His nerves calmed by Valium, Mark stood at the front of the church, a few feet away from Rob. Memories of his own wedding day threatened to consume him, but he cleared his throat, shook them off, and kept his focus on holding himself together.
The ceremony lasted all of fifteen minutes, but it felt like hours. Regardless, it did end, and finally he was able to escape. He practically dragged the maid of honor to the foot of the aisle and out the door to the waiting limousine, where he immediately downed a glass of champagne. Mixing Valium with alcohol be damned.
“Holly said you had an aversion to weddings,” Tiffany, the maid of honor, said. She wore a crooked half smile and one eyebrow lifted knowingly.
Mark poured another glass of champagne, took a deep breath as he settled into his seat, and loosened his tie. “Here’s to getting out of there.” He nodded toward the church and lifted his glass toward Tiffany in a one-sided toasted.
She shook her head and laughed. “Men.”
It was nearly four o’clock by the time they reached the reception, which happened to be at the same hotel where Mark had booked his room. Most of the out-of-town guests were staying there.
Feeling loose after two glasses of champagne and a Valium, he strolled in with the rest of the wedding party.
What he really wanted was to get back to Indianapolis. Last night, lying awake in his suite, he’d finally found time to mull over what had happened on Friday, as well as what Rob had said to him at the bar.
He did love Karma. Wasn’t that what was important? She didn’t belong with Brad. She belonged with him. And now that he’d had time to think about it, he realized Rob was right. This wasn’t the same as what had happened between him and Carol. As far as he knew, Karma and Brad hadn’t even set a wedding date. Mark and Carol had set the date, made the plans, shelled out the cash, and made it all the way to the big day before the truth came out about her involvement with Antonio.
Still, it didn’t make him feel a whole lot better about sleeping with another man’s woman. Mark was a lot of things, but he wasn’t the kind who purposely sought women who were already taken.
And yet he’d pursued Karma and taken her to bed without so much as a hint of reservation.
So he was a bastard, but lying in bed last night, he’d decided he was going to fight for her. To hell with propriety and his noble sensibilities. If he was going to ride this out as the sign he’d asked the universe for last September, he needed to get in the game. And not just as an eager bystander. He needed to make his feelings known. He needed to confess his love. Not to himself, not to Rob, but to Karma. She needed to know. He needed to declare out loud…to the entire world…that he was in love with her and that he couldn’t live without her.
“You doing okay?” Rob said as they waited outside the reception room for the wedding party’s grand entrance.
“Yeah.” He smiled at his best friend. “You were right last night. Thanks for knocking some sense into me.”
“That’s what friends are for, right?”
They hugged it out then clapped each other on the shoulders. “I’m happy for you, buddy.”
Rob nodded. “Yeah well, just return the favor by getting your ass back to Indy and proposing to that sweet thing you’re so crazy about. Then I can be the best man at your wedding. And this time we can do it right.”
“You’re getting a little ahead of yourself.” Mark might be ready and willing to open his heart and let Karma in, but asking her to marry him was going to take more than a Valium, some alcohol, and a heart-to-heart conversation. “Let me cross one bridge at a time before you start marrying me off.”
Rob grinned. “I hear you, but I think you already know she’s the one.” His grin turned into a crooked smirk.
Mark smiled back and narrowed his eyes. Was she? Was Karma the one? Yes. Yes, she was. The way he felt about her, she had to be.
The wedding coordinator shushed everyone. “Get ready, everybody. They’re about to open the doors.”
The party fell into two lines, one for the bridesmaids and one for the groomsmen.
Tiffany wrapped her arm around his, and then the wedding party was ushered into the reception room. When Rob and Holly strolled in behind him, the guests stood and applauded.
He grinned, wondering what it would be like for him and Karma to be welcomed like that. As a married couple at their own wedding.
Dinner was served, and then it was time for him to make his toast.
Standing, he lifted his champagne glass. “Rob and I have known each other…well…it seems we’ve always known each other. We’ve been best friends forever.” He glanced around the room then back down at Rob. “We’ve been through hell together. Through bad times and good. Mostly good. But when things were bad, Rob was always there. He always found the good in every bad situation and pulled me from the fire when I couldn’t do it myself.” Emotion clouded his words. Even Rob seemed to choke up a little. That’s how deep their blood ran. Mark cleared his throat and looked into his drink. “Three weeks after he met Holly, he told me he was going to marry her.”
Holly let out a tiny gasp, and Mark heard her whisper to Rob, “You never told me that.”
Mark turned toward her. “It was the Fourth of July. The day I met you.” Mark addressed the room again. “When he told me that, I thought he was crazy.” A few chuckles broke through the gathered guests. “I thought he’d lost his mind. He’d only just met this woman, and he already saw himself walking down the aisle with her? The avowed bachelor who was my best friend had suddenly found a woman he couldn’t live without.” More chuckles, as well as a few aaawwwees. Mark paused, smiled, and looked at Rob again. “But Rob taught me a valuable lesson that day. Sometimes, you just know. Sometimes something good comes along, and you just have to grab on and not let go.” He held Rob’s gaze for a long moment. Silent meaning passed between them. Then he looked at Rob’s bride. “Holly, you are that something good that came along in my friend’s life. You’re the woman who’s made my friend the happiest man in the world tonight, and I can only hope that someday I’ll know exactly how he feels. Here’s to both of you.” He lifted his glass to a room full of applause.
Rob and Holly kissed. It was sweet and chaste, but Mark could feel the love and passion they had for one another, and in that moment, his heart beat a little harder for the woman he loved. His Karma.
Thirty minutes later, with hope in his soul, the band playing, and the dance floor full, Mark absently took out his phone. This was the first chance he’d had all day to stop and check his messages and make sure nothing had blown up while he was away.
He rifled through his e-mail. Mostly updates from the team leaders. Nothing serious. Then he saw an odd message from Lisa. Regarding personnel report -You need to see this was the subject line. Huh? He opened the e-mail. It was just a link. When he tapped it, a blog called Chocolate Chunk Brownies came up.
Chocolate Chunk Brownies? Was this Karma’s blog? The brownie analogy was something he’d used with her and was too coincidental for it not to be.
His heart began to beat a little harder, almost panicked. Something didn’t feel right. Regarding personnel report. That’s what Lisa’s subject line had said. He flipped back to his e-mail, found the report, and opened it.
Resignations: Karma Mason.
No. NO! He burst out of his chair and dialed Lisa’s number as he rushed away from the noise and laughter of the reception, searching for someplace quiet. But he was wasting his time by calling the office. It was past eight o’clock in Indianapolis. The office was closed. He disconnected even before Lisa’s voice mail picked up and rifled through his list of company contacts as he paced in the outer hall. He was pretty sure Lisa had a company cell phone. He nearly jumped out of his skin when her name came up in the company listing and he stamped his thumb on her link to dial her.
One ring.
“Come on, come on. Answer.”
Two rings.
Shit, Lisa needed to pick up.
Three rings.
“Hello?”
“Lisa! What’s going on? What’s wrong?” His urgent thoughts tumbled out of his mouth in no particular order.
“I guess you got the personnel report.”
“Yes. What happened? Why is Karma leaving?”
“Did you get my other e-mail? The link?”
“Yes. Is that Karma’s blog?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “She’d kill me if she knew I sent it to you…or that I’m even talking to right you now, but—”
“Lisa, why is she leaving? Where is she going?” Despite having enough alcohol and Valium in his system to put down the Incredible Hulk, his heart raced and his hands shook.
“She told me about Friday night. Why did you bail on her like that, Mark?”
“Bail? I didn’t bail. I had to leave.”
“You didn’t leave a note. You didn’t—”
“Yes I did. I left a note on her kitchen counter.”
“Well, she couldn’t find it, and now she thinks you regret what happened.”
Wait, what? Karma hadn’t seen his note? What had happened to it? And now she thought he regretted what they’d done? Well, in a way he did, but not for the reasons Karma probably imagined.
“Do you?” Lisa said. “Do you regret it, Mark?”
“No. I mean, yes.” He rifled his hand through his hair, almost frantic with confusion. “I mean…in a way, I did, but not because of her. She’s engaged, Lisa. What I did was wrong. I never—”
“Not anymore.”
Mark’s breath caught, and he froze in the hallway. Had Lisa just told him Karma had broken off her engagement?
“What do you mean?” He began pacing again, his fingers combing through his hair over and over.
“She broke up with Brad today. Gave back the ring and everything.”
That was good news, right? Great news. It meant she was free and clear. But that still didn’t answer the question about why she was leaving Solar? “I don’t understand. Why did she turn in her notice?”
Lisa huffed. “Because she’s in love with you, Mark. She can’t work with you when she doesn’t think you’ll ever want to be with her.”
Mark stopped, dumbfounded. “I…” Words suddenly failed him.
“Mark, after you left last year, she went into a major emotional meltdown. I swear, there were times I wasn’t sure she’d recover. Thankfully, she did, and then you came back, and she started falling in love with you all over again, even though she didn’t want to. She knows how you feel about commitment, so she tried to keep her distance, but she just couldn’t. From what she told me today, as well as what she’s written on her blog, she had decided that maybe she could accept that you didn’t want to get married as long as you still wanted to be with her. That’s partly my fault, by the way, but the point is, Karma was willing to look past your inability to commit, and then you took off without a word Friday night. Now she’s worried she’ll always be wondering when you’ll leave for good…that you regret what the two of you did and that you’ll always be a flight risk. She doesn’t want to live that way. She doesn’t want to always be wondering what will spook you and scare you away for good.”
Oh God, oh God. This wasn’t good. “I can’t lose her. Not again.” The words whispered from his mouth before he could catch him.
“Then you’d better do something to stop her, and I mean fast, because she’s not just leaving Solar. She’s leaving the state. This new job she’s been offered is in St. Louis.”
He combed his hand through his hair again. This was a major cluster fuck. How had he let this happen? If only he hadn’t felt so filthy for enabling her to cheat on her fiancé.
“Did she break up with Brad because of me?” Please don’t let the answer be yes. He didn’t want to be the reason for something so devastating.
“No.” Lisa’s voice held a touch of understanding. Somehow she knew this was important to him. “She broke up with him because they were too different. She wasn’t happy with him. You just helped her see that.”
“How?”
Lisa sighed. “Because she’s happy with you.”
“Then why is she leaving?” None of this made sense.
“Didn’t you hear me a second ago? She’s leaving because she’s afraid you’ll leave her again. And she can’t take that kind of pain a second time, Mark.”
Mark knew better than anyone what that kind of pain felt like, so he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to go through that.
He planted his fist on his hip and spun on his heel, lifted his gaze toward the ceiling, then exhaled heavily. “She never told me.” Then again, he hadn’t told her, either, so could he blame her?
“She didn’t know how. And honestly, I don’t think she even put all the pieces together about how she felt until recently.”
He was surprised Lisa was giving him this information at all. She was Karma’s best friend. As such, shouldn’t she be siding with her right now? Divulging Karma’s secrets could be construed as breaking the bonds of friendship.
“Why are you tell me all this, Lisa? Aren’t the two of you friends?”
“That’s why I am telling you. Because we are friends.”
“I don’t get it.” He collapsed onto a nearby settee.
“Karma can get in her own way sometimes. That’s something I think the two of you have in common, by the way.”
“Touché.” How was it that Lisa and Rob could see right through him when he could barely make sense of what he was feeling? This must be what was meant by being unable to see the forest for the trees. He was so deep in the thick that he couldn’t even tell what direction he was going, but Lisa and Rob, from the outside, could see all.
“You make her happy, Mark. She loves you. And if I’m not mistaken, you’re pretty crazy about her, too, aren’t you?”
“You’re good at this.”
“I try.” Lisa huffed. “So how are you going to fix this? You can’t let her leave.”
“I’m not sure I can make her stay. If she’s already decided—”
“Mark, you’re the only one who can make her stay. But you don’t have a lot of time to do it. She’s already unofficially accepted the other job.”
No, no, no. “She can’t.”
“Then get your ass back here and tell her how you feel.”
Good idea. He had to leave tonight. Right now. He didn’t want to waste another minute of what little time he had being three hundred miles away from her.
“Lisa, I’ve gotta go.”
“That’s what I want to hear.”
He hung up, raced back into the reception hall, and corralled Rob. “I’m sorry, but I have to leave.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Karma. I have to get back.”
“Did something happen?”
Mark turned for the exit with Rob hot on his heels. “She’s leaving. I’ve made a mess of things and need to set things right.”
“Whoa. Wait a minute. You’re not driving back tonight, are you?”
He pushed through the doors and turned toward the elevators. “I have to. I can’t let this happen, Rob. I can’t let her leave.”
“You can’t drive.” Rob emphasized each word. “You’re on a cocktail of Valium and champagne. Are you crazy?”
“Then I’ll take a cab to the airport and catch a flight.”
“There’s a winter storm coming in. Flights are already being cancelled. Holly and I just got word that ours was.”
The elevator doors slid open and Mark stepped inside. “I’ll find a way. One way or another I’m going back to her tonight.”
The doors closed but not before Rob shook his head and mumbled something that ended with crazy bastard.
In his room, he wasted no time and frantically tossed his things into his suitcase before shutting off the light and hurrying back downstairs.
Holly and Rob met him at the checkout desk as he was negotiating with the clerk to help him find transportation.
“Tell him I’ll give him a thousand dollar tip if he takes me,” he said to the clerk, who was on the phone with the second limo service they’d tried.
The clerk shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Strong, but he still says no. They can’t risk it with the storm.”
Mark hung his head.
“Our limo driver said he’ll take you,” Rob said. “He’s got family in Indianapolis he says he can stay with.”
Mark turned toward them. “I can’t do that.”
“We want you to.” Holly nodded and pulled Rob’s hand into both of hers.
Rob placed his hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Like I said, our flight’s been cancelled. We’re not going anywhere. We have no use for a limousine.”
“We’re going to stay here and ride it out.” Holly smiled. “That’ll probably be better, anyway.” She snuggled against Rob. “It will sure make our honeymoon memorable being snowed in.”
These two had been made for one another. They were both glass-half-full people.
“I owe you guys.”
“Just get down there and make things right with your girl,” Rob said. “That’ll be enough.”
Mark removed the key to his car from his key ring and retrieved his valet ticket from his wallet. “Take my car. I’ll come back and get it next weekend.”
Rob tucked the key and ticket into his pocket. “Will do. Now go. The limo’s waiting for you.”
Mark hugged them both then hurried out into the spitting snow. The stretch limousine sat at the curb.
“There’s a thousand dollar tip in this for you if you can get me there in one piece,” he said to the driver.
“Yes, sir.” The chauffer grinned and held open the door for him. He didn’t waste time loading his bags in the trunk and just tossed them into the back.
Less than a minute later, they pulled into traffic and headed for the interstate.
For the next two hours, Mark read Karma’s blog on his tablet.
He started at the beginning, reading about how he’d been her first true love. She’d used his initial instead of his name, but that didn’t diminish the impact of learning how she felt, and his heart broke and mended with each post he read.
As he continued to read post after post about him and their time together, he felt like a voyeur, peeking through the window of her soul. No detail was spared. No memory left out. She’d written about how she suspected he felt as strongly for her as she did for him, her thoughts about how he’d told her Carol was in the past but how she felt Carol was still affecting him even now, and about how she didn’t think she’d ever find another man who made her feel the way he did.
Why hadn’t she told him all this when they’d been together?
But that was like a maple leaf accusing a blade of grass of being green. Hadn’t he withheld his own feelings? He’d loved her two months into their affair, and yet he’d never told her. Except for one night when he whispered the words to her as she slept, he had never admitted his love aloud.
He continued to read, but when he got to the part about when she met Brad, he had to take a break. Reading about their relationship proved difficult, even though they were no longer together. Or maybe that was why it was difficult, because he had the gift of foresight. He knew how their story ended. So, despite her blogged professions of how she loved him and had finally moved on from “M,” he knew better. She’d only been denying her true self.
The other thing that bothered him was that she’d had to see a professional to battle the depression she’d fallen into after he left. He hadn’t realized. For months, he’d wanted to call her, text her, confess that he loved her, but he’d worried she had moved on and would rebuke him. Now he knew the truth. She’d wanted to hear his voice as much as he’d wanted to hear hers. If only he could go back and do things differently, but he’d been so caught up in trying to wrestle control from the universe by demanding a sign, he’d failed to miss the most obvious sign of all. That his heart beat only for her and that they belonged together regardless of the cost.
All of the cloak and dagger and missed opportunities were his fault. Instead of taking a more active role in his destiny, he had sat back and done nothing, letting invisible forces control his life.
Well, no more. That ended tonight.
Tonight, he took back control. He was the master of his own destiny from now on.
Another thirty minutes passed, and Mark saw the green exit sign for Indianapolis as he stared out the window at the lightening landscape as snow layered over the night-darkened fields on either side of the interstate. It was almost midnight, and even though they’d had to drive slowly, they’d beaten the worst of the storm.
Around twelve thirty, the limo crawled along the empty street in front of Karma’s apartment complex then turned in. He guided the driver around to her building then handed over his credit card to pay for the ride. When the driver handed him the slip to sign, he scribbled in the promised thousand dollar tip.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you.” Mark grabbed his things and began to scoot toward the door.
“Shall I wait? Just in case no one answers?”
Mark glanced around the parking lot and spotted Karma’s car. She was home. “No, thank you. I’m good.” Even if it took until morning for her to answer her door, he wasn’t leaving until he saw her.
“Good luck, sir.”
“Thank you, Elijah.” He’d had the opportunity to chat with the driver a few times during the trip. “Drive safely. Enjoy the holiday with your family.” He pulled his luggage out of the car and into the snowy drizzle that would turn to all snow by daybreak, carried his bags up the sidewalk as the limousine pulled away, and then climbed the stairs to her apartment.
This was it. No more hiding. No more secrets. No more going back.
It was time for him to take his rightful place by Karma’s side.