A Previous Engagement (20 page)

The palm she held inches from my face was pretty clear.

“That’s not fair, you know. It’s not just
me
. Christian’s not interested in me. Maybe he was, once upon a time, but he’s been parading girlfriends in front of me for years.”

“How is that any different from your own behavior in college? Have you ever asked him how he feels?” I shook my head, my eyes scrutinizing the mauve floor tiles. “Maybe you should.”

****

Of course, after a conversation like that, how does one go about ‘acting normal’ around the person in question? When I met up with Christian again, I let him fuel me with more alcohol and stuttered an apology for my attempted rescue. He took it in stride, but made himself busy in other locations with candid shots until it was time to go home. Despite my rules about not drinking out of loneliness, sadness, or boredom, I must confess to having one martini for each problem. Between drinks, I tried to pass time on the dance floor and chatting with a few guests, some of them old friends from high school.

Then it was over. The music stopped, the lights came up, and everyone dashed for the exit. I packed up the equipment, slung it over my shoulder, stumbled for a few paces, and then started my rounds. I said goodbye to the happy couple, who looked all star-struck and romantic, then gave hugs to Grant and Kendra, who just looked exhausted. Ah, the path of love was a weary one, indeed, I marveled in my half-drunken brain. I crossed the empty dance floor to find Christian, packing up the last of his camera parts—whatever they were called.

“Nice work, boss,” I decided to pretend nothing happened in the bathroom and my world had not been rocked by the most aggressive Cupid on earth. Bathroom? What bathroom?

“Thanks for your help, Tessie,” he smiled at me, that same familiar smile I’d delighted in for over two decades. It still brought me warmth after all that time.

We were the last to leave the hall, except for the catering staff, and I regretted not having the time for a dance together during the reception. Just one dance, for old time’s sake. Who knew where it would go?

Except for one tiny problem, which hit me acutely in the stomach like a right hook: Savannah. Because of my uncanny match-making skills, Christian would never ever be interested in me ever. Ever. I didn’t even know if I was ready to start thinking about telling Christian how I felt—if I felt what I thought I felt—and already I was road blocked. By myself.

Shakespeare would’ve been proud.

As all of these thoughts warred with one another inside my aching head, I followed Christian wordlessly across the foyer and to the elevator. I wanted to grab his arm to stay steady, but I suddenly felt self-conscious about everything I did around him. He hit the button and stood staring at me for a minute, then looked relieved when the bell dinged the elevator car’s arrival.

I followed him inside, or rather, tripped into the elevator. He caught me—and his equipment—and chuckled quietly. If all else fails, I could always lighten the mood with my clumsiness.

“I got you something,” Christian said as he hit the button for the ground floor.

We settled against the back wall of the elevator after the doors closed and he slid his arm around my shoulders. My heart beat violently against my ribcage as I replayed my conversation with Kendra in my head. Oh God, I’d been so obvious all this time! Obvious to everyone but myself. Being close to him, close enough to inhale his cologne, to look up and see his jaw and chin, the side of his face, the curl of sandy brown hair at his temple—it was too much for my nervous system to process. I’d never known before how perfectly I fit here, how my head just reached his shoulder and my waist curved at his wrist.

Because I wasn’t supposed to be standing there at all. This was Savannah’s spot. I was usurping Savannah, after all the pains I’d gone just to get them together! What an idiot I’d been.

“Here. For you, Tessie.” He presented me with one single daisy with a broken stem, no doubt plucked from a centerpiece or bouquet. My heart stopped beating and leapt into my throat.

“For me?” Awed, I took the daisy from him and lifted it to my nose. I inhaled the gentle fragrance, letting it fill me with emotions I never expected to feel in an elevator with my oldest friend. What was happening to my life? “Oh, I love that smell.”

He lowered his head to the flower, breathing in deeply, closing his eyes to enjoy the fleeting scent of the delicate blossom. It must’ve been something about the daisy, or watching his complete reverence for something I loved so much, or possibly just that his eyes were closed. Or maybe it was the martinis. But who cares?

I kissed him, in one perfect moment of stupidity.

The very instant our lips connected, everything changed. The daisy was forgotten, Christian’s hands were in my hair, I was pressed up against the wall of the elevator as my own hands desperately found their way up into his tuxedo jacket. A willful force, driven by a thousand missed chances from the past, took over my body. I’d forgotten how soft Christian’s lips were, how firmly his hands caressed my skin that night in the pool. All the emotions I’d experienced in the ten years since seemed to erupt, a dormant volcano waiting for precisely this moment. I gave in to him, his hands, and his lips. All of it familiar and new at the same time.

When the elevator bell announced our arrival on the ground floor, we froze. Christian broke away from me, leaving me slumped against the wall and unsure how well my knees would support my body weight. He pounded a thumb into the Stop button before the doors opened.

“Tessie,” he said breathlessly, still plastered against the opposite wall of the elevator. “I’m sorry, I don’t know—I just—Wow. Tess, we can just—”

Oh God, what had I just done? “Christian, I—” We were stuttering together, neither of us making any sense. Things were going downhill quickly and I needed to get out of the elevator before I died of embarrassment. I hit the Open button and the doors sprung apart, which stopped Christian mid-stutter.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened,” I stood with one foot on either side of the door frame, half-in and half-out. I searched his face for the answer and found a man torn apart. I could read the grief there, the confusion, the pain. If I’d kept my lips to myself, we would have gone about our lives the way we always had. Now, I was doing to him what all those past women had done—breaking his heart. I saw it reflected in those perfect, blue eyes.

What a shitty friend I turned out to be.

“I shouldn’t—” A lot of words wanted to come out, but got clogged together in my throat. I turned on one heel, eyes glued to the floor, and walked through the lobby to the front door. He yelled after me a couple of times and while my heart leapt at the sound of it, my head told my feet to move on.

Whatever I could’ve been to Christian romantically, I was his best friend first. Best friends don’t rip each other’s hearts in half like I’d just done.

****

The chilled night air—because even May is cold in New England sometimes—evaporated any remaining alcohol in my system. Along with the cold, my body crumpled with crushing guilt. How could I have done this to a man I cared so much for? Who cares how I felt? It wasn’t fair of me to try to change things. I’d missed my chance a long time ago. And there Christian was, ready to start a new life with the perfect woman, and I throw a wrench into his plan.

I was so angry at myself, I could scream.

Instead, I caught a cab home. I walked into my apartment, switched on the light, and stood absorbing the silence with my eyes closed. It was particularly oppressive after all I’d been through. To chase away the demons, I locked up my liquor cabinet and headed to the bathroom for a long, hot bath in my cranberry-scented bubble bath. I tried painting my toenails hot pink to cheer myself up, a trick I used since high school, but that didn’t work. The memory of Christian once helping me pick out a new shade of hot pink in the drugstore when we were eighteen was a real killjoy.

So I tried eating instead, digging out the very last slice of my Cheer Up Cheesecake from Kendra. I’d been saving it for something truly catastrophic, something of this magnitude. Even though it was dry from sitting in the fridge too long, I ate the whole piece and pretended it was the most damn delicious thing I’d ever consumed.

Eventually, there was nothing left to do to keep my thoughts at bay. As usual, I was too late, the last one to know what was going on. I’d sworn off a family to avoid my mother’s mistakes, sworn off Christian because we wanted such different things. Instead, I tried to fill the empty space with a job. Look at me—I said to my reflection in the full-length mirror on my closet door—my mother wasn’t great, but I turned out okay. I had great friends, a good career, and a good ‘head on my shoulders’ as my grandmother would’ve said before she passed away. She’d been a good mother, so it was there, that maternal gene, somewhere in my DNA.

I thought about all those boyfriends that hadn’t fit what I was looking for. I’d been comparing them to Christian all the time, without even noticing. He’d been my standard, one no man could meet, an apple in a basket of oranges. None of them were right for me because they weren’t him. The realization sat like lead in my stomach—or maybe that was the cheesecake—and I suddenly wanted to go to the gym and run for three days straight. At least no one would look for me there.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

When Marty called me into his office on Monday, it was the ideal way to start my week A good screaming fit would be the icing on my crappy weekend cake, so I went in without reservation. Let him do his worst; it couldn’t make me feel any angrier, guiltier, or whatever, than I did already. At least if he was a total asshole to me, I could turn around and report him for all that sexual harassment. That would be kinda fun.

“Monroe, have a seat,” Marty said, pacing back and forth. It was his angry dance, reserved for special occasions because of all the calories it burned. “I’ve received some rather disturbing news that concerns you. News I’m not happy to report.”

Who knew declining a sexual advance in the workplace could incur so much hostility? I wanted to ask him to just spit it out already, but there was no reason to make him talk any faster. I didn’t have anywhere to be…ever.

“Stan Liske, Prime’s CEO, called about your little presentation,” he stopped pacing. I looked up at him, and the hatred in his eyes. “Stan’s offering you a Vice President position. If you accept, you’ll be running the magazine, which will be produced quarterly, and heading up your own team at the main office.”

Main office? But the main office was in…

“Of course, you’ll have to move to Chicago,” he smiled, as we’d finally reached the one piece of news he enjoyed. He was getting rid of me. Touché, Marty Bensen. Touché.

But, Chicago? What did I know about Chicago?

“I need to know if you’re taking the job or not by the end of the day.”

I nearly fell out of my chair. “Today?”

He nodded smugly. How was I going to make a life altering decision in three hours? I stopped then and thought about it. I’d miss everyone, but this was my big chance. A real opportunity for a new start, a new life. A life away from the love I couldn’t have.

I straightened in my chair, my mind made up, and stood up to face Marty eye to eye.

“I’ll take it.” My answer startled him, and he had to readjust one of his suspenders.

“Okay, then, Monroe.” He shook my hand. “It’s been a pleasure working with you.”

I forced a polite smile and then turned to make my hasty exit. Just as I stepped outside the door, he called my name again.

“Yes?” I turned, gritting my teeth against my impatience.

“You’ll want to be in Chicago as soon as possible, so get packing. There’s an executive level meeting on the Friday after next and if you’re not there, you might as well forfeit the position.” I stiffened at his words and his grin grew broader at my discomfort.

Two weeks to settle all the tumult in my life, alert my landlord, pack my things. Two weeks to move my entire life—whatever was left of it—to Chicago. Super.

****

One of the first things I had to do before moving to Chicago was also one of the most unpleasant. If I was going to meet with CEO Stan Liske on my first day of my new job, I was going to need that “big-time outfit” intact. Marcy wouldn’t answer or return my phone calls so I decided to drive to her apartment that night and get the jacket by any means necessary.

The lights were on when I pulled into the driveway of her little condo and I was immediately relieved that breaking and entering wouldn’t be on the evening’s agenda. I firmly affixed my polite, professional attitude and got out of the car.

Marcy opened the door when I rang the bell, stepping back immediately. She was dressed rather conservatively for herself and without that ugly belt. I wondered if it had all been an act, not really her.

“Please don’t slam the door in my face,” I said. “I just want my jacket.”