Second Chances (2 page)

He rushed to her dressers, ripping the drawers off their runners in his panic. Empty. They were all empty. He walked around the small apartment like a zombie. Inside, he was empty. Cold. Icy cold.

She was gone. For good?

He shuddered. He didn't dare go down that road. This had to be temporary. Anything else wasn't doable. Or acceptable. And damn her for making him fear it was inevitable.

Damn it. She belonged at his side.

Anger and pain warred deep in his gut.

Sure, Mary hadn't seemed all that happy…at least lately. After that last tune up he'd given her, she'd settled down some. But then she'd attended that damn motivational workshop by that asshole Brian Saunders.
Take Charge of Your Life,
it was called. Become authentic to the real you or some other idiotic garbage.

If he'd known beforehand that the speaker was the same bastard he'd hated at university, well, he'd have put his foot down and made sure she hadn't gone.

Instead he'd laughed at her for wanting to go. He'd bugged her about the money she'd thrown away. And he'd had fun dissing the drivel she'd spouted on her return.

Well, what the fuck? He sure wasn't laughing now.

No. Now he was pissed. The hurt he crushed deeper down, cauterizing the open wound with the fire of the wrongfully treated, letting it rise and fuel his anger. There was no goddamned way he was going to let Mary just walk out of here and leave him and everything they had together.

A separation she'd said. A trial separation. What the hell did that mean? She'd left. As far as he was concerned that made it as real as it could get—there was nothing temporary about it.

She wouldn't even tell him where she was going. He had her cell but that was it. She said she needed privacy. Time to herself. To think. To figure out what she wanted to do with her life.

Mumbo-jumbo bullshit.

What happened to his sensible Mary? She'd gone from being a good wife to a defiant woman. After one goddamned weekend.

And he knew who he had to thank for that. Brian Saunders.

***

Three weeks later

Karina sat quietly in the nearly empty seminar room. Her nerves had taken such abuse getting here, they'd finally gone numb. Thank God. Now if only the endless rollercoaster of doubts would stop as well. They clogged her throat and fed the butterflies in her stomach.

She needed answers. Her workplace had taken her eight years of loyalty and flushed them down the toilet when she was laid off last week. After the anger had come the fear, and then the sense of bewilderment. What did she do now?

Maybe this weekend would help. With some much-needed urging from her two best friends, Cat and Serena, Karina had signed up to attend a weekend self-help seminar.

Run by one Brian Saunders. "It's like killing two birds with one stone, right?" she murmured softly to herself. Her friends were right—she needed to do something to sort out her life…and it was also an opportunity to clear things up with Brian.

This was her way to move on, both in the professional and personal sense. She hoped.

She'd chosen a seat dead in the middle of the huge conference room with chairs laid out in all directions. The seminar had sold out, which was typical of Brian's popularity. For the zillionth time she questioned her sanity. She hadn't seen or heard from Brian since that fateful night so long ago. Of course, neither had she tried to contact him. There was only so much rejection she could handle. But that hadn't stopped her from following his career when he popped up on her radar several years ago.

And it hadn't stopped her making her friends sick with comments about him.

There were just a few minutes left before the evening started. A quiver of excitement rippled through her. Would he remember her? Or had he been so drunk he'd willingly forgotten?

She hadn't been able to forget the joy or the pain. She shook her head and shifted on the hard chairs.

The opening of the double doors caught her attention. The announcer's voice echoed from the hallway, requesting that all guests take their seats in the seminar room. Her stomach did a somersault.

Excited voices blended into confused chaos as people moved into the room, eagerly searching out seats. Groups of newly made friends formed and reformed, shifting and settling until finally the lighting lowered, and everyone's attention became glued to the stage.

Brian stepped onto the platform, smiling broadly. The crowd cheered and applauded, the noise swelling until Brian laughed and held up his hands for silence.

Karina grinned with the rest of the crowd. God, he looked better than ever. Her heart, traitor that it was, stuttered and stalled before picking up and taking off at a flat-out run. His confidence and dynamic presence instantly affected the crowd.

"Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life…"

At the sound of his voice, she leaned forward. His voice had changed over the years. Deepened. Strengthened. She studied his features but again, ten years had gone by and he was different from her memories and even his latest book covers. His hair was shorter, maybe a little lighter. The suit changed him, too. God, it fitted him like a second skin, shaping and defining the broad shoulders she remembered well. A hair over six feet, he was a well-built animal and his last book-jacket picture hadn't done him justice. Not that her hormones cared about any of that, they were simply jumping up and down singing 'Hallelujah.'

Lord, did she have it bad. How sad was that? That wasn't why she'd come here. She'd hoped to see him, realize he was nothing to her and move on. And utilize the stuff she'd learn through his seminar to do that. This seminar was for her. To help her move on.

Not get stuck in a time warp of attraction.

It didn't get any better. By the time they'd reached the Q-&-A section of the evening, she'd finally focused on the material Brian had been handing out, but every time he moved across the stage, she became totally sidelined by his panther-like grace. Her nerves grew stretched and taut as she bounced from succumbing to the pull of his sexuality and from succumbing to the wisdom of his advice.

This was
so
not how she'd envisioned her weekend.

"You should all have a copy of the schedule. If you don't, my assistant, Mark," Brian said, motioning toward a large bear of a man with a full beard standing off to one side, "has spares. Please look it over and if you have any questions, feel free to contact either one of us." He walked to the small table on the side of the stage and took a sip of water. "Now, let's move on to the questions." The question-and-answer period following his lecture brought a mix of queries from the audience. Most of the questions were business oriented.

A beautiful blonde, dressed with corporate killer instincts, waved her dainty hand in the air. "Are you married?"

Oh, good question.
The general laughter from the audience eased the intrusiveness of the question.

The blonde turned her attention to the audience. "What I really want to know is, if he
is
married, does his wife's views match his? And, if they don't, how do they work around it?"

"I was married, and I have a little girl, but am now divorced," Brian answered seriously. "Does she share my views? Yes, to a certain extent. My work was not the cause of our breakup. Does that answer your questions?"

Daughter?
She hadn't heard that tidbit. She couldn't help wondering how old the girl was.

He directed his query back to the blonde with a warm smile. At her nod, he moved on, his gaze skimming over the crowd. Karina's heart thumped as Brian's attention whispered over her to the end of the row, stalled and zipped back to her. His gaze held her locked in place, and she forgot to breathe.

Heads turned as the audience tracked the reason for Brian's stillness.

The intensity of the moment burned. Oh, God.
Did he recognize her?

Heat washed over her, raising her temperature higher than if he'd physically touched her.

Christ, it was as if he'd laid her soul bare, brought all of her inner thoughts and emotions up to the surface. Heat arced between them.

Then he released her, his gaze moving over the audience as if nothing had happened.

She shuddered and gasped for breath.

Well, that answered that question.

He remembered. And how.

***

Karina yawned widely over her steaming mug of rich Columbian coffee. She'd talked to first Cat then Serena late into the night, trying to convey both her excitement and her trepidation. For all their soothing support, she'd barely slept. And when she had, she'd been tormented by erotic dreams of Brian. She'd thought about and analyzed that shockingly intimate glance many times over. How could he, in a single, nonverbal exchange, reignite everything she'd spent years trying to extinguish? Damn. The feeling of being so exposed, so vulnerable, had made sleep impossible. She needed to deal with him and get past this. She hadn't had a single meaningful relationship since him. She'd tried, and always came back to the issues behind that last night.

She didn't want that. She wanted to be free. To find a partner, have a family, grow old with someone. Not be alone forever.

Taking a deep breath, she slugged back her coffee and refocused on her homework assignment in front of her. She'd been at it for almost an hour and the restaurant was starting to fill up.

This assignment required a list of the areas in her life that caused her unhappiness. On the opposite side of the page, she was to assess the whys. After this, she was supposed to list the changes she'd like to put into place. All of this constituted the basic groundwork. With partners, they would be sharing their lists and looking at what they could do to create change.

She wondered, wryly, if she could just put down one item—her life.

"Good morning. May I join you?" a deep, quiet voice asked.

Karina looked up, startled. John, a soft-spoken, middle-aged teacher she'd met at last night's coffee meeting, stood uncertainly beside her. Flustered, she set about to organize her papers to create space for him.

"Sure," she mumbled. "Sorry. What you see here is a last-minute attempt to complete our first assignment. Please, sit down."

John settled his impressive bulk. "I know what you mean. I've done the assignment, but wanted a minute to reread it." He placed his own notebook on the table.

He turned to the waitress approaching and ordered coffee and the breakfast special.

"Have you eaten yet? Or are you going to live on coffee?"

She grinned at the mischievousness in his voice. "I was up early, unlike some other people, so I've already eaten," she teased him. "Now if I could just complete this work." Gloomily, she propped her chin on her hands and stared out at the gray scene outside of the window. The sun might manage to shine today, but even if it did, she wouldn't get a chance to enjoy it. The seminar schedule was intensive with workshops, lectures, luncheons and a social hour. By evening she'd be exhausted, with one lecture still to go.

"May I take a look?" John asked.

Karina nodded, then turned her attention to the world outside of the window once again.

"You've taken a serious look at your life. Although you may not like the results, they do show thought and intention. I'm not sure he can expect more from us at this stage." He tapped the paper in his hand. "Frankly, I don't think I've done half as good a job as you have," he admitted.

"But doesn't it really say that I'm unhappy with everything in my life?"

"Isn't that why we're here?" he pointed out. "You'll probably find that as you start to make changes your list will change, too. Maybe dissatisfaction with a couple of major areas is coloring the rest of your outlook."

She pondered that bit of wisdom. "It's possible, I suppose. I'm going to head into the seminar room. I like to arrive early." She stood up, tossing enough money to cover her bill onto the table as she collected her papers.

In hindsight, she should have had more coffee. The morning damned near killed her. Her nerves were on extra-sensory alert and super-aware of Brian's very presence. And he'd ignored her. At every turn. And apparently without any difficulty at all. Whereas she was twisted in knots trying to appear unaffected.

With the attendees organized into groups, he'd moved freely throughout the room, checking in with each team. Except for her group. Thankfully, she'd quickly gotten caught up in the exercises they were doing. Brian might have been on her mind arriving but it was the valuable knowledge she was gaining that kept her focused.

At break, she found herself needing to be alone. She slipped out to the hallway and headed for a quiet empty space.

She stopped by a long window and stared out. Bending her head, she took several deep breaths and let some of the tension slip off her shoulders.