Falling in Love Again: A Valentine's Day Proposal

by Mia Ford

  If he can respect me after that. Doubtful. I barely respect myself.

  “I have to…” I stammer awkwardly. “I need to go. I’ve got to… to leave.”

  I think I might be able to hear him calling after me, but I block his words out as I run. If I don’t get out of here now, I don’t know what I will do. And not just here, but this area. I don’t want to be anywhere near the place where I made this mistake. I need a break from all of it to remember who the hell I am.

  You fool, I curse myself as I race off. You absolute fool. What a way to ruin everything.

  11

  Carter

  I tap my pen against the table, putting on my thoughtful face, but it’s pointless. I can barely focus at all. My mind is all over the place, thinking about the one person who should be at this meeting, but isn’t.

  “What do you think, boss?” Gary asks me forcefully, dragging me back to the present moment.

  “About what?” I shoot back without thinking. I really should have tried to act like I was listening.

  “The new structure. The one proposed by Raelyn so we can implement the new plan.”

  “She’s restructuring now?” I reply nastily. “Are we letting her take over everything?”

  “Well… that’s the right way to make it work. If we want to do the things you agreed to.”

  I roll my eyes and snort. “Yeah sure, I agreed to it, when I thought that it was going to be carried out properly.”

  “What… what do you mean by that?”

  I wave my arms around the table, pointing to the people who have actually bothered to turn up. “Where is she? Hmm? The expert behind this plan. She created it then fucked off. That’s real professional, isn’t it?”

  That isn’t why I’m mad, but none of these guys know that. They don’t know that Raelyn and I caved to the deep sexual tension between us, giving in for one glorious, blissful moment of heaven, before she ran away and hasn’t been seen since. How am I supposed to not take that as a personal attack?

  “She’s with her mom,” Leon pipes up. “She’s looking after her because she’s sick. But that doesn’t matter. We are all here to take care of things. We don’t need Raelyn around.”

  “Can you get in touch with her?” I snap back, still in a furious temper. “If you get stuck?”

  Leon shrugs. “I’m sure we can. But you are here too, aren’t you?”

  “I do not have time to oversee something that Raelyn wants. You think I’m her employee or something? No, I have my own work to be getting on with. If you cannot do it then we shouldn’t bother…”

  “We can do it,” Leon reassures me. He darts his eyes towards Gary who betrays me and nods too. “We can do it; I’m not concerned about that. I was just meaning if we needed to… but we won’t. We won’t bother you.”

  They are already bothering me. Everyone is. I would love to just be left alone so I can get on with things. “Right fine, whatever. You should all just get on with it then. I want to see the results. No more bullshit please.”

  “You will. I promise you that you will. We will show you just how good we can be.” Leon nods desperately.

  I huff, this isn’t really what I want to hear. I would much prefer some proper answers as to where Raelyn is.

  “Right good.” I wave my hands dismissing them all. “Now get on with it. I don’t want any more wasted time.”

  They all rise from their chairs and leave the conference room in silence, desperate to get away from me. I don’t blame them, I don’t much want to be around me either, I’m a nightmare at the moment. But how can I be anything else when I have been betrayed by a woman once more? It brings all the memories of Anna screaming back. The scars that she left behind re-open and now I’m gaping and exposed for everyone to see.

  “Why did you leave?” I mutter into the air. “Why didn’t you stay? To talk about it all?”

  She could have just had a frank discussion with me. Even if she told me that it was all a silly mistake and that she didn’t ever want to do it again, if she just wanted to return to being work colleagues, I would have been fine with that. Well, not fine exactly, but I would have accepted it. Got on with it.

  “What is it about me that makes me impossible to talk to? Why didn’t Anna tell me the truth? Why is Raelyn doing the same thing? Is it me? Am I the one who is to blame for all of this? I guess so…”

  I am the common denominator. It has to be because of me. I should have known better. My life was easy during that period when I didn’t have any women in my life. It was simple and straight forward, I knew what I was doing all the time. As soon as I change that for even a second, everything is in turmoil again.

  I gather up my papers and leave the conference room, trying my hardest not to think about the first day we met in person, the time when I realized that she was a woman and I knew that everything was going to change for the worst. I could sense it deep in the pit of my stomach, in my bones, and I ignored that urge. Why did I ignore that? Why didn’t I just send her away before it got out of control?

  Her eyes. That was the problem on that day. I got sucked in by those big beautiful eyes of hers. She intrigued me, and amongst all things, I just wanted to get to know more about her. I could sense that I would be fascinated by her and I was right. I am… but all it’s done is left me with a deep hollow pain in my chest. A little bit like the one I experienced as my marriage, my friendship, and the life I had created melted away into nothingness.

  A moment of fun has led to a long period of unhappiness afterwards. Was it worth it?

  Well, now I know. I guess I just had to learn that lesson for the second time. At least I didn’t foolishly get married to this one first. We just had sex the one time. Well, like I said, never, ever again.

  In my office, my head continues to spin. I need to speak to Raelyn, we can’t just leave this hanging forever, it’s ridiculous. She can spin any lie about a family member being sick all she wants, but I don’t buy it. I know she’s just keeping out of my way, which is affecting business and everyone in here, we need to end this.

  I grab my cell phone and hit the call button. I press the receiver so hard against my ear I’m sure that it will leave an imprint, but I have to really feel it to believe what’s happening.

  Ring, ring… Ring, ring… Ring, ring…

  I pace the room, my eyes flickering over everything as I wait for her to pick up.

  Ring, ring… Ring, ring… Ring, ring…

  My temper bubbles and boils, I can feel a deep ache in my blood. If she doesn’t answer soon, I don’t know what I’ll do. She can’t just ignore me like this as well. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair on anyone.

  Ring, ring… Ring, ring… Ring, ring…

  “This is Raelyn Owens. Sorry, I can’t come to the phone right now, but please leave a message and I will...”

  “Argh,” I cry out angrily, hitting the end call button. “What the hell?”

  I’m pissed off now, utterly furious. I feel like my heart might blow up under the intense pressure of it. All I need to do is to get out of here, I need to do something other than be in this place, it has too many memories, too much hanging on it. I need to be somewhere which doesn’t hold any memories of Raelyn.

  I stalk out the building with only one destination in mind. The bar across the road. That’s where I need to be right now, in a place where I can have a drink and feel much more like myself. I don’t often get drunk, but today I know for a fact that I’m going to have a few to block her out.

  “Hello, Ryan,” I say through gritted teeth as I take my seat at the bar. I won’t take any of the tables because I know that I can see the office from there, and that will allow me to still think about her. “Whiskey, please.”

  “Dare I ask?” he replies with a confused look on his face.

  “Nope. Don’t ask. Just slide a drink my way.” I grab my forehead. “And make it quick, please.”

  “Bad day?”

  “The worst. Bad doesn’t ev
en begin to cover it.”

  I blame Lee for this, I can’t help but blame him. He should have been honest from the start rather than doing what he thought was right for me. Who is he to decide that anyway? I know what’s best for me, no one else. I wouldn’t have worked with Raelyn for a good reason and now I have been proven right.

  Well, I suppose all I can do now is drink these woes away before they swallow me up whole.

  My head is spinning, I’m barely even sitting on the stool anymore, everything is sloshing about inside of me. I don’t know how long I’ve been here; I don’t know what I’ve said. I’m just a mess. A numb, messy state. But it’s better for me to be a mess than it is for me to feel all of these confusing feelings Raelyn has on me.

  “I’m going to call her,” I tell Ryan decidedly. “Give her a piece of my mind.”

  “Who?” He looks panicked. Even I can tell that in this state. “Not your ex-wife?”

  “Huh? No. Was I even talking about her?” I shake my head as he nods. “No, Raelyn.”

  “The woman that you work with now? I know you told me a bit about her, but why are you calling her?”

  “She needs to know… I have to tell her what she’s done to me. I don’t think she understands.”

  I can see Ryan saying more to me, but his words aren’t sinking in. I have my cell phone clutched between my fingers and an idea forming in my brain. Right now, nothing else matters.

  The cold air outside doesn’t sober me up. If anything, it makes me worse. My vision becomes intensely blurry making it challenging for me to see any of the words on my phone screen. That could stop me, but it doesn’t.

  “Ah!” I press the phone to my ear. It’s ringing and I know that it’s to her. “Now you’ll see.”

  It takes a while, ringing through, shaking my ear drums. Then it comes to the voice mail part.

  “Raelyn,” I drawl, letting my anger out in an idiotic way. “You are ignoring me because you don’t want to talk about it, but we have to. We can’t just ignore it because it’s stupid. So we slept together. So what? Does it have to be a big deal? Do you need to run away and leave me to run everything by myself, hmm? Because that is weak as fuck, Raelyn. It really is. I thought that you were so much stronger than that. I guess not. I guess I was wrong.” I roll my eyes, as if she’s looking at me. “What’s the point of this, huh? You can’t put work first? I just don’t know what that says about you. You aren’t the person that I thought you were.”

  The warm glow that comes from this message fades very quickly. Too quickly. All of a sudden, guilt floods me. Was I too harsh then? Did I say things that I shouldn’t have? Was I unprofessional?

  Fucking hell, have I just wrecked things even more? Is the hole deeper? How are we going to drag ourselves out of it? So many questions and absolutely no answers. Being this drunk isn’t helping. I need to go back home and sober the hell up. Yet my feet are heading back inside the bar, to make yet another mistake…

  12

  Raelyn

  I stare out of the window of the house that I grew up in, looking across the road where I used to play, yearning for a more innocent time where I didn’t have all these ridiculous problems that feel all consuming. I would much prefer to be a twelve-year-old, unaware of the horrors of puberty that are about to hit me, unaware of how hard adulthood was going to turn out, just content and happy with my own little competitive nature.

  “Here we are.” Mom enters the room and hands me a mug of steaming hot tea. I smile as I take it from her, glad to have her. It was just her and I for the longest time. Dad died when I was young and she never seemed to meet anyone else. I never really thought much about it, but now I can’t help wondering why.

  Was it because of me? She had a young child so she wasn’t focused on dating. Or was it because she met the love of her life once, I know that she absolutely adored my dad, she tells me all about their love, so perhaps no one else could ever compare. Or maybe there is just something unlovable about her and me. Or just me. There could have been guys but they might have been put off because of my existence.

  “Thanks for the tea, Mom. It’s really nice.” I smile thinly at her.

  “Well, the English always say it makes everything better. Perhaps there’s something in that.”

  “Hmm, yeah you could be right. I do feel better for it. But that might be just because I’m here.”

  There’s something so strange about being back at home that gives me a teenage kind of feel. I want to curl up on the couch with popcorn and fizzy pop, watching movies after a long night of homework and missing out. Knowing that Mom is in the other room, willing to help me at any time… I miss that comfort a whole lot.

  “So, Raelyn. I know you said that you didn’t want to talk about it, but that was three days ago now. You must be ready to talk about things. You know I can’t help you unless you talk to me, don’t you?”

  Internally, I cringe. “Mom, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I just want to forget about it.”

  “Oh, no, no, no.” She shakes her head vigorously. “You never come to visit, you are always too busy, and yet you suddenly turn up out of the blue all upset. You don’t get to leave without telling me what’s going on. If you don’t, I’m obviously going to be worried that it’s something very serious and you’ll never get rid of me.”

  I laugh because I know that she’s only half kidding. “Mom, honestly, I can promise you it’s nothing serious.”

  “You don’t have to hide things from me.” She cocks her head and eyes me curiously. “You know that, right?”

  I roll my eyes and allow my gaze to drift back out the window, but the urge to give in to what she wants is almost overwhelming. I just need someone to talk to and she is a good listener.

  “Mom, I screwed up, that’s all. I made a whole bunch of mistakes and now I don’t know what to do.”

  “Mistakes? What do you mean mistakes? What have you done? Have you murdered someone?”

  A laugh bursts free from me. “No, I didn’t kill anyone. Nothing quite that dramatic.”

  “Okay, so no one has been killed, that’s a relief. It can’t be that bad, can it?”

  I decide to give in, to just tell her. It’s easier and I do need help. “Okay, so you know about the merger?”

  “Oh, all the business with Lace Enterprises? Yes, I think I understand it.”

  “Well, Carter Lace is a bit of a nightmare to be honest. He’s arrogant and annoying, rude too. It’s almost like he doesn’t know how to speak to women, I have really had a difficult time of things with him.”

  “Sounds like he has some struggles himself. Have you tried to get to know him?”

  “Mom!” I exclaim, shocked. “You aren’t supposed to be on his side. You should be on mine.”

  “Wait, I didn’t realize that this was a thing with sides. Of course I’m on yours. I was just pointing out an observation, that’s all. A thing I would assume from what you told me. I wasn’t trying to start something.”

  “Okay, well whatever.” I roll my eyes and try to keep my fierceness inside. “He’s a jerk…”

  “Is that why you’re here? Because he’s been an asshole to you, because I can kick some ass.”

  “I don’t think having my mommy defend me will really help me.”

  “It won’t be like that! I won’t embarrass you or anything. So, is that what happened?”

  “Not really, no. I could handle that, even if he did wind me up.”

  “Okay, so it wasn’t because he was being a jerk. What was it?”

  When she gives me a look I feel like she is piercing right through to the pit of my soul. I can’t hide anything from her. “Something sort of happened between us, and now it’s really awkward.”

  “How has it been awkward?” Mom doesn’t miss a beat to acknowledge how foolish I was.

  “Well, I don’t know if it will be awkward to be honest because I ran away right afterwards.”

  “Oh… I see. Why did you do that? Th
at seems like a crazy thing to do.”

  I shrug my shoulders. I don’t really have an answer for her. “I don’t know. I was just all confused.”

  “Well, you can’t let confusion get in the way of your business. I mean, you are both adults, aren’t you? Can’t you just overcome any awkwardness and get on with it? Does it need to be strained?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “It just feels really difficult to me. I know that it shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Why not? Because you work together? Why should that stop you?”

  “Because it could make things super awkward. Because it could get really challenging.”

  “So what? Who cares? What story of true love ever runs smoothly?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t ever been in love before.”

  “Well, maybe it’s time to put all of that behind you. Perhaps you shouldn’t be so scared.”

  “Scared?” I screw up my nose. “It isn’t because I’m scared. It just isn’t right.”

  “According to who? Who makes that choice?”

  “I don’t know. Everyone. It’s just a fact, isn’t it? That you shouldn’t kiss where you work.”

  Mom tosses her head back and laughs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re putting too much pressure on yourself. If you like this man, then you should try and understand him. Embrace him.”

  “It sounds so simple when you put it like that.”

  “It could be that simple, if you let it.”

  Mom’s words make me think about Carter’s voicemail. Not the first one he left me when he clearly let his temper out in a drunken rage, but the second one when the booze had made him pensive instead.