Mark My Spot

by Anna Joung

  It felt strange to thank him for the compliment especially with a “but” so close around the corner so I stayed silent, waiting for him to continue.

  “My son,” he said the word aggressively, “agrees with that assessment as well. You’ve become quite a distraction to him in your short months here. He thinks I haven’t noticed to frequent trips to the copy room, to the coffee, the increase in his walking about the office to see you.”

  I swallowed. I had always thought Mark had been a voracious coffee drinker.

  “As you are aware, as I’m sure Melinda has told you, we have a case coming up. The largest case of this firm’s career, and it must be the focus of all of us, my son included. It is my hope to retire soon and pass the firm to him and, while he doesn’t have children now, he will one day, and one day they will follow in his footsteps, just as I followed my father and his father before him. I cannot allow Mark to become distracted from his work.”

  I held my breath, waiting. My lungs felt very small, very tight and I opened my eyes wide as they filled, prematurely, with tears.

  “Effective immediately, I am terminating you from your position with this firm. You may collect your belongings and leave.”

  The breath I’d been holding left me in a rush. “What-“

  “At once.” Mr. Harris said. From the stack of papers before him, he took the top one and slid it across the desk to me. A termination document. He passed me a pen, which I numbly took from him. The lump in my throat doubled in size and I took a sharp breath through my nose. I wasn’t going to cry, not in front of him. I signed my name quickly and left the office, using all of my strength to keep my head held high, though I felt sick to my stomach. I shut his door behind me and quickly walked to the front desk, where Melinda was still standing, shifting through papers. I felt her curious gaze on me as I grabbed my bag and quickly left again. She called my name behind me but I ignored it, walking quickly forward.

  I managed to make it to my car before I lost it and started crying.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mark

  Emily Haines.

  Waking up the morning after our night together, I wanted her beside me. I wanted to roll over, see her on the pillow beside mine. I wanted to kiss her shoulder and bring her coffee in bed. I wanted to watch her paint her canvas. Her canvas. It was still on my dining room table where we’d forgotten about it last night.

  Emily Haines.

  I stopped by the coffee shop and ordered her coffee. Just one today, I didn’t need any. My body was energized, eager to be at the office, ready to see her. I drove quickly, a few minutes behind when I normally arrive at the office.

  I didn’t see her at the receptionist's desk, just Melinda, the phone crocked against her ear. She was shuffling through papers as she listened, but she looked up at my approach and dipped her head in acknowledgment. Emily was probably making one of Melinda’s many thousands of packets. I walked to my office.

  “Marcus,” I heard through my father’s open office door as I drew closer. Shoving my keys back into my pocket, I followed his voice to find him sitting at his desk. He beckoned me to one of the chairs and I sat down.

  “Marcus,” he said again, by way of greeting. “I have some news for you.”

  “About the case?” I asked, dropping my briefcase to the ground beside the chair.

  He shook his head. “No. About your assistant, Miss Haines.”

  I felt my back stiffen against the chair, pushing me upright. “What about Emily?”

  He frowned at the use of her first name. Melinda had been with the firm for years and my father still referred to her as Ms. Cartwright. He frowned on the use of casual names unless he was talking to me or my mother.

  “Miss Haines has decided to leave the firm,” he said. “She spoke to me this morning.”

  “She decided to leave?” I asked him. “On what grounds?”

  He shrugged. “She just said she wasn’t happy here.”

  Wasn’t happy here… Emily’s words from the bar the other night echoed through my head. You don’t seem happy here. I looked down as my father began detailing how Melinda would take over for Emily’s place, how she would absorb the information and help us both, but I looked down at the coffee still in my hand.

  There, on the arm of the chair, caught in the sunlight was a single lock of very golden hair.

  I stared at it.

  “She didn’t leave,” I said, interrupting him. “You fired her.”

  I looked back up at his face, which was impassable as always. My father was an excellent lawyer and very hard to read if you didn’t know where to look, but thirty-three years of being his son had taught me how to pay attention to the signs. He blinked once, then twice, giving himself away.

  “I did no such thing-“

  Rage, hot and sudden, welled within me and I sat forward, abandoning the coffee to let it balance on the arm of the chair where it teetered for a moment before falling over, spilling over the rug.

  “You’re lying,” I reminded him through clenched teeth. “You can’t lie to me.”

  His face darkened. “You need to fix your priorities, son. You will take over this firm soon and you need to focus on the case, not some whore secretary who-“

  I shot up from the chair and slammed my fists on his desk, making the words die in his mouth. He stared at me in shock as his cup of pens rattled and fell over. I towered over him. He stared at me in shock.

  “Don’t you ever call her that,” I growled.

  He bristled as much as he could from his seated position and opened his mouth to speak, “Son, listen to me-“

  “I’m done listening to you.” I straightened up. “We’re done. If I ever hear you refer to Emily like that, if word ever reaches me that you disrespect her name, I’ll ruin you. I’ll ruin the firm.” I straightened the cuffs of my shirt and reached down to button my jacket before turning around to pick up my suitcase. I walked to the door.

  He was sputtering behind me. “You’d throw all of this away for a woman? Your whole life and career away on her?”

  The answer surprises and leaves him too shocked to respond. “Yes.”

  I left the firm.

  Emily doesn’t answer her phone. I call back, repeatedly, until someone answers. It’s a different voice, female, and tense from the sound of it. I turn down the air-conditioning in my car to hear her better.

  “Yes, hello, Em’s phone?”

  In the background, I can hear a mixture of voices, like a television playing. “You must be Phoebe,” I say.

  “Oh, hang on,” she said into the phone. I heard a muffled “be right back” followed by the sound of the television fading into the background before she continued. “You must be the hunky lawyer.”

  Under any other circumstance, I would’ve laughed. “Not so much anymore. Is Emily alright? Can I speak to her?”

  Phoebe sighed. “Honestly, I don’t think so. She’s really upset over this.”

  I pressed my hand to my forehead and sighed. “Please, Phoebe? I need to know she’s alright.”

  Phoebe was adamant through the phone. “No. Really, Mark, she’d just feel embarrassed that you heard her so upset. Give her a few days and then try again, ok?”

  I didn’t respond for a moment and ran my hand over the steering wheel in thought. An idea came to me, suddenly, and I sat up in my excitement.

  “Alright, Phoebe, I’ll give her space, but I need your help with something. Emily has mentioned a painting that hangs in your living room. Could you send me a picture?”

  “Uh, sure,” she said. “That’s a little weird. Why do you want a photo anyway?”

  “I have an idea.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Emily

  After a few days of moping around the apartment with Phoebe, I finally agreed to let her take me out of the apartment. She’d been nagging me all morning, her phone in her hands.

  “Come on, Em. Let’s just go to the coffee shop down the street. We’ll have a cof
fee in the sun, you’ll feel like a new woman.”

  After hours of listening to the suggestion, I finally agreed. I jammed a baseball cap over my head and let her drag me, still in my sweats, down the street where we ordered small coffees and sat in the sun. The rays warmed me and, after a few minutes and sips of coffee, I tossed my ball cap to the side, threw my hair back, and tilted my face to the sun.

  “Alright,” I admitted. “This is nice.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” She asked. She was tapping away at her phone screen, a small line between her brows while she sipped her coffee. After a minute, she tucked her phone away and looked up at me. “Have you started looking for jobs, yet?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet. But I head the local Target is hiring.”

  Phoebe sighed. “That’s something, at least. Have you spoken to…”

  I shook my head again. I eyed the ball cap. The thought of Mark made me feel sick to my stomach. I felt ashamed to admit anything to him and I felt strange that he hadn’t reached out to me. He probably listened to his father and was focusing on the case. I was spending my time trying not to think about it.

  When I didn’t answer beyond shaking my head, Phoebe clapped her hands. “Okay, that’s fine, but we need to get you out of the house. Let’s do something tonight.”

  I shrugged. “What do you want to do?”

  “One of my clients is opening an art gallery,” Phoebe said. “In a space closer to downtown. The opening is tonight and we’re invited!”

  “An art gallery?” I perked up a little bit.

  Excited that she got me to perk up at anything, Phoebe grinned. “Yes! Let’s get all dolled up and go look at art! Maybe that will inspire you, too.”

  I swirled my coffee cup so steam rose intermittently through the opening in the to-go lid. A nice evening in a new art gallery wouldn’t be so terrible. It would be much better than laying on the couch all night watching reruns of General Hospital in the same sweats I’d been wearing since being let go. I agreed to go with her.

  “Great!” she cried, standing up. “Let’s talk about getting you a shower…”

  A few hours later, just as twilight was beginning to fall, we were piled into an Uber, headed downtown. It felt strange to be outside. Furthermore, it felt strange to be wearing makeup and a dress again. It was a navy blue number with a deep neckline that showed off more cleavage than I was accustomed to and my blue pair of heels. After the sweats, I felt like I was dressed for a formal.

  The Uber pulled to a stop in front of a large building with several storefronts on the lower levels, most of which were smaller studios. Most of them looked to be closed, the only one open was the one we were dropped off in front of. The large windows were lit golden and a few extravagant paintings were hung on display, facing the street.

  I breathed out in appreciation, but the building looked empty. No one was outside on the sidewalk and the building was empty beyond the glass. I frowned at Phoebe. “Are you sure this is the place?”

  “Definitely, let’s go.”

  She led me to the door, and I tugged at my dress self-consciously. Could people tell that I was recently fired? I wasn’t sure.

  Inside, the gallery was smaller in size but as extravagant as the paintings facing the street. Tall, white wall partitions divvied the space into sections creating a tiny labyrinth of walls that were lined with paintings of all types. Despite the space being lit, there was no one inside and I turned to Phoebe, feeling uncertain.

  “Phoebe, I think we have the wrong place, this doesn’t look like it’s-“

  We rounded a corner and I froze, the words lodging themselves in my throat.

  Standing a few feet away, facing the final back wall of the gallery, was Mark. At the sound of our footsteps, he turned to face us and smiled at me. I felt heat flood my body, heat I hadn’t known I was missing and I took a shocked step forward towards him.

  “Mark? Wh-what-?” I couldn’t form words. I glanced over a Phoebe who grinned conspiratorially and gestured me forward, towards him. Mark crossed the distance between us and took my hand lightly in his own.

  “When we were at the bar, you told me that you were passionate about painting,” he said. “I got a taste of that from you when you were painting at my place before dinner.”

  He stepped aside and gestured to the wall he’d stood in front of. On it, in the large expanse of empty white walls, was the painting of Mark, walking towards the painting as if to leave it. The sunset was a vibrant swirl of colors of his shoulder. It looked beautiful, simple, and official. Proper art in a proper gallery. I looked back at him.

  “I’ve never felt about anything the way you feel about painting, Emily. Never. My life was always geared towards the firm and creating success for us. It’s never made me happy, but I didn’t realize it until you. I didn’t realize a lot of things until you.”

  “I…”

  “I left the firm.”

  I was blinking rapidly, aware of tears forming in my eyes as he continued.

  “I called you the moment I left the building. Phoebe insisted you needed some time, so I got her to help me with this…”

  I cast a grateful look at Phoebe who smiled at me. She waved her hand at me and disappeared, walking back towards the door. With his hand on my lower back, Mark gestured to the wall before him, indicated four tiny marks in the wall. They created a larger square around the small painting of Mark on the beach.

  “Whenever you’re ready, I showed a picture of your painting to the curator of the gallery. She loved it so much, she sectioned off a wall here for you to display it.”

  “I…” I started but find myself unable to finish. His arm was still on my lower back and I leaned against him, pressing my hip against his leg. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”

  He laughed quietly, more to himself than to me. “Let me amend my previous statement - I’ve never felt about anything the way you feel about painting. At least, I hadn’t until I met you, Emily.”

  I turned to him. His chocolate brown eyes were staring down at me with such sincerity, my heart clenched. I reached up and touched his cheek, ran my finger over the scar of his lips and he shut his eyes, leaning into my touch, his lips parted around my fingertip. Standing on my tiptoes, I reached up and pressed my lips against his. His arms circled me as he kissed me, and I felt my worries wash leave me. I felt like I had come home.

  He pulled away slightly. “Be mine?”

  “Yes, Mr. Harris.” Old habits die hard.

  He smirked. “I think you can call me Mark now.”

  I pulled him against me again, “We’ll see.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Anna Joung is a young hopeless romantic soul, who enjoys writing romance stories with happily ever after. She likes to read to forget and escape her everyday life.

  Her main goal is for readers to have the same escape and they can delve into the stories as she does.

  Join my mailing list and receive my ebook ARMED WITH LOVE!

  You’ll also be the first to know about my new releases, sales and giveaways

  HERE

  To be updated on the latest releases and special offers follow me on Facebook HERE

  Your support is my inspiration!