Page 121 of The Work Wife

“Nothing.”

“Jamie, you come down here and weasel your way into every little thing that is happening to me. Now tell me about you. Something’s bothering you. If you don’t let me help you, I’m going to move and not tell you where I’m going.”

He’d been making that threat since she was in seventh grade. So far, he hadn’t even changed grocery stores.

“Fine. Wes and I had a thing.”

“Did he tell you he was rich?” His delivery was as casual as if he’d asked if Wes had told her he liked cheese.

“You knew?” She gasped in surprise.

“I told you I was checking him out.”

“I told you not to.”

“I’m the parent. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

She answered this with a sound that she’d learned from him.

He chose to ignore it. “I confronted him about it. He said he was going to tell you when he was ready. He worried it might change things between you. Did it?”

“I don’t think so. I mean this ring is real.” She tossed her hand in the air.

“Why wouldn’t it be real?” His forehead creased in that detective-catching-someone-in-a-lie kind of way.

Oh, right. He didn’t know that part. She swallowed and held it up. “It’s huge. I assumed it was a fake. Wouldn’t you?”

“I assumed he was a dumb ass who didn’t have enough sense not to spend all his money on a piece of jewelry.”

“It was his grandmother’s. He didn’t buy it. But I guess he could have.”

“Maybe the money is bothering you more than you want it to.”

She shrugged. “We also have a cat. I’ve never seen it, but the lady across the hall has been coming over to refill the automatic water and food bowls. He didn’t mention we had a cat.”

“Jamie?”

“Yeah?”

“I have cancer. Can you cut me some slack and just tell me what the hell is bothering you?”

She raised her brow at him playing the cancer card. He knew that got her every time.

“I encouraged him to go work at his family business to see if it was the right fit for him. I could tell it bothered him to have walked away because of something his father had done. I know it was the right thing for him. I know it’s something he needs to do so he can have some peace.”

“And?” her father prompted when she stopped talking.

“I’m not sure if it was the right thing for us. I mean, we just got married and now he’s living in another city. We won’t get to see each other. What if we drift apart?”

He let out a breath and frowned. “You know that poem about letting something go and if it comes back to you it was meant to be?”

Oh, God. He was using poem therapy. How pathetic had she become to warrant poem therapy? “Yeah.”

“Well, it’s crap, but it does make a valid point. I let your mother go, and she didn’t come back. It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Dad, she was stoned out of her mind half the time and wouldn’t have known how to get back if she’d wanted to.”

“Still.” He held up his index finger. “It wasn’t meant to be,” he repeated. “If you and Wes love each other, a few hours’ drive isn’t going to do anything to ruin that. Besides, there’s all kinds of ways to stay in touch with someone. Send him a sext and he’ll be home in no time.”