“I told mother it didn’t have to be in May,” Emily said quietly. “Or at the Imperial.”
“But May is a prime social month. The only thing better would have been June, but everyone is booked solid that month, including the Imperial.”
“But August—”
“No one gets married in August, Emily,” mother said.
Jo took another long swallow of her wine, her head spinning with this news. It shouldn’t have surprised her. Her mother had never really cared how Jo felt about much of anything, as long as she signed those monthly support checks. But Emily—
“I’m sorry, Jo.” Emily looked up, tears clinging to the ends of her long, thick eyelashes.
Suddenly, the anger melted. Emily was her little sister, her best friend. How could she be mad at Emily for not standing up to their mother when Jo had never really shown her how?
Jo reached across the table and took Emily’s hand in hers. “It’ll be a beautiful wedding,” she assured her.
Emily smiled a grateful smile.
Chapter 10
A headache pounding at her temples, Jo stumbled out to her car early the following morning. She wasn’t sure if the headache was caused more by the wine she had drunk or the conversation with her mother. Not that it mattered all that much. Her whole life was one headache after another.
And, as if to illustrate what she was thinking, Jo’s car refused to start.
“Oh, come on,” she sighed. She turned the key again and again, getting the same result. What is it they say? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Then Jo must have lost her mind a long time ago.
Finally accepting that the car was not going to start, no matter how many times she tried to crank the engine, Jo pulled out her cell phone and called the garage. They could come get it, but not for an hour. By the time Jo got to work, she had missed two meetings and the beginning of a third. Therefore her headache, rather than getting better as the day passed, only grew worse.
When Mark walked into her office at lunchtime, Jo had her head on the desk.
“Bad day?”
“Bad life,” she mumbled.
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Worse.”
Jo sat up and squinted against the light coming in through the window. “Headache,” she said, gesturing vaguely toward her temple.
“Close your eyes.” Mark dropped a bag of food on her desk and came around behind her. “Let me help.”
“Are you a holistic healer in your spare time?”
“No. But you learn a few tricks when you travel the world in the military.”
Mark cupped her chin and gently pulled her head back against the headrest of her chair. He slid his fingers lightly up her jaw, up her cheeks, until they were pressed firmly, but not too tightly, against her temple. He began to rub in gentle circles, applying just enough pressure to create a delicious friction against her skin. Jo felt her shoulders begin to relax, her facial muscles, her jaw. It was heavenly.
“Try to clear your mind,” Mark’s voice said just above her head. “Think about something pleasant, something that brings you pleasure.”
“I’m not sure I could think at all at the moment.”
She heard amusement in Mark’s voice when he said, “That’s good.”
Jo groaned, wishing he would never stop. But of course, nothing lasts forever. After a few minutes, Mark pulled away.
“How’s that feel?”
“Good,” Jo said, squinting at him as he crossed in front of her desk.
“You know, it might help if you loosened your hair a little,” he said, indicating her braid. “It seems awful tight.”
“You think?” Jo asked, reaching up to touch it.
“It couldn’t hurt.”
Jo tugged at the rubber band holding the braid together and ran her fingers through the twists, quickly releasing her long, thick hair. It fell down her back in a cascade, framing her face in such a way that it seemed to soften the angles that could at times appear harsh. Unaware of the effect she was having, Jo shook her head, allowing her hair to fall where it wanted.
When she looked up, Mark was watching her with something like desire in his eyes. Not that Jo had seen that look often, at least not focused on her, so she might have been wrong. But he seemed a little flustered all of a sudden.
“You, uhh,” he stuttered. “Feel better?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
He nodded. He grabbed at the bag of food and missed, having to reach for it again. “I hope you’re hungry,” he said as he reached inside to remove whatever culinary delights he had brought today. The bag tore and the sandwiches bounced onto the floor. “Sorry,” Mark muttered as he reached down to pick them up, narrowly missing the corner of the desk with his forehead.
“Let me help.”
Jo came around the desk and squatted beside him, wiping up a small mustard spill with a torn corner of a sandwich wrapper.
“Thanks.”
Jo looked at Mark and smiled. “It’s the least I could do.”
Mark did not return her smile. Instead, he studied her face for a long moment before he reached for her, stroking his thumb against the fullness of her bottom lip. Jo caught her breath, her eyes drawn to his so that she felt trapped, unable or unwilling, to look away. Quivers ran up and down her spine, every nerve in her body suddenly awake. Mark stroked her lip again, then her chin. He was going to kiss her. She could see the intention in his eyes, could almost feel the softness of his lips.
But then he pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, quickly rising and moving across the room. “I should go.”
“Mark—”
“I’ll see you,” he said as he slipped through the door.
Chapter 11
Jo studied her face in the mirror, wondering if she was an idiot.
The eyeliner was way too much. She never should have let the lady at the makeup counter talk her into it. She’d been content with the blush, to add a little color to her cheeks, and the mascara. But somehow she walked out of the department store with two hundred dollars’ worth of makeup that she wasn’t even sure what to do with. Really, what did one do with a lip pencil?
She ran her fingers through her hair again, dislodging the carefully arranged curls at her temple the hairstylist had insisted on creating. Too much, she thought again. The whole thing was too much.
Jo had seen the look in Mark’s eye Friday when she took her hair out of its braid. He had been attracted to her, had even wanted to kiss her. It had been a long time since Jo had been with a man, but not so long that she didn’t remember that look. So, she had thought, if she wore her hair down more often, if she made an attempt to look prettier, he might not run from her as he had on Friday.
She really was an idiot.
Jo exhaled heavily as she wet a cloth and began to scrub the makeup from her face. Why did she have to be something she wasn’t to make a man notice her? Was this really the way it worked?
If he really wanted her, he would take her as his. Wouldn’t he?
And what about Kathleen? Jo had tried hard to ignore Becca’s words, to stop hearing her suggestion that Mark and Kathleen were having a work place romance. Jo thought of the way he had touched her, the way he had seemed so close to kissing her…she was so confused that if her head had begun to spin like a top she would not have been surprised.
Jo gathered her shorter, curlier hair into a ponytail and headed for the door. Once again she was rushing, late for work. And, of course, the taxi wasn’t there when she walked out of her apartment building.
Jo rushed into the office, voiced a breathless hello to Sandy, her loyal secretary, as she rushed to her desk. Sandy followed behind. “Your mom called.”
“Already?”
“Yes. Twice.”
Jo glanced up. “Sorry,” she said, aware of how little Sandy suffered fools.
Sandy shrugged. “She wants you to go with Emily to
meet with some band they want to play at her reception.”
Jo nodded, distracted by an email from Kathleen on her computer screen.
“Can I ask you something?” Sandy asked as she quietly closed the door behind her.
“Sure.”
“Is it true that Kurt’s gone and Kathleen is going to pick you or Becca for his job?”
“That’s the rumor,” Jo said, looking up from reading her email. In fact, it was no longer a rumor. Kathleen had said as much in the message sent this morning.
“If Becca gets the job,” Sandy rolled her eyes, indicating how ridiculous she thought the idea was. “I’ll be praying to the job gods for you.”
Jo glanced back at the email. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“We will. You should be out there fighting.”
“How?” Jo asked, genuinely curious. She would love to get this job, would love the increase in pay and the possibility of even further advancement. But she honestly had no clue how to play the political games that so many of her coworkers, Becca included, seemed to excel at.
“Fight,” Sandy said simply. “If you don’t fight for yourself, who will?”
Jo kept thinking about Sandy’s words as the day progressed. She saw Becca go into Kathleen’s office after the staff meeting that morning, saw them laughing together as though they were old friends even though a month ago Becca had always been the first to spread ugly gossip about Kathleen behind her back. That sort of deception had always left Jo sick to her stomach. It’s one thing to lobby for a job, but another to openly lie to someone just to get what you want.
Jo knew Sandy was right and she should go to Kathleen to talk about Kurt’s job, but each time she ran through the possible conversation in her mind, she could not come up with the right words to convince Kathleen that she was the best candidate without making herself sound like she was begging. Or what her father had called brown nosing. Her father had always hated brown nosers.
Maybe that’s why he spent his entire career in an entry level position.
Jo was still wrestling with the conundrum when Mark tapped on her door.
“Hey,” he said, as though nothing unusual had happened the last time they were together. “How’s Italian sound for today?”
He walked into the room with a plastic bag filled with several restaurant containers. He pulled one out and set it on her desk in front of her. “Linguini with clam sauce. I vaguely remember you mentioning this as one of your favorites.”
“Yeah, I think I might have mentioned that.” Jo opened the container and held it up to her face so that the fragrant steam could bathe her senses. “Hmm,” she groaned. “Manna from heaven.”
Mark smiled. “Glad I could be of service.”
Jo gathered her food and walked over to the small couch shoved in the corner of her office, some remnant of the previous occupant of the space. “I think I would starve if you didn’t come by every day and feed me.”
Mark settled beside her and opened his own container. “What are friends for?”
“You should really let me provide the food from time to time. It’s not fair, this whole one-sided thing.”
“I don’t mind,” he said with a soft smile. “Besides, I was raised to be a gentleman. Gentlemen pay, especially when the whole thing was my idea.”
Jo concentrated on her food for a long minute, trying not to look at Mark. So many questions spun around in her head. Was he saying that this was something like a date? Daily dates over lunch? Then why did he call himself a friend? And why had he run out on her last week when they nearly kissed? Was it her? Him? His past? Was he afraid? Of what?
“Your hair is different today,” he said suddenly.
Jo reached up and touched the bushy ponytail protruding from the back of her head. “Yeah. I got it cut and it’s a little short for a braid now.”
“You should wear it down.”
Jo glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was studying his food. “Maybe I will sometime.”
Silence fell again. It seemed they were both a little more awkward with one another today. She wondered why, but, again, she didn’t really want her thoughts to go that way.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked as she picked at her food.
“Sure. I just can’t promise I’ll answer.”
“If you knew you were up for a promotion against a coworker and that coworker was cozying up to the supervisor charged with making the decision, what would you do?”
Mark put down his fork and took a long slug of his soda before he answered. “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “it depends on how badly I wanted the promotion.”
“What if you really wanted it?”
“Then I would fight for it. Go to the supervisor and have an honest discussion with him, talk about my qualifications and some things I would do with the new position.”
“Would you do it face to face, or in an email?”
“Oh, definitely face to face. An email is too impersonal, and there’s always the chance it might get stuck in the spam folder or something. Besides, if you do it face to face, you can gauge how the supervisor responds to you. You can’t do that with email.”
Jo nodded. “It just seems so…almost like begging.”
“Don’t think of it like that. Think of it more like advertising. You’re selling yourself to the supervisor, trying to prove that he can put confidence in choosing you for the promotion.”
“Maybe,” Jo said doubtfully.
“What job are you up for?”
Jo twirled a length of linguini around her fork. “Deputy Supervisor.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’d be just under Kathleen, help her run the whole HR department.”
Mark studied her face for a minute. “I think you’d be good at it.”
“Do you? Really?”
Mark nodded as he set his food container on the couch between them. “It might help you be a little more confident. Help you get along better with your coworkers.”
Jo thought about that for a minute, reminded of what Becca said about no one liking her in the department. Jo had always been nice to everyone, but she always turned down invitations to lunch, even when she really wanted to go. The idea of sitting in a restaurant with a group of people she didn’t know always made her incredibly nervous and she was always afraid she would say something to embarrass herself. Maybe she should have taken the risk.
But it was too late. The invitations had dried up long ago.
Jo stood and threw her food away. Mark moved up behind her and tossed his away too. Then he took her wrist and turned her so that they stood face to face, though she was so much shorter than him that she came face to face with his chest. He lifted her chin with a finger. “You deserve to go after this job,” he said quietly. “Don’t let your fears cause you to lose out.”
Jo studied his eyes for a long second, surprised, but happy, that he seemed to read her so well. Then her eyes dropped to his lips and she wondered for a long second if she would ever feel them on hers. Maybe, maybe he wouldn’t walk away this time.
But then the phone rang before she had a chance to find out.
Chapter 12
“Don’t do this to me, Em,” Jo cried into the phone.
“Can’t be helped. Ryan’s parents could only make it tonight. You know how important it is for me to make a good impression on them. Cancelling dinner at the last minute would be a mistake.”
“But I have to pick up my car tonight.”
“Take a taxi. Or the bus.” Emily sighed. “I feel really bad, Jo. But you know how nervous I am about this meeting.”
“I know. Good luck.”
Jo dropped the phone into its cradle, trying to figure out how she was constantly finding herself in these situations.
“Problems?”
Jo turned. She had almost forgotten Mark was still in the room. “Oh,” she waved a dismissive hand over the phone. “My sis
ter was supposed to take me to the mechanic to pick up my car, but she had something come up.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah.” Jo rubbed a hand over her forehead. “The battery died on Friday and they said it would be ready tonight. And if I leave it overnight after they finish, they’ll charge me storage fees.”
“I could drive you.”
Jo paused, her hand stopping just below her hairline as though she were shading her eyes from the sun. “I can’t ask you to do that. The mechanic’s all the way on the other side of the city.”
“It’s not a problem, really.”
Jo thought about the money she had already paid out on taxis and how it had already left her monthly budget stretched thin. Then there were her unexpected purchases over the weekend: makeup, a fancy haircut, along with highlights and a special conditioning treatment. Not to mention her mother’s constant demands. Another taxi ride out to the mechanic would force her to dip into what little savings she had and she was planning to use that for a new dress to wear to Emily’s wedding.
“What about your kids?”
“They’re with their grandparents tonight.”
Jo dropped her hand. “I really don’t want to put you out, but it would be a life saver—”
“Say no more,” Mark said, touching her cheek lightly. “I’ll meet you in the parking lot at seven.”
Jo wrote out a speech on index cards, making bullet points of all the reasons she would make a better deputy supervisor than Becca. She practiced it in front of the mirror in the women’s bathroom, after first making sure all the stalls were empty, even practicing her facial expressions. She had it down perfectly, could recite the whole thing by heart.
It was all planned so perfectly. She would wait until six when most of the other workers would be on their way home and Kathleen would be alone in her office, catching up on emails. Everyone knew Kathleen never left till after seven. Jo watched the time closely, checking her watch, the display on her phone, even the tiny clock in the corner of her computer screen, every few seconds until it became impossible to concentrate on anything else. She was going to do this.
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