in the world was he going to do without her?
DELANEY TOOK A LONG, shuddery breath and then let it out. She’d just had the hardest conversation of her life, hands down. Swiveling in her chair, she leaned forward and rested her forehead on her desk.
The look in Sam’s eyes. The hurt. The lack of comprehension. She hated causing him pain, but she had no choice.
Unless she was prepared to tell him the real reason she had to go.
Which was never going to happen.
Which left her back at square one. Although, technically, she was at square two now. She’d delivered the big blow. Now she just had to live through the next little while before she could walk away from the business. And Sam.
Her heart wrenched painfully in her chest at the thought. But she had to face up to it. One day soon, in a month or two’s time, she would walk out the double doors of this building and out of Sam’s life forever.
She lifted her head off the desk, then dropped it down again, banging her forehead. It felt like an appropriate punishment for the mess she’d created, and she did it several more times—bang, bang, bang, bang—until it suddenly occurred to her that she might bruise her forehead. Good luck explaining that one to sane, ordinary people—I’d just screwed up my entire life, so I thought I’d add brain damage to the mix.
Lifting her head, she stared blindly at the wall planner in front of her. Absolute honesty time—there had been a part of her that had hoped that when Sam heard her big news he’d break down and say something to give her hope. She figured that the exact same part of her twisted female psyche was responsible for believing in unicorns when she was five and Santa Claus until she was eight, but it didn’t make the realization any easier to bear. How sad could she get? Even at the eleventh hour, she was hoping for a reprieve, that he’d tell her he was mad about her, he couldn’t stand the thought of life without her. As if Sam wouldn’t have found some time over the past, say, sixteen years to recognize that his brotherly affection was actually repressed lust for her slim, boyish body, if that were actually the case.
A knock sounded on the door behind her.
“Yes?” she called out.
The door opened a crack and their desktop artist, Rudy, poked his head in. “You okay?” he asked cautiously. With his flamboyant red-and-blue-dyed hair and multiple piercings, coupled with his tendency to dress in brightly colored rave club wear, Rudy looked like a demented elf.
Delaney summoned a smile for him. “I’m fine,” she lied.
“Right. I’ve been with you guys for five years, Delaney. You and Sam have never slammed doors before,” Rudy said.
“Sam slammed the door,” Delaney pointed out.
Rudy rolled his eyes as if to say it was the same difference. “Is everything all right?” he asked.
Delaney opened her mouth to offer up another soothing platitude, but she realized that she might as well just tell him the truth. The sooner it became an accepted fact, the sooner she could move on.
“I’ve asked Sam to buy out my share of the magazine,” she said. “I’m leaving the business.”
Rudy’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. “No way!” he said.
Delaney just held his eye until the incredulous expression faded from his face.
“But you and Sam are like bread and butter. Or strawberries and cream. Or…or…peanuts and bananas. You never have one without the other,” Rudy said.
“Peanuts and bananas, Rudy?” she queried.
“Try it sometime,” he said. Then he stared at Delaney as if he were a lost puppy.
She tried her best to be reassuring.
“It’s not going to change anything for you guys. Sam will still be here. The magazine will be exactly the same,” she said.
“No, it won’t. It’s not the same without you around. If you’d been here for the past two weeks you’d know that. Sam can’t do all the things you do. Just like you can’t do all the things he does. That’s why you make a great team. Like peanuts—”
“And bananas. I got it,” Delaney said. “I’m sorry, Rudy, but it’s just the way it is. It’ll all work out okay, you’ll see.”
If only she could believe her own advice. Shooting her one last bewildered look, Rudy slipped back out into the main office. Within seconds, their remaining four employees would be up to speed, Delaney guessed. Which would save her having to conduct the same difficult, uncomfortable conversation four more times.
Working on autopilot, she turned her computer on and began to organize her desk. Sam’s practical joke had left her normally neat and tidy work surface a mess of disordered paper. She spent the next twenty minutes mindlessly filing and straightening things, then she worked her way through her phone messages. By the time she’d dealt with the more urgent ones, it was lunchtime.
She usually ate lunch with Sam. They’d walk to a local café, or jump in the car and go somewhere farther afield, just to clear their heads. Once or twice a year, when the weather was too damned irresistible and the surf report was too enticing, they’d bail on work completely for the whole afternoon and take off for the nearest surf beach.
She could just imagine his expression if she sauntered next door and suggested they grab a bite. She hadn’t heard a peep from him since he’d barreled out of her office and into his own—no low murmur of phone conversation, no chatting with the other employees. Like her, Sam was probably staying put in his office, reeling from her announcement.
For a second she was gripped with a wild impulse to tell him it had all been a big, stupid joke. That she’d just been yanking his chain, the ultimate practical gag.
The urge was so strong she forced herself to scoop up her car keys and purse before she could give in to it. Striding to the front door, she told Debbie that she’d be back in an hour.
The mall was probably not the best place to go when she was feeling down, but somehow she wound up there. Fluorescent lighting, neon signs, crowds of dull-eyed shoppers—she fit right in as she walked around aimlessly, staring blankly at clothes racks, sorting pointlessly through sales bins. It wasn’t until she caught herself burrowing furiously through a bargain bin, trying to find a complete set of Christmas-themed napkin rings, that she snapped out of it.
Not only did she not own napkins, she hated knick-knacky home decor items with a passion. Dropping the offending objects like hot potatoes, she exited the store and sat on the nearest bench. Pulling a notebook from her handbag, she forced herself to focus.
Yes, she was a little off balance after making such a life-changing decision and then following through on it by telling Sam her intentions, but it was no excuse to wig out completely. She had to keep moving toward her end goal—find a husband, build a family.
She wrote both things down in her notebook, then groaned and tore the page out, throwing it into the nearby bin. Who was she kidding? She didn’t need a to-do list—she knew what had to be done.
First, she had to stop
