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Gray shrugged. “Sounds like a personal problem to me. And as you well know, I don’t concern myself with the private family issues of my employees. All I know is, she’s still here. Working. In fact, working very hard. Please don’t say or do anything to chase her off. I don’t want to find a replacement for her.”
“Are you telling me she’s been here at work at the hotel all week?” Seth had thought about her no less than fifty times a day while he’d been gone. Trapped without a working cell phone all week to call and hear her voice.
More than once all week he’d considered the possibility that Barrington would expect her immediately. He’d been okay with that. Eventually, they’d be together.
In his recent daydreams she’d always been focused on getting back into the swing of her old life. Back in her big office. Back in her big city. He’d also been thinking about how difficult moving to Chicago might be for Garrett and for him too, but knew it would be worth it for the three of them to be together.
“Yep. That’s what I’m saying,” Gray said, bringing Seth back from his melancholy reverie. “She’s been here all week working very happily.”
“Where is she?”
“Oh. I’m not telling you that.”
“Why not?”
He tilted his head as if Seth were the stupidest person alive. “I told you already. I refuse to get involved in domestic disputes.”
Seth pushed out a sigh. “It’s not a domestic dispute.”
“Now that I think about it, she was a little bit down the first few days you were gone. I thought she just missed you, and not that there was trouble in paradise, but I kept my nose out of it. By mid-week she seemed to perk up a bit.”
“Tell me where she is, Gray. Is she in her office?” Seth looked in the direction of her office.
Gray shrugged, with exaggeration his time. “Couldn’t say.”
“No. You just won’t say.”
“Before you go charging forth in a manly-man barbarian fashion, perhaps stop to consider why she’s still working here, but moved out of your house. Maybe she doesn’t want to see you.”
Seth’s arms went up. “I thought she moved back to Chicago to take the job I thought she deserved to have. I wasn’t even looking for her to be here.”
“But she didn’t move back. She stayed here. Personally, I think you need to move forward from that. Perhaps when you told her to take her old job back, she took it to mean you didn’t want her around anymore. So she left you.”
“She didn’t leave us. We’re going to go to Chicago with her.”
“Oh? Does she know that? And when were you planning to tell me?”
“You don’t care where I go.” Seth pushed his hands through his hair. “Why would she think we weren’t going with her?”
“Because you took for granted that she could read your mind, but she can’t. You didn’t spell out your intentions. You didn’t put a ring on her finger, because I definitely would have noticed that.”
Seth went on the defense. “We wanted to wait until we got back from our respective trips before popping the question.” Seth’s eyes slid shut. They were so fucking stupid. They basically told her to go, but didn’t tell her they were going with her or that they wanted her permanently in their lives. The weight of that really bad plan from a week ago pushed in on his brain.
“So you just told her to go?” Gray asked.
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t bother to tell her you planned to keep her in your lives.”
“Pretty much.”
“Because in your jaded past that’s exactly what both you and Garrett would have done to get rid of a girl that was too serious about you. Pushed her out the door into a life you two decided was ‘best’ for her.”
“That’s not true.” It was completely true. “We don’t do that.” Anymore.
“Oh, please. Don’t make me give you a list.”
Seth pushed out a long sigh as a series of nameless faces of women paraded across his mind. Memories of before Jessica. “You’re right. I’m a pig. We were totally idiotic to not to spell out our plans.”
