Chapter 6
Chapter Six
“I CAN’T do it, Roxy,” Mark said, turning to her.
“Why? This is a wonderful cause, Mark. Exactly in line with your corporate gift plan. I hope you’re not letting personal feelings interfere.
It’s not because of last night, because of Brian?
” Roxanne asked. She sat in a small chair in Mark’s hotel room.
She arrived ahead of lunch to get their business discussion out of the way.
But it was not going as she expected. It was not going well at all.
“In a way, it is personal. You’ve made it pretty clear all along you can’t give me what I want.” Mark looked down, everywhere except at her, and she found it exasperating. She desperately wanted to close this deal. She had not anticipated this resistance from Mark, at least not a brick wall.
Her spine straightened with determination. Her mind was spinning with thoughts of Dr. Oki and the lab and the children. Now without thinking of anything else but her immediate goal of raising funds for those children, Roxanne saw her opening and plunged in.
“Oh? I wouldn’t be so sure. What is it that you want, Mark?” She held her breath, not sure how bold he might be.
Mark inhaled deeply.
“I want, more than anything else, a commitment from you. A personal commitment.”
She recoiled. The suggestion felt like an assault.
She would never give up that one thing he wanted: herself.
She froze. She couldn’t think what to say.
Her emotions warred over the need to run from the threat of entanglement with him—almost a clone of Don in his doggedness—versus her need to raise money for the hospital. She decided to stall.
“Our relationship hasn’t reached that point. Maybe…” She looked at him without a smile. She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t fool either of them into thinking he had a chance. She was not that desperate.
“You know as well as I do that our relationship is never going anywhere. I can’t give you this promo. I’m leaving town on the next flight out. I think it will be a long time before I come back.” He turned from her now.
“There’s no need to leave town over this. I never thought you were the type of man to let personal feelings get in the way of professional judgment.” She was appalled. He’d been her friend and he was turning his back on her now. Literally. She felt like she’d swallowed a brick.
He laughed. “I know how this looks. But the truth is, I’ve let my feelings for you interfere with my so-called professional judgment far too long.
Your charms have gotten you a lot further than your cause alone could have.
Professionally speaking, my company should spend their charitable dollars on much broader, far-reaching projects than a single research unit.
And I can’t work with you anymore,” he said.
He was breaking all the rules of their relationship. They were supposed to be business friends. They’d known each other for years. Even in the face of losing the much needed funding from this deal, she felt the loss of his friendship even more. But she saw his pain and knew she had to let him go.
“I’m sorry, Mark. You won’t have to work with me anymore. I’ll assign someone else to oversee our joint project from now on,” she said quietly.
“Don’t bother. The only reason I would have stayed involved with that project would be to see you.
It will be a long time before I’m back in Boston.
” She meant to move, but she didn’t. She meant to speak, but she couldn’t.
The brick in her gut rose to her throat.
She thanked God that Mark had his back to her as she wiped her trembling hands across her cheek and the spilled tears. She had to let him go.
“I’ll get someone to replace me when you come back.” Hoarseness choked her voice.
He turned to look at her. His eyes glistened with sadness. He straightened himself as if with effort. “No one could replace you, Roxy,” he said and walked out the door of his own hotel room.
Roxanne stood there in the middle of Mark’s hotel suite thinking how foolish she should feel.
But the sense of loss overwhelmed her. Until the guilt slid in.
The force of a sudden return of violent waves of guilt washed over her.
She wished she could feel more than friendship for him, but she wouldn’t go down that path again the way she had with Don.
Reaching to pick up her bag, she watched her hand tremble.
She bit her lip. She had to leave. She hurried to the door, but before she walked out she turned and took a look back into Mark’s room.
Sadness threatened to overwhelm her once again, but before it could get hold of her, she forced herself to close the door behind her and keep walking.
The only thoughts she would allow herself from that moment on concerned how and where she was now going to get the money for Dr. Oki.
The specter of her outstanding bills would have to wait.
She had a million things to do that day, but her mind kept returning to the problem of millions of dollars worth of funds she had counted on from Mark’s company.
As she pulled into her driveway, her cell phone beeped with a missed call. She fished it out of her bag as she walked inside. Brian had called. She stared at it and then tossed the phone in the direction of the kitchen table, where it landed in the fruit basket.
“Two points for you, girl.” Bonnie stood in the doorway expectantly.
“What’s the problem now? There’s always something with you, and it’s always about money.
Or men,” Bonnie said, shaking her head as she walked into the room.
Roxanne walked past the woman and toward the stairs to go up to her room. She waved Bonnie to follow.
“Of course you’re right. And it’s all that man’s fault.” Roxanne shook her finger back toward the basket where her cell phone lay. The guilt twisted her gut as she said it.
“Which man was that?” Bonnie asked as they walked into Roxanne’s room.
Roxanne went immediately to her favorite chair and plopped down in front of the cold fireplace. “Brian Dennis.”
“Oh him. I thought you went to see Mark about some fund-raising deal for the doctor?” The older woman lowered herself carefully into the chair opposite Roxanne.
“I did.”
“Mark won’t give you the deal for the doctor?”
“Nope.” She didn’t bother with surprise at how Bonnie had discerned this.
The woman was psychic—where she was concerned anyway.
Always had been. “Some baloney about the cause not being broad enough in scope. But what it really came down to is…” She felt the shame now.
Confessing to Bonnie forced her to admit yet another mistake.
No matter how lonely she felt, no matter how much she craved a connection, she couldn’t handle it.
She didn’t know how to connect emotionally with a man.
That had been her problem with Don. She was no better at it now.
“Let me guess. He wanted a more intimate relationship. You didn’t. He thought maybe you two had something and you should have known better and kept up your guard. But you didn’t.” Bonnie summed it up.
Roxanne tried not to cringe. She sat up straight and took a deep breath. She needed to face facts.
“Now what are you going to do? At least Mr. Dennis is still talking to you.” Bonnie said. “And maybe you shouldn’t go introducing any more men to him, business or no business.” She was right of course.
“It was Brian’s fault. He didn’t have to be so…so…competitive about it. He practically challenged Mark to a duel.” Roxanne knew she was exaggerating, but she also knew Bonnie knew she was, and had in fact come to expect it and even enjoyed the melodrama.
“He did?” Bonnie laughed. Roxanne loved to make her laugh. She smiled watching the woman now.
“You know what I mean—he challenged Mark with his eyes. It was the killer look in his eyes that set Mark off.” Roxanne sobered a little now thinking of it.
“So much so I’m afraid I haven’t even got a friend left, not even so much as a working colleague.
When Mark leaves town today, I doubt he’ll ever come back.
” She leaned her head on her hands and stared into the empty fireplace.
“He wasn’t man enough to accept you as a friend, then it’s his loss more than yours. It’s like Don all over again. But you can’t be someone you’re not.” Bonnie paused when Roxanne looked up at her. Maybe she didn’t like who she was. She wanted to fall in love with a man. She needed to feel it.
“As for the money. You’ll think of something,” Bonnie finished.
“Oh, I will. But I wish I could come up with something right now.” She needed to clear her mind and think only about the real problem, at lest the one problem she might be able to solve—money.
She did not return Brian’s call.
The Children’s Mercy Hospital League meeting was a regular monthly event and she was worried about squeezing it in with her TV job and not getting fired again for being late or unavailable.
As chair, Roxanne couldn’t miss the meetings.
She had the floor. She’d worked long hours on her off time to prepare something substantial to give the hospital staff.
They looked to her for direction as one of the senior board members as well as chairperson of the League.
Most of the men and women were already aware of the new fund being set up, but the major donor and who would be assigned to the project was not decided on yet.