Coming Back To You

by Lynne, Donya

  But as much as he loved her, the more time that passed the harder reaching out to her became. And after what Razor had said to him a month ago, he shouldn’t try reaching out to her at all. Let go. Have faith. Talk about your rocks and hard places. On one side, he loved her so much it hurt to be without her. On the other, he feared reconnecting. What if she had moved on? What if she turned him away again the way she had that last day when he texted her. He had told her he would stop by her apartment if she didn’t answer him. Her response had said it all.

  Good-bye, Mark.

  Her message had been clear. She was moving forward without him, and she wanted him to do the same. But he hadn’t told her how he felt. Maybe that would have made a difference. Then again, maybe not. Because he still would have returned to Chicago and she still would have stayed in Indianapolis. The distance wasn’t conducive to a relationship. So maybe it was better this way. But if that were true, why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?

  But there was a third side to his inner turmoil. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she was better off without him. That if he did return to her, he would only let her down and hurt her again.

  So yeah, he was between a rock and a hard place and couldn’t move side to side. Triple whammy. If he put his heart on the line again and reached out to her only to be rejected, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t fall back into the hell he’d gone through after Carol fucked him over. He couldn’t live through that kind of agony again. Maybe the sign he was waiting for would never come. Maybe the sign he should be seeing was that he should just move on and let Karma do the same so he didn’t destroy them both.

  Strange how one life-shattering experience could alter his life so badly that he couldn’t even trust himself or his own decisions. But he’d lived in fear for so long he couldn’t see any other way. He realized that now. He admitted to himself he was afraid, but he kept that shit hidden and wrapped so tightly that anyone who met him only saw unshakeable confidence and power. His fear was his and his alone.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t dealing well with it, because fear was winning in his battle to find a way back into Karma’s life. One that didn’t involve risking humiliation or failing to live up to her expectations.

  Be patient.

  But the more he tried to remind himself to be patient, the more impatient he grew. If the universe intended to reunite him with Karma, it was taking way too long. He could feel his innate need to regain control creeping in, but that could blow everything.

  Why did this love shit have to be so damn hard?

  He let Crystal navigate him through the crowd. She still hadn’t shut up, and now she had her arm secured around his like she possessed him, making Mark’s skin crawl. A headache threatened to explode any second from her nonstop chatter, which revolved around children, marriage, her manicure, and her search for compliments by degrading every aspect of herself. Do you think this dress is too tight? I hate wearing short skirts because my thighs are a little too big. I need to lose another five pounds before I look good in those Luvabull shorts. At one time, Mark would have been drawn to her need for reassurance, but now all he felt was irritation. She was beautiful, but she cut herself down like she was a grade school outcast. If she’d ever been an outcast, he was Santa Claus.

  “Oh, look,” she said, “a casino.”

  The Red Lacquer Room once again hosted a casino the way it had eight months ago, and he glanced in the direction where he had first seen Karma sitting in her dangerously red dress at a blackjack table. His heart flip-flopped all over again, just as it had that night. The image in his mind’s eye was so real, so perfect, so vivid.

  But that was all it was. A memory. She wasn’t there. Why would she be? She was in Indianapolis, at home or at some party. With some other man holding her hand. Some other man dancing with her. Kissing her. Maybe even making love to her.

  “I’m a sucker for blackjack, although I suck at it,” Crystal said. “Maybe you can teach me.” She gave Mark’s arm a squeeze.

  He met her gaze. That sickeningly fake smile beamed like the glare of lights from an oncoming jumbo jet. If he didn’t get out of the way, the thing would run over him, smearing him into nothing more than a flesh stain on the runway.

  A year ago, maybe he would have enjoyed teaching Crystal how to play blackjack and a whole lot more, but now…? He’d hung up his teacher pants the second he’d driven out of Karma’s life. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want Crystal, the reminder of a past he had walked away from, or the pain that lanced his soul every time he remembered her.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  Frowning, he pushed Crystal’s hand off his arm, spun on his heel, and marched out.

  “Mark? Hey, Mark! Wait up.” Rob chased him down and grabbed his arm. “What’s wrong?”

  Mark whirled on him, rage flashing in the depths of his soul as months of pent-up frustration found an outlet. “What’s wrong? Really? You have to ask? Fucking everything’s wrong, Rob!”

  Rob’s eyebrows shot high into his forehead, and his mouth fell open in dumbfounded silence.

  “Look, when are you going to get it that I’m not interested in being fixed up?” Fiery fumes burned the backside of Mark’s skin. “And to a woman like that?” He pointed toward Crystal, who stood beside Holly looking as flabbergasted as Rob. “You should know me better than that, Rob. You should know the type of woman I like.”

  Rob’s face shaded pink. “I…” His mouth hung open, his eyes full of confusion.

  “Never mind. I’m outta here.” He slapped the elevator button, but when the doors didn’t open within a couple of seconds, he shot toward the door to the stairs and threw it open. He so didn’t want to be there, at the party, at the Palmer House Hilton. The place was too connected to his memories of Karma, and the last thing he wanted was to taint them with Crystal’s incessant, on-and-on-and-on blabbering.

  Once outside in the icy, crisp wind off Lake Michigan, it took what felt like forever to hail a cab. The chill diverted his attention from his aggravation, and by the time a taxi stopped and he settled into the backseat, regret had begun to ooze in. He’d lost it back there. Just snapped. Damn these mood swings. He was so frustrated and strung so tight that the tiniest irritations, which would have been mere inconveniences a year ago, now led to major outbursts.

  But after three-and-a-half months of impatiently holding onto faith that a higher power was working on setting his world right, Mark was beginning to fray around the edges. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take, or how much longer he could wait.

  He dropped his head back, jaw clenched, angry over losing his cool. As irritating as Crystal was, she hadn’t deserved Mark’s reaction. And Rob had only been trying to help. Still, the guy needed to back the fuck off. Mark didn’t want any help. The only thing he wanted was three hundred miles away, a fact made perfectly clear on Thanksgiving when he’d agreed to escort one of his parents’ new European dance students to their annual holiday get-together.

  His mom had probably hoped Mark would take a romantic shine to Annika, but he hadn’t. Not that Annika didn’t have her good qualities. He would have much rather spent New Year’s Eve with her than Crystal, even if only as friends.

  Annika was beautiful and talented, and she held herself in an unpretentious, almost self-conscious manner that would have lit Mark’s fire eight months ago. He’d always had a soft spot for the quiet ones. The ones who didn’t realize how lovely they were. The ones like Karma.

  And that was the problem. Like Crystal, Annika wasn’t Karma. As gorgeous as she was, and with that alluring European accent that would have sent other guys’ dicks skyward, Mark felt nothing but a professional interest in seeing her succeed as a dancer in Chicago, even after taking her to dinner twice.

  Part of him had gone out with Annika as a test to see if she could awaken a spark of interest, even though deep down he’d already known he was wasting his time. But if he could feel even a glimmer of sexual arousal with
Annika, then maybe it meant he would eventually get over Karma. He hadn’t. So much for that.

  The cab pulled up to his apartment building. After paying, he climbed back out into the cold and made his way inside to the elevators.

  Thanksgiving returned to his thoughts. His mom had known something was troubling him. After dinner, while everyone else watched the game downstairs, he had slipped away to his childhood bedroom, where his mom tracked him down.

  “There you are,” she’d said.

  Mark had turned toward the door to find his mother, her hand resting on the doorknob, her other arm lifted against the wall. She had stood in his doorway like that countless times in his childhood, and a whisper of nostalgia eased through him.

  Dressed in black slacks and a mocha-colored mohair sweater that draped halfway down her thighs, his mom was, as always, the picture of grace and demure beauty. Her gaze drifted to the shelf of trophies he’d been staring at, and she smiled.

  “Remembering your glory days?” She glided across the carpet and joined him.

  She moved like the wind, silent and whimsical.

  Mark regarded his trophies—some for dance, some for basketball—then glanced toward the cherrywood desk he used to do his homework on. “Something like that.”

  The glory days had been easy. What he was going through now wasn’t. In less than six months, he’d gone from being a man in complete control of his life to not knowing which way was up. He struggled to smile. He fought through every day. His existence revolved around his heart now, which was a more unruly beast than his mind. Hearts can’t be tamed, brains can.

  In a word, he was a mess.

  His mom touched his arm. “What’s troubling you, honey?”

  Of course she would notice.

  “It’s nothing, Mom.”

  She gave him the look all moms give their kids when they know they’re being fed a lie. “Come on, sit down.” She sat on the edge of the bed and patted the mattress. “Talk to me. Is it Annika? Is something wrong?”

  “No.” He sat down. “It’s not Annika, Mom.”

  His mom wrapped her arm around his and squeezed. “Then what’s wrong, honey? What’s got you so upset?”

  “I’m not upset.” He forced himself to square his shoulders.

  She uttered a quiet laugh. “Could have fooled me.”

  Mark relented and kissed her on the cheek. “No fooling you, is there?”

  She smiled up at him. “You never could, and you never will.” Just a hint of her Italian accent framed her words. “So, what’s wrong with my little boy?”

  Mark grinned and glanced to the floor. “I don’t want to trouble you with my problems, Mamma.” He fell into the Italian accent, which came so easily around his mother.

  “Nonsense. That’s why I’m here. It’s my duty as your madre to take your problems as my own. Now, talk. Tell me what’s got you so sad.”

  Even though his mom wasn’t the stereotypical headstrong Italian matriarch portrayed in movies, she could be pushy, and it was useless to resist.

  “I met someone.” What an understatement.

  “A girl?” Her eyebrows lifted into interested arcs. “That’s good news, isn’t it? Not something to be sad about.” Her voice held a note of reticence, which was understandable. She knew what he’d gone through after Carol and how many women he’d dated and dismissed. She wouldn’t want to get her hopes up too high that he’d actually met a keeper.

  “A woman.” He smiled, but the gesture didn’t reach his heart. “I met a woman, Mamma, not a girl.” And what a woman Karma was.

  “Why didn’t you bring her? Annika would have understood.”

  “I couldn’t.” He sighed. He’d never told his mom about Karma. He’d never told anyone except Rob. “She lives in Indianapolis.” Well, technically, she lived in Clover, but it was close enough to Indianapolis to generalize.

  Awareness filled his mom’s eyes. “Oooohhh, I see.” A smile crept over her mouth. “You met her while working there last summer, didn’t you?”

  What his mom didn’t know was that he’d actually met Karma in Chicago at the arts benefit last April, only to find out the following Monday that she worked for the Indianapolis company he’d been assigned to. Talk about signs. Maybe that had been one. He’d met the woman of his dreams in Chicago then saw her again two days later in Indianapolis. What were the odds?

  Mark couldn’t quite meet his mom’s eyes. “She worked for the company where I was on assignment.”

  His mom wrapped her fingers around his. “You love her?”

  He’d never admitted his feelings for Karma to anyone. Doing so felt too real. Once he revealed the words to another, they were out there. There was no taking them back. And if he couldn’t take them back, they could cause him pain. But this was his mom. He couldn’t lie to her, because she would see right through him.

  He lowered his eyes then nodded once. “Yes.” He cleared his throat and spoke quietly. “I love her.”

  “Does she love you?”

  “I don’t know.” Karma had never told him she loved him, but then, he’d never told her, either. That hadn’t been the type of relationship they’d had. At least it wasn’t supposed to have been.

  He’d gone into the affair with the premise that it would last only as long as his assignment at Solar. It wasn’t supposed to have been anything heavy or long term. Falling in love with her had broken all the rules, and now he was paying the price.

  “Did you ever think to ask her?”

  He shook his head and squeezed her fingers. “Mamma, it wasn’t that kind of relationship.” He let go of her hand.

  “And yet, here you are, sulking.”

  He gave her a good-natured smirk. “I’m not sulking.”

  “Like hell you aren’t.” She tapped his arm. “You look the same way you did after Rex died.”

  Rex had been his golden retriever when he was a kid. He’d loved that dog.

  “Mamma, please. Let’s not talk about this right now.” He took her hand and stood. “Let’s go back downstairs.”

  All this talk about Karma was making his heart hurt.

  She pushed off the bed with a shake of her head. “You’re hiding from the truth, Marcus.” She rarely used his given name. “You can’t run forever from what Carol did.”

  His mom never brought up Carol. The fact that she was now made Mark suck in his breath. “Mom, I—”

  “Honey, I think of Carol as a daughter.” She cupped his cheek. “You know that. She’s the brightest dancer at the studio. But you’re my son. I love you more. I always have and always will. What Carol did to you was…” She paused as if searching for the right word. “Some would say it was unforgiveable.” She pressed her palm against the side of his face, and her rounded cheeks lifted as she smiled. “But I forgave her. You need to, as well. I fear that if you don’t, you’ll never be able to move on. You’ll never be happy. And you’ll never allow yourself to truly love again.” She sighed. “You love this girl in Indiana, but something is holding you back from being with her. I think it’s Carol.” She pulled her hand away from his face and waved it toward the top of his head. “Or rather, the memory of what Carol did to you.” She grew still again then sighed. “Your emotions always did run deep. When you were young, you wore them on your sleeve. Then you grew up, suffered a little heartbreak, and…” She paused and shrugged as if she were surrendering. “And now you hide your feelings like you’re ashamed of them. Don’t let what she did steal your happiness, Marcus. Don’t let her actions prevent you from embracing love again. Carol has moved on. She’s happy now. She just had her baby and is aglow with life.” His mom’s eyes danced toward the ceiling as her shoulders briefly scrunched upward. “But you’re still stuck in the past. Don’t you think you deserve the same happiness, Mark?”

  Talk about punches to the gut. His mom held nothing back.

  But maybe what she’d said held more truth than he wanted to admit. Was his reticence about contacting Kar
ma more about feeling he didn’t deserve happiness than due to his fear of rejection? Or was it a combination of the two? He’d beaten himself up after Carol left, taking full responsibility for her betrayal. But maybe he shouldn’t have. He hadn’t forced her to sleep with Antonio. He hadn’t been the one to keep her affair a secret. Carol had done that. She had been the one to sneak around behind his back. But instead of laying blame where blame was due, he’d taken the onus completely on himself, feeling that he hadn’t been man enough to keep her faithful.

  For the first time in almost seven years, he considered that maybe he’d never been to blame at all. Perhaps Carol had just been too young to know how to tell him what she wanted, and perhaps he’d just been too busy with school to notice her unhappiness. Maybe neither one of them were to blame and the incident had been one giant mistake from the beginning. Even so, the aftershocks were hell on his heart. They still were.

  But his problems with love extended beyond Carol. Every significant relationship he’d had, even in school, had ended badly. And each failed relationship shattered his confidence with the opposite sex a little bit more than the last. Carol jilting him had just been the breaking point, pushing him over the edge. Fighting his way back up the side of that jagged cliff was proving almost impossible.

  But through all the broken hearts, his mom had stood by him.

  “I love you, Mom.” He kissed her cheek.

  “I love you, too, honey. Now, come back downstairs. You haven’t had dessert, yet, and Maria made the most incredible brownies. They’re full of chunks of fudgy chocolate and covered with caramel and marshmallows. They’re divine.” His mom’s eyes had rolled back dreamily as she wrapped her arm around his again and led him to the door.

  Mark stared at the panel of buttons in the elevator as he remembered the feelings that had rolled through him at his mom’s mention of Maria’s chocolate chunk brownies.

  They had felt like a sign. Maybe not the sign, but one the higher powers at work in the universe had used to let him know they were working on granting his wish.

  Be patient.