Page 21 of Embracing the Change

Extreme irritation formed a hot ball in his chest, considering, during his dead wife’s memorial reception, there should be no issue that required his attention in the foyer.

“What is it?” he clipped at the venue manager.

The man cleared his throat and further lowered the already low voice he’d been using. “There’s a gentleman who’s demanding entry who says he’s Mrs. Oakley’s husband.”

Chet.

Dru’s biological father.

Not Lindy’s husband.

Christ, he hadn’t seen that asshole in years.

Jamie’s body stiff with rage, he moved toward the foyer, only to nearly run over Nora, who appeared for the sole purpose of blocking his path.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured.

“I’ll handle it,” she declared.

His head ticked. “You’ll handle what?”

“That man in the foyer,” she stated. And before he could ask how she knew, she told him. “I was coming back from the powder room, and I overheard what he was saying.” Her gaze drifted away, and she muttered to herself, “I should have stepped in right then.”

“This isn’t something you can handle,” he shared.

She tipped her head to the side, and for the first time in so long, it seemed a millennium, Jamie felt the urge to laugh at the openly confused expression on her face that there might be something…anything…in this world she couldn’t handle.

He didn’t laugh because he had to say, “Dru’s biological father is not a nice man.”

“I already ascertained that,” she huffed.

And with that, he knew Chet was causing a scene.

“I can do this,” he told her.

“I have no doubt. That doesn’t negate the fact you aren’t doing this,” she retorted.

He opened his mouth to refute her assertion, when several of his guests moved to his side.

Nora smiled benignly at them, coasted a glance through his eyes, and took the opportunity of Jamie being waylaid to hustle on her black pumps toward the foyer.

From where he stood, he couldn’t see what was happening in the foyer.

All he saw was, five minutes later, Nora returning. When she caught his gaze, she swiped her hands together as if cleaning dust from them, sharing without words the mission was accomplished. After doing that, she looked away in order to take a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter.

That was the last he saw of her that day.

He would never know how she handled Chet.

All he knew was that he, nor Dru, ever heard from the man again.

And that was all he needed to know.

Six weeks later…

Dru was, thankfully, spending the night with some girlfriends.

She needed that. To do normal things. To remember she was a teenager. To fiddle around with makeup and talk about boys and hopefully giggle and watch movies that Jamie (nor Lindy) would want her to watch because neither of them relished the fact she was growing up so fast.

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