SUSAN MEIER - Married In The Morning

So she could not love him.

No matter how many times she had said it on their wedding night, she didn’t love him.

The realization hurt so much he stopped his thoughts. He wouldn’t let himself go any further down that road. He knew better. He knew exactly what happened when a person let grief overwhelm him. He might have been in elementary school when his father left, but he had grieved. He had spent Christmas day on a chair by the window, watching it snow, waiting for his father to return, and when he didn’t six-year-old Gerrick had fallen apart.

Then, when he was twelve his mother took him to spend his summer vacation with her sister, Gerrick’s aunt, and simply never returned. She didn’t give a word of explanation to him or his aunt. She just never came to pick him up. Only one day beyond her scheduled arrival, Gerrick knew what had happened and this time when he fell apart it wasn’t the fear-based agony of a child, but the true grief of a boy on the brink of manhood. No one wanted him, and he knew it.

Anger and rebellion marked the next four years of his life, but on his sixteenth birthday everything changed. He suddenly realized the only person he could count on was himself, but he also saw that wasn’t such a bad thing since he could control what he did. His life took a miraculous upturn. He got a job so he could begin to pay his own way. He made peace with his aunt and uncle and cautiously made friends at school. He didn’t spend his life avoiding relationships, but he was careful and wise beyond his years.

Which was why he was amazed he had rolled the dice with Gina. He let his emotions overrule his common sense and now he was hurting almost as much as he had when he was twelve.

Except this time he had chosen his fate. This time he had a plan, but he hadn’t followed it. When she proposed to him, he tossed his plan and his common sense out the window.

In some ways that made the hurt worse, because he knew this pain was his own fault.

He kept a tight hold on his control through the entire flight to Atlanta and on Sunday occupied himself with writing notes about his job for Josh Anderson, so he did not have time to think about Gina. He didn’t want to be reminded of the things she’d said to him, their marriage or how stupid he had been to panic and marry her before she had a chance to catch up to his level of feelings. If he did, he knew he would crumble, or, worse, do something foolish.

On Monday morning he called Josh Anderson and Ethan McKenzie into Hilton Martin’s office, which he had been using in Hilton’s absence.

“Good morning, Josh, Ethan,” Gerrick said with a nod to Ethan indicating he should close the office door. To look at him, no one would know the suffering of his soul. Gerrick held his emotions so tightly to his chest that even he didn’t fully comprehend the extent of his pain.

“What’s up?” Josh asked, taking a seat across the desk from Gerrick. “I heard you went to Pennsylvania over the weekend. How was Hilton?”

“Weak but recovering,” Gerrick said, as Ethan closed the door and took the second seat across the desk from Gerrick. “And because he’s recovering so quickly and so well, we have some more important things to talk about. First of all, I never told anyone but…”

“But there’s something between you and Gina,” Ethan speculated, his dark eyes bright with merriment.

Josh grinned in agreement. “Olivia told me you got in to see Hilton the day of his heart attack, when none of us was allowed in because we’re not in his immediate family. Olivia guessed…”

Gerrick held up his hands to stop Josh. “Don’t guess. There’s nothing happening between Gina and me. We went to Vegas that weekend to celebrate the fact that I had a new job.…”

“A new job?” Ethan said, sounding confused and reluctant.

Gerrick nodded. “This week is supposed to be the final week of my notice, but I’m going early. Today will be my last day. Hilton has known all along. He supported me during the interview process. He recommended me.”

Josh swiped his hand across the back of his neck. “You can’t be telling us you’re leaving.”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Gerrick said, rising from his seat to pace. He normally wasn’t a fidgety person, but keeping such a tight rein on his emotions filled him with impulses and urges he almost couldn’t control. But he did. He turned and smiled at the men in front of Hilton’s desk. “One of you is going to have to take over.”

“You’re a more logical choice than I am,” Ethan said to Josh. “If only because you have to know more about the stores to promote them, but, frankly, Gerrick, I’m shocked that you’re leaving. I’m shocked that you would leave us in a lurch when Hilton is so sick.”

“My new job is as CEO of a grocery store chain in Maine. Their stock just went public. It’s through the roof. The man who started the business is retiring, and everything is set up for this company to explode. I’m on the ground floor. A chance like this comes along once in a lifetime.”

“And Hilton Martin has only really needed us once in a lifetime.”

“Guys, he’s been encouraging me to go.”

Josh peered up. “And what does Gina say?”

Gerrick smiled at the irony. “She’s emphatic that I go. She’s also emphatic that you can handle this without me.”

Ethan slapped his palm on the leather arm of his chair. “Then I guess you go,” he said, but he didn’t sound happy or encouraging.

“And we’ll handle it,” Josh said, as he rose.

The two men walked out of the office without another word and Gerrick rubbed his hands down his face. He had just lost two friends. First, he married Gina and thoroughly pushed her from his life. Then, to accommodate Gina, he had to leave Hilton-Cooper-Martin Foods, which alienated his friends. The only person he hadn’t run off was Hilton and Gerrick suspected that if he ever found out about the secret Vegas wedding, Hilton wouldn’t be his supporter anymore, either.

He remembered the old saw: be careful what you wish for because you may get it, and knew it was right. He had wished Gina would notice him, wished he could marry her before he moved to Maine, and both had happened.

And it had not only cost him any chance with her. It also cost his two best friends.

After settling her father in at the hospital in Atlanta, Gina arrived home the following Wednesday, exhausted but satisfied that her dad would eventually be back to normal. She joyfully paid the taxi driver and gave him a healthy tip because he lugged her assorted bags, boxes and mismatched suitcases into the foyer of the Martin mansion.

The first thing she saw after she turned away from the door was a note propped up against a vase on the small mahogany table beneath the large mirror. The envelope bore her name, so she reached for it and ripped it open.

She read it and tears unexpectedly filled her eyes. It said only,

I’m sorry,

Gerrick

P.S. By the way, I did love you. I might always love you.

Overcome, Gina dropped to sit on the bottom step of the stairway that spiraled to the second floor. The funny part of it was, she believed Gerrick really did love her. Or at least he loved the woman she had been in Vegas. Gina didn’t know who that woman was but she did know she was gone for good. Particularly since she had more than a sneaking suspicion her father would begin to train her to take over the company once he returned to work, and her time would be taken up with facts, figures and negotiating strategies. So Gerrick was better off this way. The real Gina Martin wasn’t the kind to fly to Vegas on the spur of the moment, to deliberately buy shimmering lace panties and bras because she knew the man shopping with her was attracted to her and she wanted to tease him.