You Are My Reason - Willow Winters Page 0,72

manuscript in before the deadline, but I’m doing everything I can to procrastinate.

“You want a drink?” Mason offers, his voice dripping with sex appeal. He has a sexy grin on his lips and I know he wants to stay in and do bad things tonight.

I can’t resist him, so I nod my head and his smile widens, filling me with warmth. I’ll never get enough of him and how he makes me feel.

I pick up the envelope one top of the pile of mail sitting to my right as he heads to the fridge. The envelope tears easily and a handwritten letter slips out.

I feel my forehead crease as I unfold the thick cream parchment. Who sends a letter like this in a plain envelope? Before I read it, I check the envelope again. My name is there, but there’s no return address.

Dear Julia,

It pains me to tell you this, but I can’t stand to watch from a distance as you fall into a trap. Your husband was murdered. I know this is going to shock you, but I have proof. You may not believe me but I pray that you do.

Mason Thatcher murdered him. Don’t trust him. Don’t let him know that you know. If he finds out, you won’t be safe.

My blood runs cold as I stand at the counter, my heart racing out of my chest. There’s more written, but I can’t read it. A shiver rolls through my body and everything seems to blur.

There’s no way this is true. There’s no way, yet my fingers tremble and my gaze shifts from the letter to the man accused, standing only feet from me.

My eyes dart from Mason’s back as he rummages in the fridge, then back to the paper.

My heart thumps.

Murdered. Jace wasn’t murdered. I deny it all, swallowing thickly.

I reread the letter, blinking and taking it in. My lips move with the words, but I can’t breathe. I can’t focus.

The handwritten letters seem to swirl together into a cloud of distrust. My vision fades and I feel so fucking dizzy. I back up slowly, pushing from the island and letting the feet of the stool scrape against the tile. Mason looks up at the noise and my weak legs barely hold me up as I grip the stool, the paper crinkling in my hand, my bare feet padding against the cold floor.

My head shakes on its own. That’s not true. It’s not true. It can’t be true.

“Jules?” Mason’s voice is riddled with concern and something else. Something I never registered before, but I can hear it now. I can see it on his face as I barely breathe and look up at him.

“The—” I can’t bring myself to confess what I’ve just read. It’s a lie. It has to be a lie. What a cruel lie it is. But Mason’s response is throwing me off.

He’s careful as he sets a bottle of beer on the counter, squaring his shoulders, all humor gone from his face and something else, someone else, stands in his place.

“Mason?” I barely get out his name.

“What is it?” he asks me in a voice so menacing, fear lights a fire deep in the marrow of my bones. No. I shake my head. “Mason, no,” I say as my throat goes dry and my words crack. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t even know Jace.

This isn’t real. My fist grips the stool tighter and I struggle to react. This is a nightmare. It has to be.

I’m caught between my need to run to somewhere I can think and the need to know the truth. I need the truth. No more lies; no more secrets.

He promised.

He loves me.

There’s just no way.

“Did you do it?” The question leaves me in a single weak breath and in an instant, something snaps into place. As if he’s very aware of what I’m saying. As if he’s been waiting for this.

No. My body turns to ice; my blood and lungs freeze and I can’t believe this is reality. It can’t be true.

Mason takes a step forward, around the island and it breaks me from my denial.

It’s my cue to run, a natural instinct that takes over. The stool falls hard, crashing to the tiled floor as I take off, but Mason’s faster, gripping my waist and making me jerk backward. I cry out from fear and he releases me, only for me to fall onto the floor. His large frame towers over me, his hands up as if