“Sure,” Sophie said, and with that, the two other women walked out the door, leaving Sophie alone with Mark. Mark could’ve sworn he saw the sister shoot him one more meaningful look, followed by one at Sophie. She did everything but nod her head at Sophie.
Go talk to her, idiot, the expression seemed to say.
“Sophie,” Mark said, approaching her cautiously. “I’ve missed you.”
He hadn’t meant to open with that, but it was true, so he left it alone. She didn’t look at him. “I miss you, too,” she replied, staring at her organizer as if it had the secrets of the universe written in it.
“At least it’ll all be over today,” Mark said. “Then…no matter what happens, it’ll be behind us. We can start over.”
“I’d like that,” Sophie said. “But…Mark, I never did tell you why this is so important to me, did I?”
Mark shrugged, feeling prickles of unease start to creep across his nerve endings. “You’re a talented, driven, successful businesswoman,” he said. “And I know this is a family business, and a start-up. Of course you’ll want to do well.”
“My father left my mother a few years before Trimera fired her,” Sophie said, and Mark felt ice form in the pit of his stomach. “He’d cleaned out most of her accounts and run up her credit cards. She had to clear out her retirement account to stave off bankruptcy.”
“I’m sorry,” Mark said inanely, sensing where this was going.
“Then Trimera dumped her before she could even start to build back what she’d lost,” Sophie continued.
Mark sighed. “That’s terrible,” he said. “But…Sophie, layoffs happen. It wasn’t personal.”
Now Sophie looked at him, her eyes wide and hurt. “It is to the person who gets fired, Mark.”
He felt like a worm. “That wasn’t what I meant. You know it wasn’t.”
“That’s been our problem,” Sophie said, standing and pacing. “I thought that business wasn’t personal. I thought we could be one thing in the conference room and another in the bedroom. But it all blends together, Mark.” She stood in front of him, crossing her arms. “If we don’t get this account, I don’t know how we’re going to replenish my mom’s retirement fund. A lot is riding on the success of this business. And it’s not about pride, or being successful. It’s more personal than that.”
Mark swallowed hard. “I’m not just…” He stopped. “All right. Pride does have a lot to do with why I’m doing this. But damn it, it’s also my job, Sophie. I can’t ignore doing my job because I feel sorry for your mom.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Sophie retorted. “But I am trying to tell you that this isn’t cut and dried.” She took a deep breath. “I want to be with you. You have to know that. But…people are going to get hurt. No matter what the outcome of the business side is, you can’t tell me that there won’t be consequences.”
“We’ve been over this,” Mark said, suddenly not caring that Simone was a few feet outside the door, that Roger was pacing nearby in the hall. “You know what? I hope we don’t get the account. I hope that you and your family get exactly what they want. Because I think I’m in love with you, Sophie. And that’s worth a hell of a lot more than a stupid promotion.”
Sophie’s eyes widened and her lip trembled.
Mark couldn’t help himself. He leaned down and kissed her sweet, mobile mouth the way he’d been dreaming of since the last time he’d held her in his arms. She kissed him back, softly at first, then with increasingly more abandon. Her hands clutched at his shoulders, and he pulled her to him tightly.
“Mark,” she breathed as she pulled away. “I think…”
Before she could finish her sentence, the door opened.
“We’re back…” the sister said, before stopping short. Her mouth dropped open in a little O of surprise.
“Lydia, don’t stop in a doorway like that,” her mother said irritably, stepping around her. She stopped, too, when she took in the sight in front of her: Mark and Sophie, arms around each other, obviously too close to be anything but intimate. “Sophie, what the hell are you doing?”
Sophie took a step away from Mark, her cheeks reddening. “Mom, let me explain….”
“You can’t tell me you have an explanation for this!”
“Mrs. Jones, it isn’t what you think,” Mark interrupted.
The woman turned on him with all the fury of a volcano. She stood in front of him, eyes snapping, so similar to Sophie’s, but filled with more anger and bitterness. “I know about you, Mr. McMann,” she said. “You make a practice of sleeping with competitors, distributors…anybody you need. And I thought my own daughter was smarter than this, damn it, but I guess with your good looks even she couldn’t turn you down.” The look of contempt she sent over to Sophie was withering.
“That’s not true,” Mark said bluntly. Before he could continue, Roger and Simone walked in. “We’ll discuss this later.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.” Sophie’s mom looked ready to punch someone. “I knew Trimera would stop at nothing to screw me over.”
“Now, now, no need to get so personal,” Roger said, his tone aghast.
“You don’t even know the beginning of the term personal,” Mrs. Jones answered. “You people would need to be human first, to understand how something could be personal!”
“Mom,” Sophie said, trying to quiet her. Lydia, the sister, looked horrified.
Mrs. Marion and Lily walked into the middle of this circus. Mrs. Marion watched with curiosity, but no alarm. Lily looked a little freaked out by the drama unfolding in front of them.
“If I’m not interrupting,” Mrs. Marion said with an edge of sarcasm, causing all the turmoil to disappear momentarily. “I would like to say that, while it’s not quite final, we’ve made a decision.”
The room went tomb silent in a nanosecond. Every person listened eagerly. Mark felt his stomach clench.
God as my witness, I have no idea which way I want this to go.
“I have to tell you, it was a very difficult decision,” Mrs. Marion said, obviously relishing drawing out the suspense. She was a born showman. Or show-woman. “Diva Nation obviously has the most innovative and creative product, with quality that is second to none. But Trimera…well, the concessions offered were far too sweet to be ignored.”
Mark looked over at the Diva Nation team. Sophie didn’t look surprised. Her mother looked venomous.
“So, while it’s not quite final…we will be drawing up paperwork to start a partnership with Trimera.”
Mark shut his eyes, ignoring the clap on his shoulder and Roger’s quick word of congratulations, or Simone’s gloating little smile. He was about to get everything he’d struggled for years to get. He was finally being taken seriously.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Sophie, looking devastated, next to her mother and her sister.
“I’d like to thank both teams for participating in our challenges….”
Mrs. Marion made her polite speech, but it was obvious that no one was listening. When she drew to a close and walked out, Sophie’s mother approached Mark and his team.
“I hope you’re happy,” she spat out, then turned and stalked out, her daughters following her.
“Jeez,” Roger said. “Some people should not be in business. I wonder if we fired her because of her temper?”
“No, we fired her because she was too old,” Simone corrected. “At least, we thought she was.”
Mark rubbed his hands over his face. “We could be sued for talk like that,” he said. “We should be sued, if that’s what we fired her for.”
“Now, now, let’s not say the s-word,” Roger said, laughing. “Besides, why are you taking that nutcase’s side, anyway? We won, they lost, that’s life in the big city.”
“It was just business,” Mark said, his tone slightly mocking.
“Exactly.” Roger sounded relieved. “Well, the account’s yours, Mark. Keep handling it this well, and in the next year or so, you will need to order new business cards!”
Roger laughed as the three of them exited the conference room. Simone tapped Mark on the shoulder. “I told you to cool it with Sophie,” she said. “But I guess it all worked out. You landed the account, you’ll get the promotion, and it looks like from here on, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“What makes you say that?” From what Mark could see, worries were all he had on his horizon.
Simone’s laugh was mocking. “Because nobody’ll ever find out you were involved with the enemy. I don’t think you’ll ever hear from Sophie Jones or Diva Nation again if your life depended on it.”
SOPHIE FELT DISEMBODIED, as if the whole thing were a dream. The three of them, Lydia, Sophie and their mother, were sitting in the back of a cab, heading at a breakneck pace to their hotel. Lydia sat in between them, trying to act as a buffer. Sophie’s mother kept looking down at her purse, as if that accessory somehow held the answers to what had just happened to her. She refused to speak to either of her daughters, despite their best efforts.