Full Circle (29 page)

Mark handed one to her, his eyes shifting
restlessly. “What’s there to say?”

Had they not gotten past all this secrecy by
now? “Obviously, quite a lot, from the way you’re dodging the
question.” She crossed one arm over her chest, holding her glass in
the other.

Wilting, his head dropped to one side as he
met her gaze. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but you’re probably going to
think I’m a flake.”

“You? A flake?” He might be flaking on
setting a wedding date, but in all else, flaky was not in Mark’s
bio.

He held up one hand.
“Just . . . okay . . . here’s what
happened. I was out with a bunch of friends. Rob, a few of the guys
I worked with, a couple of buddies from school . . .
and Antonio.”

“Antonio?” Why was that name familiar? It was
something important.

“Carol’s dance partner,” he reminded her.

Her eyes opened wide. “Ooohhhh.” Antonio. The
guy who stole Carol out from under him.

Mark took a sip of champagne and moved them
away from the bar. “I was winning big. Really raking in the
chips.”

“You played with real money? Not just for
fun?”

“We usually just played for chips, but that
night, it was for real. Real money. Real stakes.”

And why not? He was filthy stinking rich.

“I was up ten thousand dollars and was dealt
an amazing hand. Full house. Aces high. Only two hands could beat
that. Four of a kind and a straight flush. The odds were in my
favor, so as the bets came around, and players dropped out while
others—Rob included—continued to bet, I went all in. When Antonio
turned his cards, he had four queens. Four of a kind. The bastard
had never even flinched. Talk about your poker faces. I thought he
might have had a straight or a flush, or maybe even a lower full
house than mine to keep betting, but the prick had four of a kind.”
The shadow that wouldn’t completely die played over his face.

“When was this?”

He snorted and shook his head as he glanced
down into his glass. “My bachelor party. Can you believe that? Not
only was Antonio fucking my fiancée behind my back, stealing her
away from me, but he beat me at my own game. He took my ten
thousand dollars
and
my fiancée.” His gaze drifted away as
if he were watching a memory. Then he snapped out of it and glanced
back at her as he sipped his drink. “I never played again.”

“She really hurt you, didn’t she?”

“They both did.”

She frowned into her glass, her teeth
worrying the inside of her bottom lip as her mind churned with a
sudden revelation. “Do you think that might be why you’re so
hesitant to set a date for our wedding?”

“No, no.” He shook his head, frowning,
responding a little too hastily. “I just . . . you
know . . . things are so busy. And I want to be able
to focus on our wedding. I don’t want to feel rushed, okay?” He
took her free hand in his and squeezed. “I promise I’m not
intentionally putting it off, Karma.” But the fearful shadows
darkening his eyes said otherwise. “I want us to be together for
the rest of our lives. I swear to you.”

But being together was not necessarily the
same as getting married. What if Mark was content with simply
living together and raising kids without actually tying the knot.
What if he was fine with a commitment like that. One where he had
no intention of leaving but didn’t want to make it legal, either.
There were men like that. Good men who were loyal to their women.
Who stayed with them through good times and bad, in sickness and in
health, until death do they part, even when they weren’t legally
required to do so. Maybe she and Mark could have such a
relationship. Would that be enough for her?

She sighed and glanced up at him. “Okay,” she
said, relenting. “I just thought talking about her and what
happened might help. Or even talking
to
her. I’m not sure if
you ever have, but—”

“I’m with you now, Karma. You have me.” He
shook his head. “Let’s enjoy the party and not talk about it,
anymore, because, really, there’s nothing else to discuss.”

Wasn’t there? Why did she get the feeling he
was diverting again? And just because he didn’t want to talk about
Carol didn’t mean she didn’t want to. She had questions. And the
more he avoided discussing Carol, the more questions she had.

Before she could push the issue further,
Mark’s best friend Rob broke through the crowd with a perky blonde
at his side.

“Mark, hey, good to see you here,” Rob
said.

Mark let go of her hand and man-hugged him.
“Rob. Man, you look good.” He stepped back to Karma’s side. “You
remember Karma?”

“How could I forget?” Rob shook her hand.
“Mark damn near drove me nuts last year when he was back in Chicago
obsessing over you.”

“Really?” She looked from Rob to Mark. His
face flushed crimson.

The blonde giggled. “Yes. Mark definitely had
it bad for you. I got to witness some of his mania firsthand. I’m
Holly, by the way.” She held her hand out, and Karma shook it.

“Nice to meet you.” She turned back to Mark.
“Is that true? You were
obsessing
over me?” She grinned.
“And suffering
mania
? Really?”

Mark tossed a playful glare at Rob. “You just
had to open your big mouth, didn’t you?”

For the next thirty minutes, Rob and Holly
shared stories about Mark’s behavior during the year they’d spent
apart. About how he’d blown up at Rob for setting him up on a blind
date with an overly talkative Chicago Bulls cheerleader. About the
way Mark had snapped at Rob the night he told him he was marrying
Holly. About how Mark turned his manic energy toward a crushing
cross-training routine, which had allowed Rob to dole out some
retribution for all the shit he’d taken, since he’d been Mark’s
personal trainer.

But even though Mark laughed along with them
and even added his own amusing anecdotes, Karma could still see
that damn shadow hovering around him, especially when Holly asked,
“So, when’s the wedding?”

It was like the punchline to a bad joke, and
it simply wouldn’t go away. Everyone wanted to know when the
wedding was, but she didn’t have an answer.

Before she could reply with the pre-decided
excuses Mark had made, someone brushed her arm.

“Excuse me.”

Karma turned to find Giada beside her, taking
her hand.

“I’m stealing Karma for a while.” Giada
pulled her away from Mark’s side then wrapped her arm
conspiratorially around Karma’s, leaning in like they were old
friends. “I hope you don’t mind, dear, but I want to show you off a
bit.”

It seemed the news of her and Mark’s
engagement had made Giada’s day, if not her entire year.

Giada pulled her into the other half of the
room. Over here, the guests seemed of a different class. Richer.
More refined. It was like the party had segregated itself, and she
and Mark had remained on the side of the lesser man. Over here was
quite another story.

Her head spun as Giada swept her from one
person to the next, all of whom were dressed to the nines, wearing
more money than she made in a month. And the women! They didn’t
look real. Like perfectly coifed mannequins, not an ounce of fat on
them. One wore a body-hugging sheer black turtleneck with what
appeared to be leather leggings on slender legs extending for
miles. Except when Karma got closer, she could tell the material
was some kind of shiny, stretchy fabric, not leather. And her
strappy shoes looked more like art deco than footwear.

This half of the room was definitely a study
in the best clothes, shoes, faces, and boobs money could buy. Even
some of the men looked botoxed.

She got the once-over more times than not,
especially from the women. Through narrowed, suspicious eyes, they
efficiently swept over her casual, non-designer attire before they
forced a polite, tolerant smile and blinked several times as if
waking themselves from a dream. The message conveyed was clear.
“You don’t belong here.”

But she was with Giada, and Giada was the
goddess of the evening, so they put on their fake smiles, perfectly
feigned all the right congratulatory words when Giada proclaimed
she was her future daughter-in-law, and oooed and aaahed over her
ring the way they were expected to. Then they huddled in their tiny
conclaves, whispering and staring, as Giada led her off. Karma had
looked back a couple of times to catch them in the act.

Without saying a word, they let her know she
wasn’t
a member of the coveted circle. She
didn’t
belong.

Giada glanced across the room and smiled,
“They’re about to serve cake. Come along, dear.”

Karma stopped her. “Um, where’s the
restroom?”

Giada gestured toward the rear exit from the
ballroom. “There’s one back there, but if it’s occupied, take the
stairs to the second floor. There’s another down the hall to the
left.” She leaned in and winked. “That one’s only for family.”

Family. She was officially family now. If
only her dad could be so benevolent.

She slipped out and didn’t even waste a stop
at the larger community bathroom. She wanted privacy. Somewhere
quiet to calm the insecure, paranoid voices in her head, which were
telling her she didn’t fit in with these people and that they were
all talking about her.

Upstairs, she found the restroom, freshened
up a bit, and then stepped back into the hall. It was so peaceful
up here. She could barely hear the party.

For the first time in over a half hour, she
took a full breath. How nice not to have people staring at her,
whispering about her, probably making fun of her outfit.

She adjusted the off-the-shoulder collar. As
she did, she glanced up and down the hall. It was a lot wider than
an average hall in an average house, with carpeting so thick it
felt like firm pillows as she took a few steps to the left, away
from the stairs leading back down to the party.

Feeling a bit like she was doing something
wrong, she placed her hand on a heavy, brass doorknob and twisted.
The door opened into a large bedroom not quite as big as the master
suite in her and Mark’s new house, but bigger than the one in her
apartment.

A queen bed rested along the far wall, and
walnut bookshelves and a matching built-in desk big enough for a
Fortune 500 CEO shared a wall with the door. There was even a
leather couch and small end table that held a lamp, as well as
another set of bookcases along the far wall.

The room appeared preserved. Like Julia
Child’s kitchen at the Smithsonian Institute.

Was this Mark’s childhood bedroom?

She took a step inside and spied a picture of
a much younger Mark wearing a red graduation cap and gown.

It
was
his room. She smiled and walked
farther inside, feeling like she’d just found a long-lost piece of
Mark’s history.

* * *

Mark pulled Rob aside. “I need to talk to you.” He
couldn’t let this go on any further.

Rob’s face filled with concern. “Is
everything all right?”

Mark shook his head. “Yes and no. Let’s
just . . . I need to talk to you.” He nodded toward
the exit.

“Okay, give me a second.” Rob turned to Holly
and said something to her. She nodded then smiled sympathetically
at Mark as Rob turned back around. “All right. Where to?”

“Let’s go to the pool room.”

“Lead the way.”

A couple minutes later, Mark opened the door
and led Rob inside the room that held his parents’ indoor pool. It
wasn’t a big pool. More of a place for his mom to swim laps. She
was an avid swimmer and swam at least fifty laps a day.

Mark flipped on the lights and led Rob to the
small bar in back beside the staircase leading to a loft sitting
area. He grabbed two bottles of water and a large bag of peanuts in
the shell and tossed them on the bar before taking a seat.

“Okay, so what’s up?” Rob said. “What’s got
you so upset? Are you pissed I told all those stories about you
from last year? I didn’t mean to—”

“Hell, no, I’m not mad about that, Rob.”

“Then what’s wrong, because I can tell
something’s wrong.”

He blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m fucking
everything up. I’m blowing it, Rob.” He broke open a peanut with
enough force that the nuts flew across the bar. He discarded the
shell and grabbed another, opening it more carefully. “I’m totally
blowing everything.”

“Whoa. Back up. How about you start from the
beginning.”

Mark let out a sarcastic laugh, meeting Rob’s
gaze. “I don’t even know where the beginning is. All I know is that
I’m destroying everything I returned to Indiana for. If I can’t get
my head together, I’m going to lose her.”

This had been eating at him for weeks, ever
since he’d told her about his anal fantasies. She hadn’t mentioned
the conversation again. It was like she was avoiding it.

Last night, he’d started to broach the topic
while they’d waited for her parents to join them for dinner, but
his timing had been about as good as gunning the gas after the
stoplight had already turned red.

“Karma? Are you talking about losing
Karma?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so lose her how?”

His laugh sounded as self-deprecating as he
felt. “Oh, let me count the ways, Rob.” He split open another
peanut shell with his thumbs then plucked out the nuts and popped
them into his mouth.

“Talk to me, Mark.” Rob turned on his
barstool to face him. “Let’s hear it. Maybe then I’ll know how to
help.”

Mark ran through the conversations he’d had
with Karma, trying to figure out where to start. “Okay, the
beginning.” He broke open another peanut. “Saint Lucia.” He glanced
at Rob.

“Where you took her for Christmas.”

“There was more to that trip than just asking
her to marry me.” Rob had been in on the planning of the Saint
Lucia trip, so he knew all about his intention of proposing. “I
wanted to tell her about my past.”