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He waited for the café to open and walked inside, expecting to see Jamie standing behind the counter waiting on customers. Instead, he found a pale Clara taking orders.
Waiting until all of the customers were taking care of, he walked to the counter.
“Where is Jamie?” he asked.
“She’s gone,” Clara said, a tear escaping from her eye.
“What do you mean, gone?” Luke asked.
“She left Ivy Springs for good.”
Luke’s heart sank.
“Where did she go?”
“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is the hell that Jamie has been going through in the last several weeks.”
“What hell? What are you talking about?” Luke asked, completely bewildered.
Clara told him about Alexis and how Alexis had threatened and bullied Jamie. She explained that Alexis had tried to get Jamie fired and kicked out of her home because Jamie refused to quit seeing him.
“On top of that, your father came by yesterday morning. He threatened to make her disappear if she didn’t stop seeing you,” Clara said.
“He did what?” Luke exclaimed.
“He threatened to make her disappear. Jamie was afraid that it meant that your father was going to kill her,” Clara said. “She said that she was going to tell you about it last night.”
“She said that she needed to talk to me about something at dinner, but we kept getting interrupted. She never mentioned anything about Alexis.”
“That was because she didn’t think that you needed to know. She kept telling me that men hate drama and the drama that Alexis was creating would just drive you away.”
“Oh, my lord,” Luke said. “I had no idea. Poor Jamie.”
Clara’s eyes narrowed and she put her hands on her hips.
“Did you ever happen to notice that Jamie was stressed out? Did you ever think to ask her about it?”
“I saw that she was a little tense sometimes, but I figured that she would talk about it if she wanted to,” Luke admitted. “Last night she said that she wanted to talk to me about something. She told me that she was in love with me.”
Clara just looked at him.
“I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. Now I feel like a complete ass about everything. Please tell me where she is so that I can make it up to her.”
“I don’t think so,” Clara said.
Luke stared at her for a minute and then nodded. He figured that he wasn’t going to be able to change Clara’s mind, at least right now. Clara was very angry at the entire situation.
Furious, Luke drove up to the resort and found Alexis at the bar, eating breakfast. She jumped up with a huge smile on her face and her arms wide like she was going to hug him.
“Luke. I’m so glad that you came,” she said.
“Cut the crap, Alexis. I just found out that you have been making Jamie’s life miserable. Did you really try to get her fired and kicked out of her house?”
“I was just doing it for us,” Alexis said. “I knew that if Jamie was out of the way that you and I could be together. I heard that she left town. You can get to know me. I know that we’ll be great together.”
“I don’t think so,” Luke said. “There is no way I could ever be with you. You are a spoiled woman who only thinks of herself. You have no compassion for anyone else in the world. You think that the entire universe revolves around you. I have no use for someone like that.”
Alexis gasped.
