20. Pure Karma
20
PURE KARMA
REX
I had instructed Pearl to leave me alone today, yet she knocked on the door and let herself in, anyway.
“What part of Do Not Disturb do you need translated into smaller words?” I grumbled. I didn’t bother to lift my head off the desk where’d I’d parked it since I arrived.
I should have stayed home, but there, I was reminded constantly of Chelsea’s rejection. At least here at the office, I had that, plus Pearl’s interruptions, to see me through the day.
“Okay. First of all, unless you tell me what’s going on, I can’t help you.” Her tone sounded motherly, but I wouldn’t fall for it. “Are you hangry? Need a pastrami?—”
“Fuck no. Get out,” I yelled, my heart lurching in pain at the mere mention of the sandwich I loved…made by a woman I could have one day loved forever if she’d have taken me up on my offer .
Loved? Ouch. More pain in the centered in my chest. When would it stop? I needed a doctor.
“Rex, at some point, whatever this is will pass, and you have responsibilities here.”
“No.”
“But there’s someone here?—“
“No!”
Suddenly, I heard another pair of heels clicking into the room. “My, he really is a grumpy baby, isn’t he? I don’t know how you put up with him.”
My head popped up. “Marlena? What the hell are you doing here?”
“Pearl, be a dear and leave us to chat.” She motioned with her black designer clutch at my office door.
“Rex, I’ll be at my desk if you need me.” The glares shared between the two women indicated no love lost there.
“Finally, we’re alone,” Marlena smiled with a similar haughtiness Mom always displayed, and plunked down into an office chair.
I rubbed my eyes to get the merged vision of my mother and her as one woman out of my brain. “What do you want?”
“I told you at the party in the Hamptons what I wanted. My trust fund. I have to marry before I turn thirty on Christmas Day, and it’s already early November. I don’t have much time, Rex.”
Oh good. Another reason to hate Christmas. “Not interested. Please leave and find some other sap to marry you.”
From her bag, Marlena produced her phone, swiped through some things and placed it before me. Seeing Chelsea in her zombie get up knocking over the lamp sent me reeling. “How’d you get this? Mom and I paid off the photographer to lose the photos.”
“And I paid him more to give them to me. ” Her stupid grin made me physically ill.
“Doesn’t matter. You can hardly tell who it is with all the makeup.”
“Hm, true. Except that photos of the zombies that night before the fire show three women having fun working the event all over their social media profiles. It only took me a few clicks to find out who Chelsea is, the woman you were so concerned about getting to safety when the fire broke out, and never gave one glance over your shoulder at me. But don’t worry. I made it out just fine.”
“So, a lamp got knocked over. The fire was an accident.”
“That’s odd. My recollection of events—along with the photographer’s—told the police otherwise. They’re very curious who this perpetrator is who purposely set the room ablaze. And it’ll take one phone call to the police to have her arrested.”
“You wouldn’t.” Evil bitch.
“To get what I want? Yes, I would. There’s two hundred and fifty million dollars wasting away in a trust fund that I want. Now, you’re going to marry me or I’ll turn Chelsea in.”
“Don’t do this.”
“From the look on your face, she obviously means a lot to you. So, marry me, or send her to jail. I’ll need your choice by the morning because time is wasting and even a small wedding like ours will take time to plan.”
She stood and marched to the door, hesitating only to give me a final warning in her glance.
Karma, that’s what this was. Pure fucking karma. And I deserved it after what I did to Chelsea.
Begging for her hand in marriage so I could remodel a fucking building I hated? Who the hell did that?
Me. I did, and probably ripped her heart to pieces by the look on her face when she passed me the ring back.
My own heart was acting weird, all achy and twisted. It had to be the guilt of what I did eating away at me with every second that passed. And now Marlena’s evil plan was my penance. My choice was obvious. There’s no way I’d let her send Chelsea to jail.