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“Sienna, I get that you had this whole thing like...scheduled, but why wouldn’t you let him stay for a little longer? Obviously you’re still upset and I would think you wouldn’t want to be alone.”

“First, how do you know I’m the one who asked him to leave? Maybe he was the one who had to cut the visit short?”

He snorted. “Please. You forget how well I know you. No doubt he was hovering and wanting to make sure you were okay and you were the one pushing to go back to work.” Another snort. “In case you didn’t notice, the university and all the research departments didn’t crumble while you were gone. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for you to give yourself a break and relax a bit.”

“Jason, I relaxed for two weeks,” she said wearily. “And even though I had the best time, it wasn’t exactly easy for me to just let everything go. This is who I am! And believe it or not, Michael’s just as much of a workaholic as I am.”

“So...what does that mean moving forward?” he asked. “Are the two of you going to do the long distance thing?”

“That’s what we thought at first, but...he’s going to move here,” she replied. “The plan is for him to possibly sell his place in Malibu, and he can work remotely. At least...that’s what he says. And I guess we’ll find someplace here. You know my place isn’t particularly big, and believe me when I say it’s beyond inferior to the places he owns.”

Silence.

Weird.

“He’ll still have to travel a bit, and there are times he’s going to have to be in L.A. or New York, so he’ll have to keep places there. I’ll keep my job so I won’t be able to travel with him a lot of the time, but...”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why all of it? Why is he moving to Durham? Why would you still work? I mean...you know Mick would take care of you and you’d never want for anything again. I guess I don’t understand why you’d ask him to move.”

Feeling more than a little annoyed, Sienna sat up a bit straighter. “Um...excuse me, but once again, you’ve gotten it wrong.”

“I wasn’t wrong a minute ago,” he mumbled, and dammit, he was right.

“Either way, you’ve got this wrong. He was the one to offer to move here. I didn’t ask. Granted, I didn’t think it would be fair for him to ask me to give up my entire life for him, but it never came to that. And you know what? I appreciated that. That’s how I knew how much I meant to him, because he’s the one making the sacrifices.”

“Okay, yeah, I get that, but why does he have to make all the sacrifices?”

“He’s not!” she countered.

“So then, what are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you just said he’s not making all the sacrifices, so I was curious about what you were bringing to the table?”

She didn’t like what he was implying.

“You know what? My relationship with Michael is private, and I’m not comfortable discussing this. How are Bree and the kids?”

He chuckled. “They’re fine. Everyone’s good. The kids have a ton of holiday festivities at school, so we’ve been running around like crazy. Which reminds me, are you coming home for Thanksgiving?”

Ugh...she had forgotten about that with everything that had been going on.

“Um...I’m not. Between the vacation and Eleanor, I’m behind at work. I’ll look at my calendar and maybe I’ll fly up the following week.”

“With Mick?”

“No, why?”

He groaned. “What are you doing, Sienna?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you serious about Mick? Are you planning a future with him?”