by Jamie Knight
“Yes,” I tell him. “Thank you.”
Then I look over at Mr. Piper and ask in my most professional tone, “Are we ready?”
Bill nods at me and says, “Yes, I don’t want to let anything get in the way of me buying this house.”
“Me neither,” I tell him, thinking, if only you knew how much I mean that.
Chapter 36
Mariah
The closing is over, and everything has gone off without a hitch. Now, I just have to get to HR before Wesley tries to talk to me. I hurry to pick up my files and leave the office, while he’s exchanging pleasantries with the new owner of the house. I also have to swing by my office to pick up some personal things before carrying out my exit plan.
“Oh, Mariah, are you…?” I hear Wesley trying to talk to me, but he had been in the middle of a conversation with Bill, who interrupts him to go back to telling him about how he’s planning to change the detour, so it’s the perfect chance to keep hurrying away.
I get to my office and see that the door is already open. I turn around to Kristy to ask her who she let in without letting me know, but she says, “By the way, Mariah, your dad decided to drop by. I figured since he’s your father, and all, it was okay that he didn’t have an appointment. And I let him in for you and told him to wait for you.”
She has such a smug smile on her face that I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of showing her I’m upset. I wonder how she would know that I don’t want my dad in this office. Then the thought hits me: I wonder if she knows who my father is?
A bout of nausea hits my stomach and I don’t think it has anything to do with the pregnancy. I force my mouth into a smile and tell her, “Thank you , Kirsty,” while I walk confidently into my office, as if my father is just the person I want to see here – instead of the last person in the world I wish was here.
No, correction, I think, as soon as I get through the door and realize who else is there with my father. Charles is the last person in the world I wish was here.
“Dad?” I ask him, looking at him instead of Charles, because Charles has nothing to do with my life except for continuing to try to intrude on it with my father’s help. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I heard about your little sale and I wanted to come congratulate you.” He has a wide smile on his face, but it looks fake.
“You heard about the…” How did he hear about the sale? I decide to focus on the important things. “So, you know I sold a house for over a million dollars.” I stand up straight and look at him without blinking, even though I’m scared and have no idea what’s going on. “That means you’ve come to give me the company.”
“Oh, Mariah, don’t be silly,” he says, laughing and looking at Charles as if he wants him to join in on the joke. So of course, Charles laughs too. “I let you have your fun, to try to prove you could be a big girl in the real world, but instead, according to the very nice, very hard working receptionist who called me, all you did was play on your knowledge of my competitors to come here and trick these people into hiring you. In fact, and I’m sorry Charles to have to break the news to you about your bride-to-be in this crass manner, but, Mariah, rumor has it you even started out as a schoolgirl uniform-wearing coffee server until you slept your way up the ladder.”
“What?” I explode, wanting to cry but forcing myself to hold back the tears. “Kristy called you? She said all that?”
I’m about to walk back into the lobby to confront Kristy, but I see that she’s already there, on her way to my office… along with Wesley. Great.
Maybe I deserve for things to go down this way because I haven’t been brave enough to tell the truth, I think. But, still, it is an awful way to “celebrate” doing the one thing I set out to do – sell a house – and apparently my dad isn’t even going to honor his end of the deal anyway. Not to mention that Wesley looks completely crushed, and so I’ve hurt him in the process, too, which was the opposite of what I was trying to do. Everything is falling apart – not that I was holding it all together that well, anyway.
“Mariah, Kristy says there’s something about you that I should know?” Wesley asks, as they approach my office. “I thought maybe you and I should go speak in private?”
I nod, but then Wesley sees my dad in my office and says, “Mr. Harper?” hesitantly, as if he might be seeing things. There had never been any love lost between them over the years, as competitive deals constantly made one of them mad at the other. So, he was probably particularly surprised to find his rival sitting in one of the offices he owns – and he doesn’t even know the worst part yet. I open my mouth to start explaining it to him.
But my dad butts in. “There’s no need for that, Wesley. I already know all about everything that’s happened at your office, but apparently you don’t. While you are busy congratulating my daughter on selling your house, I’m busy congratulating her on the upcoming wedding I’m planning for her, to Charles here – her fiancée.”
“What?” Wesley asks, looking back and forth from my dad to me. “You’re his daughter? And you’re engaged?”
“No,” I tell him, very quickly. “I mean, yes, I’m his daughter. But no, I’d never be engaged to Charles. The whole reason I’m here is so I wouldn’t have to be!”
“Yes, Mariah, let’s talk about the reason you’re here, and who you really are,” says Kristy, clearly wanting to get all the credit for exposing me. “When I noticed you were acting strangely, and then saw that you had uncashed paychecks, things started to not add up. Not that that ever really did when it came to you, anyway. I was just determined to get to the bottom of it. I tried to tell Mr. Driver here that I had concerns about you – I even gave him your file – but I guess he was more worried about getting – or staying – in your pants than saving his own company.”
I look at her with my mouth hanging open, and Wesley’s is much the same way. She continues.
“So, I did a little digging myself. Nothing came up for your supposed name, so I traced your license plate, with the help of a detective I happen to know. You’re not the only one who uses your feminine wiles for favors, you know. I found out your car is registered to a Mariah, all right… but not Mariah Young. Mariah Harper. And the address was that of Mr. Harper, who happens to be… wouldn’t you guess it, our number one competitor in the real estate business!”
She clasps her hands together and smiles with glee for figuring it all out. “So, Wesley, I’m sorry to be the one to break the news to you, but your darling little Junior Associate, with whom you entrusted the sale of your home, was only here to spy on you for her dad’s company.”
“That’s not true!” I insist, but then I realize that it doesn’t really matter.
My real pretense for being here wasn’t to spy on them, but, at least when I found out that there was a million dollar house I could sell, it was to do something just as bad in their eyes, I’m sure… to use them to get a real estate deal that would let me get back in with my dad’s company, their rival. How could I ever be redeemed after having done this? I was being selfish, no doubt.
I decide not to drag Wesley any further through my mess. I’ve put him and his reputation through enough.
“I’m sorry, Wesley,” I tell him. “I know this looks bad. I want you to know something for sure. I wasn’t spying on you; I don’t have any information to give my dad. In fact, I don’t want to have anything to do with my dad any more. He is not a man of his word, and I don’t want to be like him. So I can promise you this. I’ll leave you alone, and I’ll let anyone who asks know that you didn’t know anything about this and had nothing to do with it. You care about your company, as you should, because you’ve built it up with a lot of hard work and dedication, and I’m not going to ruin that for you. You can keep my commission money and my paychecks.”
I’m looking at him wanting to tell him the truth: I love you. But I can’t. I’m having your child. I definitely can’t say that. So, I just say, “I’m sorry,” again,
before heading out of the office. I no longer even want the personal items I have there, because I have no where to put them in the motel and I don’t even know where I’ll be living next.
“Mariah…” both Wesley and my dad say at the same time. My dad is saying that if I walk away he is never going to give me the opportunity to marry Charles, heir to his fortune, ever again. As if I would want him to. I turn around to look at Wesley, but he shakes his head at me as if he thought better about talking to me. I continue to make my exit, thinking that I really don’t blame him.
Chapter 37
Wesley
What the fuck? I have no idea what just happened, except that it seems Mariah has been using and manipulating me. Shows what I get for thinking I was in love with her.
And to think, I was about to ask her to stay, so that we could work things out. That would have blown everything – at least she left without divulging our relationship, so there’s nothing that would really get me in trouble with the board of my company.
But if she didn’t have the guts to explain whatever the fuck is going on to me earlier, let alone to stick around now and try to do so, then I’ll be damned if I’m going to profess my love for her in front of people who obviously have their own agendas to worry about – her dad (I still can’t believe he’s her father!), her wannabe fiancée (what the fuck is that little wimp’s problem, anyway?, and why is he still hanging out in my office when Mariah has made it clear she doesn’t want anything to do with him?) and Kirsty (that girl is trouble and I need to get rid of her smug ass).
All these thoughts run through my mind but I can’t help but thinking about the look in Mariah’s eyes before she left. I guess I’m that naïve brokenhearted guy I never wanted to become. Because I could swear she wanted to say more to me. I think there’s more that she’s hiding. I keep thinking how she was sick at the office party, and then didn’t want any champagne to drink…
I have got to get the fuck out of here before I let her mess with my head anymore.
“Kristy,” I say, and she turns to me all smiles, as if she’s going to be thanked and promoted.
“Yes, Boss?”
“Please ensure that Mr. Harper is shown out of my office, and never let back in again.”
Her jaw drops a bit, and she blinks.
“Yes… sir… I can do that,” she says.
“On second thought,” I tell her. “You’re the whole reason my competition is in my office in the first place, and I have no idea what made you think that was a good idea. So, please show yourself out as well, and do not return.”
“I… I…”
Now it’s her turn for her mouth to be hanging open while she’s absolutely speechless. I head out before I have to spend any more time with any of these crazy people.
When I get home, Carrie greets me at the door with sad eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I tell her. “It all had to be done. I don’t know what’s up with Mariah, but it’s not what I thought it was.”
Carrie whines, as if trying to argue the opposite with me.
Damn it, why did my dog have to get so attached to someone out to hurt me?
Was she really out to hurt me? I wonder. How could something that felt so real be fake? Could she really be so evil as to have a relationship with me just to… sell a house?
I know she wasn’t spying on me. She didn’t seem to want to help her dad – just claim what was rightfully hers, and I can understand that. But maybe she figured if she slept with me and played with my heart, I would let her sell the house that would let her take her father’s company into her own hands?
None of it seems to make sense and I know based on experience that the truth is usually in the middle of two extremes. Yes, she needed work and wanted to sell a house. But she didn’t need to move in with me to do it. She was already having success as a realtor, which is part of why I noticed her. And I’m the one who invited her to – no, practically insisted that she – move in with me.
Left with nothing to do but stew over my confused feelings, I look back down at Carrie, who seems as morose as I feel.
“Come on, girl,” I tell her, strapping a leash on her. “Let’s take a walk.”
Chapter 38
Mariah
The night crowd is just starting to trickle in as Elle and I are wrapping napkins around silverware sets, having just cleaned up the tables from the evening dinner crowd.
“So, this bitch just let your dad waltz right into the office and spill your secrets to your man?” Elle asks, looking aghast.
I’ve come clean with her – at least I’m capable of being honest with someone – and told her all the sordid details of everything that had happened over the past couple of months.
“Well, girl, if you’d have listened to me from the beginning, none a this woulda happened,” Sterling pipes in. He’s been eavesdropping as he makes his rounds around the diner.
“I know, Sterling,” I tell him. “Honesty is the best policy. Just like you always say. But, it really seems easier said than done sometimes.”
“That’s not true,” he says. “Telling the truth gets pretty easy when you make sure to practice it. Practice makes perfect, you know.”
“Okay,” I tell him. “Then, I have a confession to make. Tonight was going to be my last shift here. But then I was never able to get my real estate paychecks, so…”
Sterling laughs, shaking his head at me. “Girl, you ain’t gotta be that honest. I didn’t need to know you planned on skipping on outta here like we was a bus stop in your journey to bigger and better things.”
“Sorry,” I say, trying not to blush. “I just thought, I don’t know, like telling the truth about something to someone.”
“Well, maybe it’s not too late to tell the whole truth?” Elle fixes her ponytail and stares at me. “It sounds to me that you had the real thing with this Wesley guy. He sounds really into you. What if you just go fess up and admit that you made a mistake?”
I scrunch my nose up at her suggestion. But maybe she’s onto something. I’ve been running from the truth this whole time, trying to hide from it – but it’s always there no matter what I try to do about it. So why not just face it?
I know a couple reasons why, I think.
“What if he’s so mad at me that he tells everyone in town not to hire me, and I can never get a job in real estate, even though I’m actually really good at it?” I ask her. “I mean, not to brag, of course.”
“Well then I guess you’ll have to just keep working here forever,” Sterling snickers. “You thought this was a temporary second job. Oh, the irony if it turns out to be your only permanent one. We don’t care that you got knocked up and are a single mom. There’s nothing anyone could say that could ruin your reputation here.”
“Yeah, our standards are pretty low,” Elle says. “It’s amazing to find someone who can remember when it’s time to take the tray of food out to the customers. And I like babies. They’re so cute! You’re welcome to stay with me for as long as you need. The baby, too. I’ll even babysit the little booger.”
“Aww, thank you,” I tell her, genuinely touched by her offer. At least I know I won’t have to live in a motel forever – not that I could afford to.
“But, seriously, he might be mad at you but I bet his heart will melt like butter when you tell him there’s a little mini-him on the way. I really think he’s in love with you,” Elle says.
I think she’s right. Or at least, he was in love with me. Can love just go away like that, now that he has good reason to be upset with me? I guess I might have to find out.
“I’ll try to find the courage to go talk to him,” I tell Elle. “Thanks for the advice.”
“No problem,” she says with a wink. “And I really hope it works out for you guys.”
“Don’t forget to go wait on that new table that just came in, and finish your shift before you go running off to all your other big priorities,” Sterling commands.
“Of course I won’t forget, Sterling.”
“Yeah, yeah. Look who went from being ready to ditch us, to thankful she’s still on our payroll.”
I smile back at him, knowing that he’s right. I’ll never take the smaller things in life for granted again.
Chapter 39
Wesley
After my walk with Carrie, I decided not to do any work – for once – and instead to just snuggle up with her on the couch. I’m trying to put off the realization that life as I knew it has ended. But it’s easier said than done.
I can’t believe that I don’t have Mariah in my life anymore. I want to be mad at her, but instead I’m still mostly just confused. Did we even have what I thought we had? How could my heart be wrong about that?
During my walk, I called my aunt Shelly and told her about my predicament. I thought she might be disappointed in me for going too quickly and possibly ruining my career. But I should have known her better than that.
“Don’t let all of this messy real life stuff get in the way of the universe’s plan for you,” she said. “I know that energy that exists between you two isn’t going anywhere. Whatever Mariah has done is forgiveable. Forgive her. Follow your destiny and be with the woman of your dreams.”
It was good advice and all, but I don’t want to be a schmuck and take it. Plus, how am I supposed to forgive someone who keeps running away from me and not telling me where she is? My dear aunt didn’t have an answer for that, except to say that fate will reveal its plan to me and that I shouldn’t be too stubborn to follow it.
Suddenly, there’s a knock on my door, and my pulse seems to skip a beat.
If it’s her, slam the door, I think, as I get up to answer it.
It is her. But Carrie has already pounced on her and is all over her, all up in her face and licking everywhere – just like I still want to be, despite everything that has happened.
