't just any mansion, it was now her home, for the next six months at least.

She got out of the car with her luggage wheeled behind her. It was a three hour drive home. She was driven home by Mason’s chauffeur and had overheard some staff talking about him going on an urgent business trip.

The mansion stood a few feet ahead. Its grand architecture reflected the setting sun and turned the large windows into sheets of burnished gold. The front door was a slab of dark wood that easily opened up as she pushed it. She half-expected a butler or a maid to greet her, but there was nothing but silence in the house. Her footsteps echoed in the house to amplify its emptiness. The air was cool, almost clinical, and fairly scented of lemon.

Moving further inside, Gianna saw the living room that seemed more like a showroom. With the expensive leather sofas, a glass coffee table, and abstract art pieces hung at random places on the walls. There was no sense of life here. There were no books left open, no half-drunk coffee cups, not even a wrinkle in the perfectly plumped cushions.

It was as if the room was staged for a high-end real estate listing and not lived in.

She wandered into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and found it stocked with gourmet ingredients and prepared meals, each in a glass container with a label: "Mr. Mason's lunch," "Mr. Mason's dinner."

There were no sign of any personal touches nor any comfort foods, just planned diets. The sink was spotless too.

She left the kitchen and continued upstairs.

There were a lot of guest rooms, and since there was no one around to show her where she ought to stay, she just picked any to use as hers. She’s spent the next hour setting up her things in the new space. Then after freshening up, went straight to bed.

A couple of hours later she woke up and the house was even quieter than before she slept. Actually it was still the same, only that there as now an eerier feel to the atmosphere because it had already gotten dark. She got out of bed and went to the kitchen, made herself something to eat and of course took extra effort to make the space as spotless as she met it.

Now that she had more strength in her bones, she could properly take a good look around the house and also ease herself of her boredom. She went from room to room, found the home gym and even a private cinema. Her exploration led her down another corridor which was a different wing opposite where her room was.

Her hand hesitated on a doorknob of one of the rooms before opening it. It was dark so she fumbled her fingers along the wall until she found a switch and turned it on.

Light flooded the room to reveal a space that was quite different from the rest of the mansion's sterile perfection.

It was Mason's study.

Now there was life here…to some extent.

There were tall bookshelves filled with books on business, finance, and surprisingly, classic literature. Some were askew, clearly frequently referenced. A leather armchair sat by the window with a cashmere throw over its back to suggest that it was used for quiet reading sessions.

There was a coffee mug that had the logo of his company on it on the desk and an uncapped pen lying over a stack of papers. She could even smell te event of his cologne as if he eas right there.

Gianna moved carefully around the place, trying as best as she could to not touch anything, not until she bumped into a small waste bin by the desk. She quickly bent down the gather the trash that poured out of it, which was a couple of crumpled post-it notes,instant coffee wrappers, a discarded USB drive and torn pieces of photographs. The last was what caught her attention the most and she began to sift through the torn photographs one after the other.

She could make out the face of the same woman she had seen with Mason on the internet, his ex. It was either her on on a yacht, at a beach or her at some luxurious place. And from the state the photographs were in it was obvious that all of those meant nothing anymore.

Gianna sat back on her heels with the torn photos in her lap. Mason and his ex must have broken up recently…very recently.

And Gianna couldn’t help wondering if their split was the reason behind his sudden decision at marriage.

"No, I won't accept those terms. Renegotiate or the deal's off."

Gianna froze, then turned her head to the door.

That was Mason.

Wasn’t he on a trip?

Gianna quickly gathered the photos and shoved them back into the bin. She had no idea how he was going to react to seeing her being in there without his permission and effing with that sour temper of his wasn’t something she wanted that night. So the first thing that came to her mind out of reflex was finding a place to hide.

The door? No, he'd see her immediately. The window? Locked, and she was stories above the ground. Her eyes turned to bookshelves and without thinking, she slipped behind them, wedging herself into the narrow space between the mahogany and the wall. The scent of old books enveloped her as she held her breath. From her hiding spot, she had a sliver of a view through the book spines as Mason's silhouette appeared at the doorway.

“…I'll call you back," he said, ending the call.

Mason stood still at the threshold and looked into the study. Even in profile, his expression was severe. Gianna watched as his eyes turned to the light switch.

"What the..." he muttered with confusion and irritation.

His staff dared not come in there without his permission. And he was sure he turned the lights off and locked the door before leaving.

He placed his briefcase on the desk and took another suspicious look around. Then he lowered himself into his chair and moved his hand up to the landline on his desk. Mason punched in a number as he put the receiver to his ear.

"Get the security. There’s an intruder in the house.”

Gianna's heart leapt to her throat. Security? Intruder? Did he suspect someone had broken in when she was in fact the ‘intruder’. Gianna regretted hiding back there and should have just stayed, apologized and received whatever was coming for her.

After dropping the receiver, Mason, while opening up his briefcase said, "You can come out now."

Gianna wasn’t sure if she imagined him talking or if he actually said those words.

"Are you going to hide there forever? Between Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky isn't the most comfortable spot, I imagine."

The moment he said this she knew it was her. She felt like she’d had ice water dunked all over her. He was talking to her. He knew. Embarrassment burned her hot in the cheeks.

The moment Mason had walked in, he saw her reflection in the window behind his desk but pretended like he didn’t see her.

When Gianna came out trom behind the bookshelves, Mason didn’t even turn to look at her. He was now focused on his laptop.

"Sorry for…” Gianna began.

He held up a hand, silencing her without a glance, but she still stood there. And it was only when he finished typing that he swiveled the chair around to face her.

Mason gave her a questioning stare at first but then his eyes started to drift past Gianna’s shoulder.

She was also about to curiously turn to see what he was staring at when he suddenly grabbed her hand and yanked her so forcefully that she lost her balance.

His grip was tight, almost painfully so. And as he pulled her towards him, his other hand was secured behind her waist. The heat of his hand seeped through the thin fabric of her dress and it was different from the grip on her wrist…it was less commanding and more stabilizing

As Gianna fell over Mason, keeping her hands on the hardness of his chest for support, she could feel the rise and fall of his breathing. Their faces were so close that she could feel the whisper of his breath and could see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes. Their eyes met and for a split second there she actually saw the real color of his eyes. She’d thought they were blue but they were actually a cool gray, like polished granite, but a bit more darkened.

Every awareness happening in barely a second was disrupted by the loud crash that sounded behind her.

Gianna’s body jerked with shock from the impact of the noise then she turned around, her other hand now sliding from his torso to hang limply on his thigh.

The massive bookshelf which was the same place she’d hidden earlier had fallen to the ground with everything on it tumbled out on the ground.