his eyes crinkled as he smiled nervously. “Okay, you’re freaking me out now. What’s going on?” he asked. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Talk to me, Laney,” he said.
Delaney closed her eyes for a moment. She took a deep breath, then opened them.
“I want to sell you my half of the business,” she said in a rush.
Sam shook his head in confusion. “Sorry? Do you need money or something, Laney? Because you should have said—”
It was her turn to shake her head.
“No. I want out. I want out from the magazine, Sam.”
2
SAM FELT AS THOUGH he’d been punched in the gut. Delaney wanted to sell her half of the magazine? It just didn’t make sense to him. He shook his head again, frowning.
“I don’t get it. What’s changed all of a sudden?” he asked.
She was staring at the carpet, but she lifted her eyes to meet his before she spoke.
“I’ve had enough. I realized while I was away that I wanted to do something different. Maybe travel. I don’t know,” she said.
She was lying. He knew her better than he knew himself, and there was something she wasn’t telling him.
“Bull. Tell me what’s really going on,” he demanded, starting to feel angry and a little threatened.
Delaney couldn’t just walk out on him. They were a team, a tight little duo. He’d barely survived her annual two-week vacation with his sanity intact, for Pete’s sake.
“Sam,” she said, then she sighed heavily and put her head in her hands.
After a shocked second he saw that she was crying. Delaney never cried. Ever.
“Hey,” he said, shooting to his feet and moving to stand by her chair. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he held her tight. “Whatever it is, we’ll work it out,” he said.
He felt her body stiffen under his arm, and she sat up straighter. He got the message—she didn’t want his comfort. Feeling doubly rejected, he returned to the couch.
There was a long silence as they stared at each other across the small space that separated them. He studied her closely, trying to find some clue as to what was really going on. But she looked the same as ever—her long mid-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, the fringe sitting straight across her brow. Her hazel eyes were clear and bright, not a skerrick of makeup in sight, as usual. Her nose was a little red on the end, true, but that was from the crying, he guessed. And she was biting her lower lip, her teeth nibbling at the full curve. She had a small mouth, but her lips were full, the lower one particularly so. A Cupid’s bow, Delaney’s mother always called it, to which Delaney inevitably rolled her eyes.
She looked the same as she always had—like Laney. His best friend.
“Come on, spill,” he said softly.
She sniffed inelegantly and he leaned over to grab the box of tissues off her bookshelf.
She waited until she’d blown her nose before speaking.
“I want children, Sam. I want a husband. A family,” she said, shrugging one shoulder.
Sam frowned. Laney never talked about her love life. He was always a little bit surprised when he caught sight of a guy leaving her apartment. He could count on the fingers of one hand the times he’d been introduced to a man she was dating. She’d always been very private about it, and he’d respected that. Truth was, he didn’t really want to know, he suddenly acknowledged. Probably that made him a selfish bastard for not wanting her to be happy. Deep down inside he’d always feared that if she met Mr. Right, their friendship would change irrevocably. Sam would be number two in her life. And when children came, he’d be shuffled even further down the food chain. It didn’t say much for his nobility as a human being that the thought of Delaney with a family made him feel scared and lonely and threatened. But there it was.
Struggling to contain his messed-up emotions, Sam smoothed his hands down his thighs, then clasped his knees, bracing himself to be a grown-up.
“Of course you want kids,” he finally managed to say.
Delaney laughed, a watery, reluctant chuckle.
“You are the worst actor in the world, Kirk,” she said.
He shrugged sheepishly. “Okay,” he conceded. “You know I’ll be jealous as hell when you get married and have kids,” he admitted.
She looked startled. “Jealous?”
“You know—’cause things won’t be the same anymore,” he explained awkwardly.
Delaney’s eyes dropped to the carpet and she hunched a shoulder. “No, they won’t.”
“But I don’t see what any of that has to do with leaving the business,” Sam said. He might be about to lose most of Delaney, but he would cling to what little he had left. If she stayed in the business, she would always be a part of his life, no matter what.
“It’s too all-consuming, Sam,” she said. “We live for this place. How am I ever supposed to meet someone when all I do is eat, sleep, breathe Mirk Publications?”
“Then we’ll get a sales assistant. You can do half days. Whatever it takes,” he countered.
“No. It wouldn’t work. I’m a control freak, you know I am. And it’s thinking about the business when I’m not here that’s part of it, as well. I’d still be doing that if I owned half of it. I need a complete break,” she said.
There was a determination in her tone, a firmness that he recognized. Delaney had made her decision. Without talking it over with him. Without consulting him in any way. She’d simply gone away, and come back determined to do her own thing.
He started to get angry. “And where does that leave me?” he asked. He hated the fact that he sounded like a sulky kid, but that was how he felt, so he might as well own up to it.
“Sam, you can easily afford to buy me out. You know you can. Or you can get in another partner. Or go into partnership with another small publisher. God knows, we’ve had enough of them sniffing around over the years,” she said.
Sam stared at her. She was serious about this. Completely serious. He wanted to yell at her. To tell her in no uncertain terms how stupid and selfish and wrong all this was. But he didn’t. He bit his tongue and fought for control.
“When do you want out?” he managed to ask.
“As soon as possible,” she said baldly.
Unbelievably, in light of their conversation to date, her words still stung. He rocketed to his feet.
“I’ll talk to the bank,” he said, and then he pulled her office door open, slamming it behind him as he exited. Their entire staff turned his way, but he ignored them all, crossing next door to his own office and slamming that door, too.
Then
