Nate nodded. “Alright. I’ll see you on Monday.”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
Monday. At least that gave me a day to figure out how the hell I was ever supposed to look Jacqueline in the eye again.
CHAPTER 20
JACQUELINE
“Jacque?” Miranda asked, her voice filtering into my thoughts. “What are you doing here?”
I glanced up to find her leaning against my office door with her arms crossed and one perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched as she looked at me with questions in her eyes.
“I work here,” I said. “Jeez, I didn’t know you guys had such short memories. I was only gone for a few days.”
Her lips curved into a smile and she shook her head as she pushed off the doorframe. “Oh, I remember you, alright. I also remember that you’re supposed to be on paid time off.”
“Iwas,” I corrected lightly. “Past tense. I’m back now.”
“I can see that.” She took a step into the office and closed my door behind her with a soft click. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said, but the look she gave me in return told me that she knew I was full of it.
She crossed toward my desk, gracefully lowering herself down in the chair across from me and folding her hands on her lap. Then she just sat there, looking like she was waiting patiently for something to happen.
I frowned. “What?”
“Start talking,” she said calmly, as if she was my therapist and it was a foregone conclusion that we would be having this conversation. “What’s going on, Jacqueline? Youe were scheduled for at least a couple more days off.”
I looked back at her, picking through my thoughts and feelings for a beat before I realized that if I truly did want to start making friends here, then at some point, I had to letsomeonein. While it hadn’t gone very well to have let that someone be Jesse initially, I couldn’t let him stop me from seeking true connection.
All my so-called friends in London were gone and I was starting from scratch, which meant I probably had to suck up my pride and take her up on the offer to talk. I simply wasn’t sure where to begin.
“When your father first offered me this job, I was engaged to a man named Thomas,” I said finally. “He’s an archaeologist.”
To her credit, Miranda didn’t react dramatically to that bit of news. She just nodded slowly and then let out a quiet, “Okay.”
“He was very much opposed to moving here,” I explained. “Positions aren’t easy to come by in his profession and he always said that if he did move again, it would be back home to France.”
“So that’s why you didn’t give us an immediate answer,” she concluded with a soft, sympathetic smile on her lips. “Yet here you are, so what happened?”
“I got home after a wedding and he was gone,” I said. “After almost a decade together, he disappeared without even telling me in person that it was over. He left a note, took my dog, and that was it.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m sorry. He stole your dog?”
“Yes, he did,” I said, happy that she, too, was more upset about that than anything else. “I bought and paid for Hubert, raised him, trained him, and bought him ridiculous little toys he never played with, but Thomas took him anyway.”
Miranda scoffed. “Well, it’s official. I hate him. That’s potentially one of the most awful things I’ve ever heard.”
“Thank you,” I replied, deeply satisfied with her reaction. Talking to her had definitely been the right decision, even if that had been the easier part. “Stealing a dog simply to be spiteful genuinely feels like the kind of detail that should be included in a criminal profile, don’t you think?”
“It really does.” She let out a soft laugh, tilting her head at me as it subsided. “How are you actually doing with it all?”
“I’m mostly fine,” I said, wincing a little. “I mean, that’s odd, isn’t it? I know I should be more upset, but I’m really just annoyed that he took Hubert. Things weren’t working out between us. I won’t deny that, but why steal the dog when you know how much someone else loves him, while you don’t really care much at all? If I’d done something wrong, then I suppose it might’ve made sense, but I didn’t. Things just fizzled out between us. There was no reason to be cruel.”
Miranda shook her head. “I don’t think it’s odd to be focused on that or not to be totally devastated about the breakup. You’re a practical person and you obviously feel passionate about justice. The fact that he took your dog is unjust, and therefore, you need to make that right before you’ll be able to process everything else.”
“Excellent,” I said. “So we’re in agreement that I’m emotionally stunted.”
