Page 49 of The Wrong One

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Ramsey, there isn’t a problem,” I said. “I had no idea she wanted to quit. We had a busy week but that’s not unheard of. We barely spoke. She had her thing and I had mine. We never exchanged a cross word.”

“You obviously did something or said something,” he said.

I wasn’t about to tell him I did a lot more than that.

“I don’t know what I could have done,” I said. “I cannot think of anything. We were fine. We were working fine. I saw her yesterday and everything was fine. I don’t know what happened.”

“I need you to fix this problem,” he said. “If she doesn’t have a job, she has no anchor. Without an anchor, we both know where that leads. She’ll run right back to that piece of shit. I don’t want her leaving. She needs to be here!”

“Ramsey, you need to take a breath,” I said. “Tell me what she said. I’ll try and figure it out from there.”

“Yesterday, she told me she wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go home,” he started. “That was cool. I told her to take the day or two if she needed. Last night she showed up at my house completely overwhelmed. She said she couldn’t do it. She said she needed to take a step back and work from home while she sorted herself out.”

“What?” I asked. I was so confused. I was missing half the book. I was watching the end of the movie without having a clue as to what happened in the beginning or middle.

“She said there’s a lot on her plate and she needed space from the job,” he said. “She told me she could work from home, but she didn’t want to be in the lab. Don’t you find that a little odd?”

He leaned forward and gave me an accusatory stare. My eyes widened and I shook my head. “I honest to God, have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know why she needs space.”

I hoped he was buying it because I was not the best liar. I could be smooth, but this was Ramsey. Ramsey could see through my bullshit without even trying. He glared at me. “I know Izzy loves her job. I know she thrives in this environment, so I’m a little confused as to why she suddenly needs to work from home. The only person she works with one-on-one on a regular basis is you. So, by deductive reasoning, that leaves you. You did something to her. You did something that hurt her feelings or pissed her off. You need to figure out what the hell that is.”

“Ramsey, I’m telling you I don’t know what this is about,” I said. “She never acted like anything was wrong. She never gave any hints she was upset about anything. I don’t know. We never argued. Like I said, we were both focused on our own work. We didn’t get in each other’s way.”

“Were you ignoring her?”

“No,” I said.

That was a little bit of a lie. I wasn’t ignoring her, but I wasn’t going out of my way to have a conversation with her. That would put me too close to her. I couldn’t look at the woman without wanting her. I still saw her in that damn T-shirt. If I got too close or looked at her, I’d get hard. I couldn’t walk around the lab with a hard-on all damn day. It was self-preservation. Besides, it wasn’t like we ever said we were going to crawl all over each other when we were at work. We were professionals. We weren’t some young couple who couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We had work to do. That was more important than playing grab-ass or exchanging flirty looks.

“You did something,” he said. “You need to fix it. You probably don’t even remember doing it.”

I gave him a dry look. “I would remember doing something so grievous it would make an employee want to quit.”

“Izzy isn’t quite herself right now,” he said a little calmer. “I wanted her to work with us because I know we can keep a close eye on her. We can be more sensitive to what she’s going through with Patrick.”

“You want to put a bubble around her,” I said.

“I do, but she’s not going to let me do that,” he admitted. “But I can try and limit the stress. I can do what’s necessary to limit the bullshit she has to deal with on a daily basis.”

“I know.” I sighed.

I felt like an ass. “I’ll talk to her.”

“Not today,” he said. “Give her a day or two to get her bearings. I don’t know what it was that got to her, but I have a feeling it has something to do with that prick. I don’t want to push too hard. I just need to take it easy and put up some guardrails. I’m counting on you, Cam. You have always been like a brother to Izzy. She needs us. Patrick did a number on her. I don’t know how to fix her. All I can do is try to be there and help her through it. She’s not the same little sister I remember. My strong, defiant, and slightly mouthy sister has been replaced by a shell of her old self.”

I nodded. “For what it’s worth, she kicks ass in the lab. We do talk. We have had lunch together and she seemed like she was happy. Well, happier. I got glimpses of the old Izzy.”

“Good,” he said. “She’s retreated. You need to work your magic and bring her back into the light.”

“I will,” I promised.

I left his office and waited until I got back to the lab to try and call Izzy despite Ramsey telling me not to. This had to be because of what happened. I knew I had been a bit cold and distant this last week, but I’ve been trying to get my head on straight and figure out our next move. I didn’t want this thing with Izzy to end. It felt too good to just let it go. I was just kind of stuck. I thought Izzy understood that.

I couldn’t be selfish. I wanted to be with Izzy, but it wasn’t fair to her or Ramsey. Or Lily. I didn’t want what me and Izzy had to cost me my friendship with Ramsey. He was a huge part of my life. I thought of him as a brother. He was really the only family I had. I was risking losing them all. Because if Ramsey decided he couldn’t accept me and Izzy dating, he was going to kick me to the curb. Izzy would have to choose her brother over me, which I would tell her to do. I would lose Lily. I would lose my business partner. There were some legal complications with that, but it was still a tricky situation. We had a great working relationship. We were already rich, but our company was on the verge of changing the world.

I had to decide how much I was willing to risk.

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