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Anxiety crawled down her back.
“I didn’t know where you were.”
“I didn’t know when you were coming home,” Amelia replied, feeling a bit defensive, but she forced out a breath of air and tried to let it go. “I’m sorry.”
He paused for a long moment. His face was set in a frown, and she could feel all of the worry of her day come back at her.
“You’ve been off today. What’s going on?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer that. Her mind filed through the day, like a mail sorter who was two days behind, and the worst words came out of her mouth.
“What do you think about Dana?”
He blinked. “I don’t think anything about her, other than I’ve told her to let me work.”
“But like . . . if you had to.”
“The only way I think about her is as my employee. Nothing else.”
“But—”
“Amelia, there is nothing else.”
His voice was firm, and she felt like an idiot. “It’s just . . . you can have anyone. And after Cheryl saying you would go after a younger, prettier woman, and the fact that I overheard them talking shit about me—”
“Hang on. Who was talking about you?”
“Dana and Andrea. They said that I was only a fling and the first relationship after a marriage never works out, which is so insulting, by the way.”
“She—” he nearly snapped, but then he took a deep breath to calm himself. Shit. He was mad at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want you upset with her over something personal.”
“Personal or not, that is incredibly inappropriate for her to say.”
“Yeah, I’m aware,” she muttered. “But I can’t just snap my fingers and make her stop. I sent out that email, all right? That’s about all I can do.”
“I can talk to her.”
“No, I don’t want you doing that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want personal issues messing with work. You said she’s a good employee so there’s no need to mess that up just because she’s being petty.”
“You’re my girlfriend. I have a right to defend you against that kind of stuff.”
“Fake girlfriend,” she reminded. “Which is why I shouldn’t have even been upset. We’re supposed to end.”
Daniel shook his head. “Is that really what you think? That there is some version of this where I leave you at the end of it?”
She blinked, heart pounding. “I don’t know why you would stay.”
And she didn’t. She’d messed up today by not being home when he was. She couldn’t form a decent thought to save her life, and she’d made him angry by bringing up Dana. She’d screwed up at every turn.
“I have a million reasons why I would stay.”
“But—”
