Coming Back To You (4 page)

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 Karma
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.