Married In The Morning

“Guys, he’s been encouraging me to go.”

Josh peered up. “And what does Gina say?”

Gerrick smiled at the irony. “She’s emphatic that I go. She’s also emphatic that you can handle this without me.”

Ethan slapped his palm on the leather arm of his chair. “Then I guess you go,” he said, but he didn’t sound happy or encouraging.

“And we’ll handle it,” Josh said, as he rose.

The two men walked out of the office without another word and Gerrick rubbed his hands down his face. He had just lost two friends. First, he married Gina and thoroughly pushed her from his life. Then, to accommodate Gina, he had to leave Hilton-Cooper-Martin Foods, which alienated his friends. The only person he hadn’t run off was Hilton and Gerrick suspected that if he ever found out about the secret Vegas wedding, Hilton wouldn’t be his supporter anymore, either.

He remembered the old saw: be careful what you wish for because you may get it, and knew it was right. He had wished Gina would notice him, wished he could marry her before he moved to Maine, and both had happened.

And it had not only cost him any chance with her. It also cost his two best friends.

After settling her father in at the hospital in Atlanta, Gina arrived home the following Wednesday, exhausted but satisfied that her dad would eventually be back to normal. She joyfully paid the taxi driver and gave him a healthy tip because he lugged her assorted bags, boxes and mismatched suitcases into the foyer of the Martin mansion.

The first thing she saw after she turned away from the door was a note propped up against a vase on the small mahogany table beneath the large mirror. The envelope bore her name, so she reached for it and ripped it open.

She read it and tears unexpectedly filled her eyes. It said only,

I’m sorry,

Gerrick

P.S. By the way, I did love you. I might always love you.

Overcome, Gina dropped to sit on the bottom step of the stairway that spiraled to the second floor. The funny part of it was, she believed Gerrick really did love her. Or at least he loved the woman she had been in Vegas. Gina didn’t know who that woman was but she did know she was gone for good. Particularly since she had more than a sneaking suspicion her father would begin to train her to take over the company once he returned to work, and her time would be taken up with facts, figures and negotiating strategies. So Gerrick was better off this way. The real Gina Martin wasn’t the kind to fly to Vegas on the spur of the moment, to deliberately buy shimmering lace panties and bras because she knew the man shopping with her was attracted to her and she wanted to tease him.

The real Gina didn’t tease people. The real Gina had thrown away the red bra and thong. The real Gina had invested the money she won playing blackjack.

Gerrick was much better off without her.

She pressed her lips together to stop their trembling, but couldn’t stop the flood of tears that rolled down her cheeks. Though she didn’t remember a big part of it—the most important part—that weekend in Vegas had been the best, most fun weekend of her entire life. But now she had to get back to her real world.

Chapter Three

Between monitoring Josh’s work as temporary head of Hilton-Cooper-Martin Foods and overseeing the treatment of her sick father, Gina initially didn’t get much chance to think about Gerrick. When her thoughts did drift to him, she experienced the dull ache of missing him, but convinced herself that any thoughts she had of him were only the typical concern she would have for any co-worker who moved so far away. Particularly when weeks passed without so much as a phone call from him. The very fact that Gerrick never called—not even to check on her father—was proof any feelings he had for her were gone and any feelings she might have had for him were pointless.

At breakfast on the Monday of the fourth week after returning to Atlanta, Gina’s father told her he was coming into the office and wanted her to call an employee meeting in the company cafeteria for ten o’clock that morning. She argued that he wasn’t allowed to come in yet, though even she had to admit both his color and his energy were back. But he told her he had cleared this trip with his doctor and he was going in. Since he still had to get dressed, he told her to feel free to leave without him.

Gina drove to the corporate headquarters and she immediately wrote an e-mail instructing all department heads to have their employees in the cafeteria at ten. Assuming her father wanted everyone together to thank them for their cards, letters and phone calls, she had the maintenance department remove the tables from the room and arrange the chairs for theater seating, before they brought in the podium.

A good daughter and dutiful employee, at ten o’clock Gina was sitting on one of the folding chairs with her co-workers, when her father strode into the room and up to the podium. Wearing a navy-blue suit that complemented his very white hair and pale-blue eyes, Hilton Martin turned to face the assembled crowd. As the employees scrambled to their feet in thunderous applause, Gina also rose, clapping as loudly as everyone else. Her dad was the handsomest man on the face of the earth.

An image of Gerrick flashed in her mind contradicting that conclusion, but she shoved it aside. Not because Gerrick wasn’t attractive, but because he was gone. That was done. She might occasionally think about him and wonder how he was doing, but if Ethan or Josh had gone to Maine, she would have wondered about them, too. She certainly didn’t miss the man who had married her then never called her, and she didn’t long to see him. No matter if that thought did pop into her brain, she wouldn’t sanction it. He was gone. G-o-n-e.

“Sit. Sit,” Hilton said, waving aside their applause, though Gina could see he was pleased by the welcome he received. “You’re gonna make me feel like you missed me,” he teased and the employees laughed. He motioned with his hand that everyone should sit and the applause stopped. The room grew quiet.

“Okay. I know you’re wondering why I called you in this morning. Most of you are probably wondering why I’m even here.”

“Yeah, this was my week to use your executive washroom,” one of the employees called out, continuing the running joke the sales staff had about commandeering his washroom while he was recuperating.

“I’m having that place dusted for prints,” Hilton said, giving back as good as he got. “And the cleaning crew for that room will be made up of everybody whose prints I find.”

That brought another spurt of laughter, followed by another round of applause and Gina breathed a long sigh of relief. Her father looked a little tired, but he was essentially back to normal. At least as normal as he could be until he had his bypass surgery. In fact, she suspected his upcoming surgery was the reason he had returned prematurely. He probably wanted to clear up everything he could before he had to take off another long span of recovery time. Specifically, he had to officially appoint Josh as head of Operations and give him temporary power to run the company.

“Anyway, you’re here for two reasons. First, I want to thank you for the cards, flowers, gifts, fruit baskets, homemade cookies and phone calls.” His eyes misted and his throat sounded tight. “Thank you.”

The employees again applauded exuberantly, and Hilton took the opportunity to compose himself. When the commotion died down, he said, “The second reason I brought you here is to tell you that I have decided to retire.”

“What?”

Gina wasn’t the only person who had said that out loud. Beside her, Ethan McKenzie and Josh Anderson both said the same thing. It wasn’t unusual for her fun-loving father to dramatically make surprise announcements that even upper-echelon staff didn’t know about. But this wasn’t a surprise. It was a disaster. She, Ethan and Josh knew they weren’t ready to take over. They might have done well in the short-term, but they couldn’t run the company indefinitely.

“Now, hear me out. I didn’t mention to anyone that I was thinking about retiring,” he said, glancing apologetically at Gina, Josh and Ethan, “because I wanted to be sure the person I picked to replace me could take the job before I announced I was leaving. And I got a phone call early this morning indicating my replacement would be here today so I decided there was no reason to wait to make the transition.”

Everyone in the room appeared dumbfounded. Gina simply stared at her father realizing she, Ethan and Josh didn’t have to take over. Actually, the change wouldn’t affect Ethan and Josh at all. Ethan already headed his department and Josh had had no choice but to assume the leadership position in Operations when Gerrick left. Both of them were in place. But for Gina, her father’s leaving the company was staggering. It meant it would not be her dad who trained her to run the business. A stranger would show her the ropes, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.