Getting It Right This Time (21 page)

“What are you doing here, Marcia?”

She dropped her arm, her eyes darkening. “You really have to ask me that?”

Their gazes locked. Mark stared at the woman in front of him and marveled at how quickly her stance could change from a seductress intent on having her prey to a beautiful and money-hungry black widow determined to crush anyone who stood in her way. He brushed past her into the living room. Marcia and Liam followed. Deciding it best to not get into any sort of dialogue with Marcia considering the density of anger simmering in his chest like fire, he turned to Liam.

“So as predicted Karen Williams and Simon Scott…” He flicked a glance in Marcia’s direction. “…have contacted you about the missing papers?”

Liam nodded. “They know. I managed to persuade them to come in and see you first thing tomorrow morning rather than make an immediate visit to their solicitors. But they are pretty concerned. Understandably.”

“Did they say how they found out?” Another glance at Marcia. She stared back at him, her expression bordering on smugness and stoking the fire in Mark’s chest further. He turned back to Liam. “Well?”

He hesitated. “They wouldn’t say.”

Mark frowned. “Neither of them?”

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“No.”

Mark drew his phone from his inside pocket. “Both Karen and Simon have been with me for over three years. They know and trust me. I can’t believe they wouldn’t tell you where the leak came from.”

“They said they were sworn to secrecy and were more upset they hadn’t heard it from you in the first place.”

He turned to Marcia, not sure what to say to her but knowing the words searing his throat needed to be released. He opened his mouth but she got there first.

“You came to see me this morning because you think I have something to do with the way your business is going belly up, didn’t you?” She smiled and leaned back into the sofa, crossing her legs and nonchalantly swirling the contents of her wine glass.

He tilted his head to the side. “Don’t you?”

She laughed, rolled her eyes at Liam. “See?”

“Mark…” Liam took a step toward him.

Mark held raised his hand, kept his eyes trained on Marcia. “I asked you a question when I came in. What are you doing here?”

“Karen rang me. Wanted to know if my papers had been leaked too.”

Mark narrowed his gaze. “You’re friends with Karen Williams? Since when?”

“Since forever. Do you know something, Mark? I came here to Liam because I knew you’d be busy with Kate. Knew you wouldn’t see this as more urgent than spending time with her. So I thought I could work with Liam to try and salvage some of this mess, but now…” She stood up, drained the last of her wine. “Now, I don’t think I can be bothered after all.”

“And why would you try to help me?”

Her face flushed red. “Because…”

“Because what, Marcia?”

She stared at him, her mouth moving yet nothing coming out. After a moment, she grabbed her clutch bag from the sofa and moved toward the door. Mark stepped in front of her.

“Where are you going?”

“Home. Away from you and your bloody problems.”

“Tell me why you came here.”

Her gaze darted over his face, his lips, his eyes. “Because I care about you.” She paused, looking at him meaningfully. “A lot. I always have.”

“Marcia, come on. Do you expect me to think you see me as anything more than a means to accelerate your notoriety?”

Her eyes shone with unshed tears. The sight was as believable as a scene from a second-rate soap opera. “You are changing so much, Mark. I don’t know what it is, but Kate Marshall is changing you for the worse. I love--”

He held up his hand. “Don’t.”

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She glared at him, the tears miraculously drying up and her mouth drawing into a thin line.

Normal service resumed. “Fine,” she spat. “If that woman is all that matters to you, I’ll leave you to it. But let me tell you this, my career is everything to me, so if you’re going to let your business fall apart because of her and her kid, I’m getting out first.”

A glimmer of panic rushed into Mark’s conscience. If he lost Karen, Simon, and Marcia, his business would soon be on the wrong side of successful. He needed to find a way of managing this crisis as well as keeping his relationship with Kate on the right track. He dropped his shoulders and forced his expression into some sort of apology.

“Look, maybe things are getting a little out of control right now…”

She smiled. “Oh, here we go. Now that you think I might actually walk, you’re growing a professional conscience.”

A knot tightened in his stomach. “I’m not going to beg you to stay with me, Marcia. I’m sorry things are the way they are right now, but I will work it out. Either accept that or don’t. Maybe you’re right, maybe I should have been with Karen and Simon tonight instead of Kate. I admit that, but that’s gone. Let’s see what I do to fix this from here on in, okay?”

He looked from her to Liam. Liam nodded. “Good idea.”

“Marcia?” Mark looked at her.

For a long moment she said nothing, her gaze careful as she enjoyed her moment of divadom.

At last, she shrugged. “Fine. But no more choosing Kate over your clients. The press will ruin you, and then they’ll ruin her. You have to keep focused on your livelihood or you’ll have nothing to give the poor girl anyway, will you?”

Mark bit back the retort that money didn’t matter to Kate. “Okay. But right now, I’m going to ring Karen and Simon and try to allay a few of their fears before I see them in the morning.”

He left the room and walked into Liam’s kitchen. He knew Marcia’s sudden love confession and her innate need to help him was as genuine as her professing to regular charity work…so why was she really here with Liam? Liam was clearly struggling at times to look him in the eye too.

Mark looked to the ceiling and exhaled.

Was he being paranoid damning everyone a suspect? Not just everyone, but people who’d been loyal to him for years. He loved his work, and he’d strived too hard to let it slip even marginally. Yet Kate and Jess were so damn important to him.

Shaking his head, he pulled back his shoulders and dialed Karen Williams’s number, making the decision not to see Kate again until this mess was sorted out--not until he’d found those papers and revealed the thief who’d taken them.

* * * *

She’d promised Mark she would ignore the press stories involving anything remotely attached to either of them, and she’d kept that promise--until now. Funnily enough the screaming headline
JOHNSTON’S SLIP: THE ACHIEVE-ALL AGENT SAVED!
caught her eye.

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Resisting the urge to whip the pages open and read it right there in the middle of the street, Kate took Jess’s hand and hurried toward a small coffee shop they’d passed a few minutes before.

She hadn’t seen Mark for three days. Not since the night she’d found out about the break in. The night she’d decided nothing and nobody would orchestrate the way she led her life. She loved Mark and she had to trust him. This Underwood creature, Marcia and even James’s memory would no longer hold them back and she would not allow gossip mongers and the paparazzi to taint the beginnings of what could be a fantastic future.

Too much time had been wasted by her choice to keep her feelings from Mark and marry James. Stupidity and immaturity had been behind that, but now she was all grown up and knew exactly what she wanted. Mark.

She smiled and smoothed a hand over Jess’s head. It still felt strange how much she missed him not being around after spending a year of her life alone with Jess. And as for Jess? Well, Kate now checked her tonsils if more than two hours passed without her mentioning something to do with Mark.

Walking into the coffee shop, Kate steered Jess toward a vacant table in the far corner and they sat down. Decorated in a delightful palette of ice-cream colors with pictures of laughing couples and families on the walls, the café was lovely. Kate looked behind the counter at the staff rushing back and forth and pinned Sunny’s as family-run establishment judging by the similarity of the three girls serving and the older woman, clearly their mother, shouting orders at them. She bit back a chuckle when two of the three girls exchanged an eye-roll behind their mother’s back when she sent them back into the kitchen for something they’d gotten wrong.

She quickly looked away when the third daughter approached the table for her order.

“What can I get you today?” She smiled and wiggled her nose at Jess who giggled.

Kate smiled. “I’ll have--”

“Hey, are you Mark Johnston’s girlfriend?” The young girl’s eyes grew wide.

Kate glanced around, struggling to keep her smile in place as her cheeks grew hot. “Yes, yes I am. But I’d rather you knew me as Kate Marshall.” She held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

The girl blushed as she shook Kate’s hand. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. If Mum…”

Kate smiled, waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry. I’m touchy because of my daughter, that’s all. This is Jess.”

“Hi, Jess.” The waitress held out her hand.

Jess solemnly shook it. “Hello. Mark’s nice.”

The girl grinned. “I’m sure he is. Now what can I get you?”

Kate ordered a latte and blueberry muffin and a cup of orange juice and a jam doughnut for Jess. With another apology for asking about Mark, the girl walked away and Kate attempted to ignore the excited giggling and surreptitious glances of the waitress’s sisters when the girl went
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back behind the counter. She reached for the paper. She dealt with that quite well. Maybe she was finally getting used to the annoying, and hopefully temporary, fascination with her and Mark’s relationship.

Damn the man for looking the way he did. She smiled when a shiver ran down her spine. If he looked like Quasimodo, with the personality of the Sheriff of Nottingham, the press wouldn’t splash them over the tabloids like the next Brangelina.

She opened the paper and read the copy as quickly as humanly possible. Exactly three minutes later, she sat back with a huge grin on her face. So Mark had done as he said he would last night and told the press the confidential papers of Karen Williams and Simon Scott had been recovered. Of course, the press being the press were not wholly rejoicing. In fact, they barely mentioned the triumph, choosing instead to dedicate a further page and half to speculation of whether or not Mark’s wealthy clients would stay or abandon him in favor of a different agent or worse, whether they’d take him to court for negligence.

Closing the paper, Kate smiled her thanks when the waitress returned with their order. The papers were found in another client’s file and even though both Mark and Liam were adamant they hadn’t mixed up the papers during the clean up, neither of them could swear to it. So, the panic had been for nothing but calming the fraught nerves of high-caliber clients was a whole other matter.

During their late night phone call…

Kate shifted in her seat.

Before the phone sex.

Mark told her he would not rest until he discovered who had broken into his office and caused all the trouble. Something wasn’t right and if the person involved thought Mark wouldn’t dig deeper, they were mistaken. Yet she kind of wished he wouldn’t. He needed to learn what really mattered in life--and revenge was far down the list.

“Kate? Wow, fancy seeing you here.”

Turning in her seat, Kate’s stomach clenched. What the hell was Marcia doing here?

She forced a smile and instinctively rested her hand on Jessica’s arm. “How are you?”

“Fine, fine. Do you mind if I join you? I need caffeine, and this place looks so adorable from the outside.”

After two or three pregnant seconds, Kate knew she had no choice without looking like a complete bitch and gestured toward the empty seat next to Jessica. “Sure.”

Marcia grinned and slid into the seat. She opened the laminated menu, oblivious to the starstruck gaze of the waitress who’d appeared at her side. Kate glanced at the counter and bit back a laugh. The other two daughters looked as though all their Christmases had come at once.

“Let me see…” Marcia drew a scarlet painted nail down the card. “Now that I think about it, I’m absolutely starving.” She peered at Kate’s muffin. “Is that all your having? Goodness, you put me to shame.” She paused. “I’ll try the lasagna, please. Calorific hell, I’m sure but what can I say?”

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Snapping the menu shut, she pushed it in the waitress’s direction without as much as looking at her before turning a hundred-watt smile on Jessica. “Hello, sweetie. Ooh, what’s this? Have you been shopping?”

Jessica eyed the strange lady with suspicion, and then as with most females, shopping won her over and she scrambled from her chair, promptly disappearing beneath the table. Marcia mouthed a quick
she’s so sweet
at Kate before Jess re-appeared brandishing her bag of goodies.

“Do you want to see what Mummy bought me?” she asked.

Kate cleared her throat. “Umm, I don’t think Marcia…”

But Marcia grinned at Jess. “I’d love to, darling. What have you got in there?”

Kate shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she watched Jessica proudly show off the array of plastic bracelets, necklaces and rainbow-colored hair bands Kate had treated her to earlier. The urge to drink the contents of her steaming hot latte and risk permanently scarring her throat suddenly seemed highly desirable rather than Marcia talking to her daughter. And she couldn’t have even said why. Yet, there was a certain something about Marcia that Kate didn’t like or trust. It wasn’t jealousy or possessiveness because the woman worked intimately with Mark…it was more cautious apprehension or wary mistrust.