Undeniably Married (Boston’s Irresistible Billionaires Book 4)

“Press are not allowed in the patient area of the emergency department,” I tell the reporter who snuck in here.

It’s been three weeks of this. Three freaking weeks. Why won’t they simply move on already? They still hang out outside the apartment building. Pictures of Mason and I kissing at the beach swept across the internet like a brushfire, but after that, there’s been nothing because I’ve made it so we haven’t been out together in public.

And he hasn’t fought to change it.

Only the press doesn’t seem so bored with us yet.

I think that beach kiss fed fuel to the fire and, well, possibly my own. I miss his kisses. I miss the way he’d hold my face and look into my eyes and then, only after he was satisfied, would he kiss me like it meant something. It was like his reward, and I reveled in it. And pushed it away because I can’t think of him as something more. Mason Reyes. Ha. That’s almost comical.

But all of this is affecting my work because now this asshole is here.

“I’m a patient,” he explains, pointing toward his stomach. “I’m simply trying to get to know my doctor.”

“By asking me personal questions with your phone out after requesting me specifically?” I retort.

He doesn’t so much as bat an eye. Okay. Two can play that game.

“Both your ultrasound and CAT scan are perfectly normal, as well as the exam my intern did. Your stomach does not require any further intervention. The one test we did not perform other than endoscopy or colonoscopy was a guac test.”

“A what?”

“It’s an exam where we stick a finger up your rectum and test the smear of stool we collect for blood.”

He grows whiter than a sheet. “Is that… um, I’m feeling a lot better. My stomach pain is all but gone. I don’t think that’s necessary.”

I give him my most concerned doctor expression. “Hmm. Are you sure? I’d hate to miss something and have you die overnight. I can have my intern return and do that. I mean, he hasn’t performed many of those yet, but this is a teaching hospital. How better to learn, right?”

He shoots off the gurney. “No. I’m good. I swear.”

“Perfect. So happy to hear you’re better.” I give him a saccharine-sweet smile. “Follow up with your primary care doctor as needed. I will have Dr. Erik return with your discharge paperwork.”

I turn to leave when he tries to stop me with, “How do you feel about Mason being photographed with Erin Mann? Is your hot new marriage already over, and will you go back to Brody now that it failed?”

I keep going. Erin Mann works for a local Boston sports network and the night she was photographed with Mason, he was attending a team charity event, and she was covering it. He came home that night, and we ended up watching a movie together on the sofa. No touching this time. Not even cuddling. And when Mason saw the photograph the next day, he cursed for about five minutes, complaining how they were trying to stir up bullshit before he swore to me that nothing happened with her.

I believed him. It wasn’t even difficult to, which feels weird for me to admit, but I could see his sincerity, and since he came home right after the event and didn’t smell like anyone other than himself, I knew nothing happened without him having to reassure me. Not that I own him. Other than our rules of no sex and no other people during these three months, I have no hold on him when it comes to other women after that.

Which is why I don’t like to think about it.

Especially because I did see the way they were looking at each other in the picture.

All the sexiness that Mason and I had going—well, most of it, he still makes innuendo-laced comments and watches me when he doesn’t think I notice—was left in Vegas and on the beach. We’ve gone back to being friends, and I’ve settled into his apartment. Other than the press, things have been great between us.

We both find ourselves coming home after work to be with each other. We watch movies and have dinner together—always something healthy because he’s serious about that when he’s in season—and hang out on weekends with our friends and family. He even came with me to see my grandparents over the weekend because he told me he loves talking with my grandmother. Even right now, I’m headed out to the field to watch his first preseason game with a few friends, though he told me he likely wasn’t going to be starting in it.

“Hey.” Jack, a fellow attending, and Owen’s lifelong best friend comes up to me. Now that I’ve been working down here somewhat regularly, Jack and I have gotten close. Like when he discovered Owen was secretly dating Jack’s younger sister Estlin—who Owen is now engaged to—he unloaded on me, and when I returned to work after everything that happened with Brody and the wedding, he listened to me vent for over an hour. “Are you off?”

“Yep. I’m heading to the game tonight after I discharge the reporter in curtain four. What about you?”

“I’m on tonight.” He sighs and shifts his weight, searching around to make sure we’re alone. “You know we get a new round of med students down here in a few weeks.”

I snicker. “Such joy. Remind me not to float down here that week.”

“Owen told me Wren is going to be one of them.”

I blink at him. He seems bothered by this. “Is that a bad thing?”

“We just don’t get along,” he explains simply, but it feels like there’s more to it than that. “Callan is already talking about putting her with me since she’s Owen’s little sister.” Callan Barrows is the emergency department chief, and is married to my cousin Layla, and is also Katy’s adoptive father. Layla works down here as well, but not as many hours as she used to.

“Don’t sweat it. It’s a six-week rotation, and I’m sure she’ll be on her best behavior, and you will be too. Wren’s a bit… feisty, but⁠—”

Jack snorts, cutting me off. “You think?” he grouses sarcastically.

“So pass her to someone else.”

He grits his teeth and looks away. “I’ll deal with her, but if your cousin is in a bad mood for those six weeks, you’ll know why.”

I breathe out a laugh and pat his arm. “I think I’ll know why you’re both cranky. Good luck with that. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. I’m here for another shift.”

“See you. Have fun tonight at your husband’s game.”

I covertly flip him off and walk away, listening as he chuckles behind me. I sign out the rest of my patients and then meet up with Keegan and Katy, who also work in this hospital, to head over to the game.

“I’m so excited!” Keegan exclaims. “I love the start of a new season. My fantasy team is on point.”

“I’m still pissed you got Mason,” Katy laments.

“How could I not? You would have gotten him given the chance.”

The two of them go back and forth over their fantasy teams as we hit some traffic the closer we get to the stadium. I’m busy checking my email but pause when I see another one from Brody. He’s taken to emailing since he can’t call me, and his emails are filled with everything from asking about how I’m doing and how work is going to pictures of his new place and how it’s missing me to how lonely he is without me and that he can’t stand this anymore.

He even sent me an article on sex addiction as if to say that’s his issue and the cheating wasn’t his fault because it was an addiction. Give me a fucking break. Brody doesn’t have a sex addiction. He has an I like to have my cake and eat it too addiction. For the most part, though, I think this is simply routine for Brody. He’s not exactly putting in a ton of effort, and I’m grateful for that.

This email is much of the same as the others, and like the others, I don’t reply.

We arrive at Rebels Stadium with plenty of time before the game. I’m starving and looking forward to eating my weight in the spread they have in the booth, when a team employee intercepts me.

“Mrs. Fritz-Reyes?”

I want to groan at that, but I hold it in. As it is, Keegan and Katy are quietly snickering.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Reyes asked for you to join him on the field before the game.”

I throw the girls a WTF look, and they simply shrug. I don’t know what Mason is up to, but I won’t turn it down. I’ve never been down on the field before a game, and I won’t start to think about why that is.

“Great.”

I follow the attendant through the back pathways and underground of the stadium until I’m led out by the player entrance. The game starts in about ten minutes or so, and all the players are already on the field. I hang close to the stands, working my way along and taking in all the staff and players. I spot Mason’s dad, Asher, talking to his wife, Wynter, who is the chief orthopedic doctor for the team. They’re talking seriously about something, and just as I turn back to try to find Mason, he intercepts me.

“Hey,” he says, startling me a bit. “You made it.”

“I made it,” I tell him, keeping my eyes on the field and away from his, though I know he’s watching my face. It’s so he can’t see how my heart is strangely pounding, creating a warmth that flows effortlessly through my veins. It’s happened almost every time I see him lately. But right now, for some odd reason, I’m nervous. Likely because I’m out here as his wife and not his friend. As if to prove my original thought, he leans in and kisses the corner of my lips. Not my cheek. In fact, he gets more lips than cheek with that move, and I turn back to him.

As if that was his goal all along, he smirks triumphantly. “I’ll let you get upstairs with everyone else, but I wanted to give you something before the game starts.”

“Oh.” My eyes widen when I realize he’s holding a red and gold jersey in his hand with his number on it.

“Will you wear it?” Without waiting for a response, he tugs the fabric over my head, and I slip my arms through. It’s a little long on me, but I’ll tuck it into my jeans when I get upstairs.

“I guess I have to now, but I like it. Thank you. I’ve never owned a jersey before.”

“For real?”

“Honest and true.”

He grins like that made his entire night, but his eyes are volcanic as he takes me in wearing his number. He tugs on the hem. “Shit,” he hisses. “It looks better on you than I imagined it would.” He leans in to kiss me, and fresh nerves swarm my stomach. I can’t push him away. Not out here. Not when we’re so visible.

“Mason, what are you doing?”

“Staking my claim. Pressing my luck. Kissing my wife even though she hates it when I call her that.”

His lips press softly to mine, and I can feel the smile on his just as his hands come up and go around my neck. For a moment I think he’s just holding me, but then I feel his fingers move at the nape of my neck and a heavy weight presses against the top of my breastbone.

He pulls back, and I glance down. I’m wearing a platinum chain with the number eleven with diamonds dangling from it. It’s not large or gaudy, but it’s still his freaking number around my neck in diamonds.

I look up at him, and the smugness I thought I’d find isn’t there. Instead, it’s a serious expression, and his hands slowly come up, almost as if he knows he shouldn’t and is trying to stop himself but can’t, to cup my face. They glide back through my hair to hold me like that.

“Don’t be mad,” he mumbles so softly I’m not even sure I hear him correctly over the roaring crowd. His lips come back down on mine, this kiss a bit deeper, and then he’s whispering in my ear, “You have no idea how incredible you look wearing my number. It’s a good thing I’m not playing tonight, I’m too distracted now. Not to mention all I can picture is you wearing these.” His fingers glide across the pendant and down the jersey. He steps back, and now I see that smirk. “Enjoy the game, Mrs. Fritz-Reyes.”

I glare. It’s not a kind glare.

He stands a few feet away, the sound and lighting in the stadium changing, indicating the game is about to start.

“That wasn’t boring!” I yell over the cheers and cries of the crowd. “You could have just left these up in the booth for me or given them to me this morning before I left for work.”

He shakes his head. “And miss my opportunity to see you in them like this and get to kiss you? Never.”

Christ. This is going to be everywhere.

As if reading my thoughts, he comes back in and murmurs over my lips so only I can hear, “And don’t worry, I’ve taken care of it. Other than a few fan photographs that might leak through, you won’t see these pictures anywhere. Promise. We were at a commercial break the entire time, and any professional photographs won’t be usable.” Another kiss. “That one was for luck.”

He jogs off, and I’m left standing here for a quiet moment, not understanding how he can take care of something like that. And what’s with the staking his claim and all the damn kissing? Frustration and ire along with something warm and gooey battle within me. I want to be mad. I want to hate his kisses and have them not mean anything. I want to not care that he wanted me to wear his number.

But that’s just it. I’m learning that with Mason, I don’t want to care. But that doesn’t mean I’m not starting to.