Chapter 4 - SECRETS IN THE SAUVIGNON BLANC
The rehearsal dinner under the grand white pavilion was a deafening symphony of clinking crystal, drunken toasts from uncles who hadn't seen the bride since she was six, and the relentless, suffocating hum of upper-middle-class family politics.
Maya sat at the center of the head table, sandwiched between her cousin Toby—who was currently lecturing her on cryptocurrency portfolios—and Mason.
Throughout the meal, Mason played his part with terrifying perfection.
He cut her steak into bite-sized pieces when she wasn't looking, poured her sparkling water with quiet attentiveness, and leaned in close every few minutes to murmur low, private jokes that sent electric shivers racing down the back of her neck.
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” Maya muttered under her breath around a bite of artisan bread as Aunt Judith stood up to deliver another interminable toast about family values.
“Enjoying what?” Mason murmured back, his shoulder brushing hers, warm and solid through his jacket. “Watching your cousin explain decentralized finance while sweating through his polyester blend?”
“Watching you terrorize my family. Toby hasn't made eye contact with you in forty-five minutes out of pure intimidation.”
“I’m being charming,” Mason replied, taking a slow sip of his Barolo wine. His gray eyes flicked sideways toward her, glinting in the candlelight. “Your aunt already offered to sell me her stake in the family’s summer home in Lake Chelan.”
Maya choked on her bread. “She did what?”
“She thinks I’m a venture capitalist specializing in agricultural tech,” Mason said smoothly, his lips twitching with amusement. “I didn't correct her. It seemed rude.”
Before Maya could strangle him with her cloth napkin, the microphone at the front of the pavilion shrieked with a violent burst of audio feedback.
Aunt Judith tapped the glass with a silver spoon, her face flushed with wine and maternal pride.
“And now,” Judith announced, her voice ringing out across the silent tent, “before we move on to dessert, I want to call up a very special couple who just joined us today. Maya and her wonderful new partner, Mason! Come on up, darlings, tell us how you met!”
The entire tent erupted into enthusiastic applause. Dozens of faces turned toward them, smiling expectantly.
Maya felt the blood drain entirely from her face.
The architectural sketches. She had completely forgotten the backstory. If she messed up the timeline, Judith’s interrogation squad would tear her apart piece by piece.
She turned to look at Mason, panic written in every line of her face.
Mason didn't panic. He simply set his wineglass down with a soft clink, stood up, and extended his hand toward her with an expression of such absolute, unshakeable confidence that Maya felt her breath catch in her throat.
He didn't wait for her to stand on her own; he scooped her hand into his, pulled her up smoothly beside him, and led her toward the front of the tent under the blinding glare of the fairy lights.
They stood together by the flower-decked podium. Mason’s hand slid securely around her waist, his thumb pressing gently into her hip bone, anchoring her against his side.
“Well,” Mason began, his rich, gravelly baritone carrying effortlessly across the pavilion without even needing the microphone. “To be entirely honest, our meeting wasn't nearly as romantic as Judith makes it sound.”
Maya squeezed her eyes shut for a microsecond. Here it comes. The architecture lie.
“I was sitting in a small, unassuming café in downtown Seattle,” Mason continued, his eyes scanning the crowd before locking onto Maya’s face with a strange, heavy intensity that made the surrounding room completely vanish. “Working through a stack of documents I had spent three weeks trying to decipher. I was distracted, exhausted, and entirely uninterested in the world around me.”
Maya opened her eyes, staring up at him in confusion. That wasn't the script.
“And then,” Mason said softly, a genuine, unguarded smile touching the corners of his mouth, “this fierce, exhausted, brilliant young woman walked past my table, muttering under her breath about a family crisis involving a fake boyfriend and a laminated seating chart.”
A ripple of amused laughter drifted through the crowd. Toby choked on his water. Aunt Judith blinked in utter bewilderment.
“I realized in that exact moment,” Mason continued, his voice dropping into a register so intimate it felt as though they were the only two people in the tent, “that whatever problem she was trying to solve... I wanted to be part of it. Because sometimes, the best investments in life aren't found in a ledger. They’re found when you least expect them, sitting right across from you in the rain.”
The tent fell into a stunned, absolute silence for two seconds before erupting into deafening, thunderous applause and whistling from the back rows.
Aunt Judith was dabbing a corner of her lace handkerchief against her eye, completely overcome by the romance of it all.
Maya stood frozen, staring up at the billionaire mafia-adjacent investor who had just delivered a masterclass in emotional manipulation disguised as a love confession.
Mason looked down at her, his storm-gray eyes burning with a dark, intense fire. He leaned down slowly, cupping her cheek with his warm palm, and pressed his lips softly against hers.
It wasn't a staged peck for the family. It was deep, deliberate, and entirely consuming.
Maya’s hands instinctively flew up to grip the lapels of his suit jacket as the world spun away on a wave of sandalwood and wine.
When he finally pulled back, her lips were tingling, her breathing was ragged, and she had completely forgotten what planet she was on.
May you like
“You’re a menace,” she whispered breathlessly against his mouth.
“I told you,” Mason murmured, his thumb brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Let’s see if you can convince me.”
