“Well, it’s nowhere near as nice as your house, but I’m happy for you to stay as long as you want. I’m always at Jack’s anyway. I don’t even know why I keep this place.”
Amy had gone directly to Jack’s house from the ferry, and he and Cassie had taken her to her house to pack a bag. She’d emailed Mason and told him she was clearing out for a week and asked him to have his stuff out. He’d written back assuring her he would be gone before the week was up. It was all very civilized and businesslike. There had been no gnashing of teeth, no more sobbing—she seemed to have gotten that out of her system with Dax. Maybe she was just numb, but she wondered why there wasn’t more drama. If you really, truly loved someone, shouldn’t you be more broken up in a situation like this?
“It’s important to have a place of your own,” she said, understanding exactly why Cassie held on to the cute, cozy apartment. “And it is too as nice as my place. It’s totally charming.” It was the truth. In some ways, the studio apartment reminded her of Dax’s little house. It was much girlier, but functionally, there were similarities. It was small but comfy and stocked with everything a person needed, making her question why she’d ever bought her three-bedroom house to begin with. She’d been twenty-three when she bought it. What did a twenty-three-year-old need with eighteen-hundred square feet? She’d been planning ahead, even then.
“Yeah, it’s kind of symbolic, I guess,” Cassie said. “I worked hard to afford this place back in the day, and I’m not ready to give it up just because I happened to run into Mr. Richie Rich.”
Amy smiled at Cassie’s name for Jack. And even though she knew and Cassie knew that the place was purely symbolic—she couldn’t imagine anything wrenching apart Jack and Cassie—she said, “I hope I’m not keeping you out. Mason should be out of my place in a week at the most.”
“Not at all. Stay as long as you like. But I hope you know Jack meant it when he said you’re welcome to stay with us in his house. There’s a guest room with your name on it if you change your mind.”
“I appreciate it. I just kind of want to be alone to, I don’t know, wallow and lick my wounds. That sounds dumb, doesn’t it? But I’ve never really lived alone before. Mason and I were already dating when I bought the Forest Hill house, and he moved in a month later. I went from college roommates to him.”
“I get it. Just don’t hide out too much.” She flashed a smile. “I’ll come by to check on you tomorrow.”
“Jack and I aren’t done discussing the work situation,” Amy protested. “I may still see you at the office tomorrow if you come by for lunch like usual.” Her boss had ordered her to take the week off. Amy had insisted that she was fine to come to work. She’d told Cassie she wanted to be alone, and it was true…to a point. But a week with nothing scheduled? She wasn’t sure she could handle that. “Tell Jack I’ll call him later.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.” Cassie waggled her fingers as she shut the door behind her, leaving Amy alone. Totally, completely alone.
She hadn’t even bought a new phone yet.
It was a little bit scary. It was a little bit awesome.
…
When Dax headed over to Winter Enterprises later that week, it wasn’t because he wanted to see Amy. He’d been hearing about her from Cassie, who reported that after an initial few days of crying on and off, Amy had seemingly picked herself up and gotten on with things. She was on a Jack-ordered holiday and was holed up in Cassie’s old place, apparently filling her days with movies and shopping and trips to the spa. Cassie was skeptical, worried that Amy wasn’t allowing herself to really feel her heartbreak, but Dax wasn’t so sure. It seemed entirely possible that Amy was over Dr. Vajayjay and was merely enjoying her hard-won freedom. But who knew? Probably Cassie was right. Women knew about that shit. He certainly didn’t. He’d only ever had one serious relationship, and when he’d tried to break that off, all hell had broken loose.
It wasn’t only Cassie who’d been talking about Amy. All week, his employees had been afire with chatter about the wedding—they were plotting an elaborate hacking scheme designed to ruin Mason’s credit rating. It was all Amy all the time on the forty-ninth floor, even though she wasn’t there. There was no escaping her.
So when he heard from the programmers that Amy had been spotted on the forty-ninth floor on the Friday of her forced vacation, he wasn’t wandering over there, like the Boy Geniuses were talking about doing, to bask in her newly single presence. His trip to the neighboring company was to see if Jack wanted to grab lunch.