by Donya Lynne
A momentary pulse of fear jolted her. Without hearing him say it, she knew their time was up. The inevitable end had come.
“And…?” she said.
He sighed. “My assignment’s over.”
So the hammer fell.
“Oh.” That was all she could say, because her mind went blank.
They hadn’t talked about this moment since Fourth of July weekend, as if both had refused to risk damaging their magical dynamic. No sense talking and worrying about an ending they couldn’t do anything about, right?
Well, they had to talk about it now. And Karma wasn’t prepared. Like a speech she hadn’t practiced beforehand, all she could do was stand at the front of the room and stare blankly at all the eyes looking at her. She had no notes to refer to, no experience to pull from, nothing at all to help get her through this.
So she said nothing.
“All the reports are done,” he said. “The analysis is complete. Recommendations have been made and accepted.” Mark’s fingers continued caressing her as if they weren’t playing from the same program as his words. “All that’s left to do is pull the trigger.”
What an appropriate expression, because right now, it felt like someone had shot her in the chest.
“How long will that take?” She had finally found her voice, and now survival mode kicked in.
He answered the real question. “Next week is my last week. Don will be telling you tomorrow, so I wanted to make sure you knew in advance so you weren’t caught off guard.”
In other words, he wanted her prepared so she didn’t behave inappropriately when Don told her, lest she let the cat out of the bag about their relationship.
“Oh.” She was back to one-syllable responses.
Silence engulfed them for several minutes, then, out of the blue, he said, “Come to Chicago with me this weekend.” He spoke as if he hadn’t just dropped a weapon of mass destruction in her bedroom. “Spend one last weekend with me where we don’t have to hide from everybody.”
The fact he wanted to take her away for a weekend brightened her spirits a little. She had one more week left with him, and it wouldn’t do any good to mope around and waste that time. It was a much better idea to embrace these final days and make them count. But count for what? She didn’t know, she just knew she needed to make them count.
“I’d like that,” she said. She forced a fake smile, but who was she fooling? She was hurting so badly. This was heartache. Now she knew why people called it that, because her chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it.
“Me, too.” His voice took on a clinical tone. “We’ll drive up tomorrow night after work, if that’s okay.”
Tomorrow was Friday. Doomsday, as far as she was concerned. “Sure. After work is fine.”
She suddenly didn’t know how to talk to him. The walls that had dropped around him over the past couple of months seemed to have fully reformed, and she couldn’t seem to bridge the divide already pushing them apart. He already seemed to be pulling away.
She recognized his behavior as a defense mechanism. Of course he would have one. Maybe she needed to get one, too.
He rolled to the side of the bed and sat up. “I need to get going.”
“Okay. Yeah, it’s late.”
Normally, he would stay, but not now. The magic was over. He was leaving in a week. The carriage was turning back into a pumpkin, and her prince was stealing her magic glass slipper. Only, in her case, it was her heart.
He found his pants and pulled them on, taking away her view of his muscular thighs and backside. And then he fumbled with his shirt, turning it right-side out. Within seconds, his perfectly sculpted six-pack and the lightly hairy chest she had grown so fond of were stolen from sight, too.
Everything was different now.
They had spent a beautiful summer together. One she would never forget. Ever. Because you didn’t forget men like Mark. He had transformed her from a girl to a woman, taking her from gawky, geeky, and insecure to comely, confident, and self-assured. The man was a miracle worker. He had delivered everything he had promised.
And that was where it ended. No extras were thrown in. She would receive no gold stars for being an honor student. There would be no happy, surprise ending.
After he sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled on his shoes, he leaned down and kissed her, but there was no passion in his lips. Not like there had been when he swept through her door not even an hour ago and stole her breath with an urgency that screamed into the depths of her soul.
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night.”
He got up and walked out of her room, and a moment later, she heard the front door open and close.
And a moment after that, she rolled over and buried her face against her pillow.
And cried like she never had before.
Until she finally cried herself to sleep.
* * *
Mark drove back to his condo in a stupor. The ache in his chest gnawed his sternum like an army of carpenter ants devouring a fallen tree.
But he refused to give in to the pain.
He pulled into his garage, parked, walked calmly inside, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, drank the whole thing, trudged up the steps to his loft, and got undressed.
The pain magnified the longer he tried to ignore it. He would not give. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He was doing the right thing—what he had promised from the very beginning.
Entering his bathroom, he flipped on the faucet, leaned over, and splashed cool water on his face.
Splash-splash.
But the ache continued to intensify. He tried taking deep breaths. He tried closing his eyes. But nothing helped.
Bile rose in his throat, and he gagged. No. He was in control. He was. He shook off the wave of nausea, doused his face again with more water, took several deep, shaky breaths, then gazed at his reflection.
Oh God. This wasn’t happening. Not again.
Falling to his knees in front of the toilet, he tried to keep it down. He fought, he swallowed, but it was useless. He couldn’t fight his anguish any longer. He threw up, sobbing even as he continued to wretch. When the gagging stopped, he threw his arm over the seat and rested his forehead against the front edge, lost to wracking sobs that tore at his raw throat like the tines of a fork. Tears splattered the tile floor.
It had been six years since he’d cried—truly cried. But this time it wasn’t Carol who had forced his emotions to overflow.
It was Karma.
More specifically, his feelings for her.
He loved her. In his heart, he knew the truth, no matter how much he tried to deny it.
But his relationship with Karma was over.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
Chapter 54
Welcome to the Karma Café. There are no menus. You will get served what you deserve.
-Author Unknown
The next morning, after applying ice packs to her dry, swollen eyes, which felt hot to the touch, and willing herself not to cry anymore, Karma gathered herself, got ready for work, and headed in to the office.
She had to act unaffected when Don told her. Talk about a poker face. She’d never been good at poker. And that made her think about blackjack, which made her think about Mark, and she was crying again.
She pulled over, dried her eyes, and touched up her makeup, but who was she kidding. She looked awful. Maybe no one would notice. Then again, what if she couldn’t hide how upset the news made her that Mark’s assignment with Solar was up? Somehow, the idea of dropping to her knees and praying that he wouldn’t go seemed like it would give things away.
Just a tad.
Inevitably, her short drive to work came to an end, and she faced the longest walk of her life. Steeling herself, she got out, threw Mark’s BMW a mournful glance, and headed up the sidewalk.
As she walked in, Nancy was already situated at the front desk and caught her eye. “I t
hink something big is happening today,” she said in a hushed voice.
Karma forced a perplexed, I-wouldn’t-know-a-thing-about-it look on her face. “What do you mean?”
Nancy waved her over. “Mark was in early. Don’s already with him. And HR has been in and printing off documents since seven o’clock.”
Nancy looked at her as if she was fishing for information.
“I guess we’ll find out what’s going on soon enough,” Karma said, trying to act clueless.
If only Nancy knew, what was about to go down today was nothing compared to what had gone down last night. Call her selfish, but Karma wasn’t feeling too sympathetic or compassionate to the plights of those who may or may not be losing their jobs today. Maybe under better circumstances, or maybe pre-Mark Strong, she would have given a damn about the fate of her coworkers, but with her own problems to worry about, which felt like the weight of the Rocky Mountains on her shoulders, there wasn’t a whole lot of energy left for anyone else. She needed to save her strength to endure the natural disaster about to occur in a week when Hurricane Mark finally moved back out to sea and left her in a state of emergency.
Karma left Nancy at the reception desk and headed upstairs. Mark and Don were already in the conference room poring over a stack of papers. Mark already had his coffee.
Disappointment throttled her. Apparently, she couldn’t even get his coffee, anymore. The transition back to being Mark-less had begun.
Silly girl. It had begun last night when he left her apartment instead of staying. Screw that. It had begun the moment she wore that brooch to work back in May. She had known then that this day was coming.
She set down her bags, resisting the urge to stare at Mark’s perfect profile. And failing. He looked tired, his shoulders rounded instead of squared.
“Karma. Ah, there you are. Could you step in, please?” Don said, turning to see her sitting there.
Mark didn’t even flinch.
“Uh, sure.” She got up and hurried in. At least, she hurried as much as she could, being that she felt like a giant ball of lead.
Mark finally turned and met her gaze as she entered. His eyes were bloodshot, and when he spoke, his voice was full of gravel, as if his throat was irritated. “Don and I will need your assistance today,” he said. Then he cleared his throat as he glanced down at his paperwork and lifted his mug of coffee for a sip. “We’ll be talking to some of the employees and will need you to call them in for us.”
“Yes, of course.” She frowned. “You sound like you’re catching a cold.”
He kept his eyes averted. “Allergies. Seems the dry summer finally caught up to me.”
Hmm. He had seemed fine last night. Better than fine, actually. Not a hint of the sniffles.
A moment later, Kathy, the HR director, walked in with a file folder in her hand.
Don gestured for Karma to have a seat then shut the door. “We thought we would start with you,” he said. “Get it out of the way, so to speak, so you wouldn’t sit and worry all day.”
She wanted to ask, “Get what out of the way?” But given her conversation with Nancy, she was pretty sure what. And based on Don’s proud smile, she was one getting good news today.
If only he knew that all the good news in the world wouldn’t make up for the one bit of bad news she had received last night.
She sat down and laid one hand over the other on the polished wood.
“Karma,” Don began, “Mark and I have discussed your future with Solar quite extensively in the past few weeks.”
Her gaze flicked to Mark, who met her eyes for only a second before he looked back down at the piece of paper in front of him.
“Mark seems to think you’ve got a tremendous amount of potential,” Don said. “He advises that your talents extend far beyond what even I was aware of.”
The tops of Mark’s cheeks reddened, and he cleared his throat again.
Was he thinking the same thing she was? That if Don knew about the personal time they had spent together, he would rethink his phrasing? Because knowing what she knew, Don’s comment was almost comical. Or would have been under less depressing circumstances.
Don continued. “We’re creating a new position for you. One in which you will not only function as my assistant, but also take on more responsibility from the sales team, among others. We’ve worked up a new job description for you.” He slid a piece of paper in front of her.
She read her new title: Coordinator of Administrative Services and Logistics.
As Don went down the list of responsibilities and highlighted a few of the key changes to her role, all she could think was that this had been Mark’s doing. He had given her this new title. He had seen something in her beyond their personal time together and had recommended her for this new position.
“Of course, we’re prepared to offer you a salary increase,” Don said. “We consider this a promotion.”
Kathy passed another piece of paper to Don, which he placed in front of her. He rattled off some percentages and numbers, but all Karma saw was the bold number at the bottom of the page. Her new salary nearly made her choke on her own saliva. This was no chump change. And there was an option for quarterly bonuses based on company performance.
She remembered something Mark had told her early on. He had been given carte blanche where the personnel was concerned. His human resources recommendations were sacrosanct.
Suddenly, those private conversations between Mark and Don seemed more important than anything else. He had spoken of her. To her boss. And his words had helped decide her fate. And all this time, she had thought their relationship went no further than their time outside the office.
But that wasn’t the case. He had taken care of her. Mark had seen fit to leave her better than he had found her in more ways than one.
Maybe this was his way of showing her how much he cared. He couldn’t give her his heart, but he could give her this gift to let her know that, while he couldn’t stay in body, he could at least stay in her thoughts as the one who had set her up for success and a future she hadn’t dreamed possible. One in which she made more money than she ever had, and which stuffed her resume with experience that could take her even further if she ever chose to leave Solar and pursue her writing career. Yes, she still wanted to be a journalist, but in the meantime, she didn’t have to scrape to get by. This was his way of letting her know she was special. That’s what she chose to believe, whether it was true or not. Because believing that made his leaving just a little bit easier to stomach.
Don went on about how they wanted to cross-train her in all operational tasks, including project management, as a means of furthering her potential and possibly allowing her another departmental move into an even more encompassing position if she wanted, and then they were finished.
She signed the appropriate documents and returned to her desk with a list of all the other employees scheduled for a visit with the three of them this morning. It was Karma’s job to call each person in and keep the door revolving. Some of those employees would be like her and keep their jobs, but she was certain that some would come out of the conference room not wearing such happy faces.
Jolene was one of the names on the list, and as the door closed behind her after she went in, Karma was certain that she wouldn’t come out happy, and she was right. A few minutes later, she exited with tears in her eyes and glared at Karma as she passed her desk, Kathy beside her.
“She should be the one being let go!” Jo pointed at her. “Not me. She’s—”
“Enough, Jolene,” Kathy said sharply. “Don’t make this any harder on yourself.”
Whatever Kathy held over Jo’s head was enough to shut her mouth, and they disappeared around the corner as Jolene let out a quiet sob.
After their falling out over Memorial Day weekend and during the weeks before, Karma really wasn’t surprised by the show of aggression. If anything, Jo should have seen this coming. All the signs had been there, and even J
ohnny had said anyone in administration should be looking for new work. But oh well. Jo wasn’t Karma’s problem, anymore.
Jo had tried to stir up trouble for her and Mark, and who knew what she would do now. She could still make waves if she wanted to, but it didn’t really matter. Mark was leaving.
Today was going to be unsettling for everyone, and come Monday, the landscape would look a lot different around Solar.
* * *
Mark had barely slept last night. He had been too sick with misery, which felt like it might be translating to actual sickness. He could see his weekend with Karma slipping away, but he would fight through it. He didn’t want anything to ruin their last weekend together.
“How are you feeling?” Don asked during the short break between employees. “You sound worse.”
“I’ll be fine.” It was a lie, of course. He was so far from being fine that he wasn’t even in the same zip code. If only things could be different. If only he could take her with him instead of leave her behind. If only Carol hadn’t torn his emotions to shreds. If only. Because then everything would be different, and he wouldn’t be so wary—no, terrified—of letting himself fall in love again.
He needed to stop considering alternative options.
It. Was. Over.
Period.
Karma was a sweet, wonderful, magnificent woman, but she would have to be someone else’s perfect match, because there were simply too many things that stood in the way between them.
One more weekend together, and then next week, he would start packing up and make the necessary arrangements to leave.
Kathy returned to the conference room and dropped into the chair beside him.
“That was fun,” she said sarcastically.
“I didn’t think Jolene would take her dismissal well,” Don chimed in.
“I’m not surprised. I pegged her early on as one who would cause trouble.” Mark riffled through the last four letters in his stack. “Let’s bring in the next one.”