this one. It was his legacy and the house he’d grown up in becoming a campus.
I sighed when I reached his front door and knocked on the heavy wood. I hated feeling like I didn’t know what was going on with him. At least I knew he hadn’t had any more visits to the ER, but that was little consolation when I was as sure as I was that he was going through something. And not necessarily something good.
Annie, the housekeeper, smiled when she opened the door and saw me. Her graying hair was pulled up into a neat bun and her uniform was immaculate, but she was nowhere near as strict as she looked. She was one of the friendliest, warmest people I’d ever met, and frankly, with Jefferson being like a father figure to me, she had become something of a mother figure.
“Dane, it’s so good to see you, sweetheart,” she said, pulling me into a tight hug. “I’ve asked the old man when you’d be coming around again, but he’s been in such a mood these last couple of weeks.”
“How is he?” I asked, hugging her back before letting go of her. “He’s been very quiet. I’m not sure if I should be worried or not.”
“Physically, he’s fine,” she said, brown eyes soft on mine as she motioned me into the house. “He’s barely been out of his study, though. I’m not sure what he’s so busy with, but it’s definitely been keeping him occupied.”
I frowned but then schooled my expression when I saw him walking around the corner. He was wearing a velvet tracksuit in the middle of the day, which wasn’t like him, but otherwise, he looked good.
“I should’ve known you’d come sniffing around sooner or later,” he said, staring at me for a beat before he glanced at Annie. “Will you bring us some tea to the study? This might take a while.”
“I’ll fix sandwiches as well,” she said cheerfully, giving me another warm smile before she took off toward the kitchen.
Jefferson headed to his study and I followed without being told to do so. Once I was seated in one of the massive leather armchairs in front of the window in his private sanctuary, I cut to the chase.
“Where have you been?” I asked. “Why does it feel like you’ve been hiding from me?”
To my surprise, he chuckled as he sat down across from me. “That might be because I have been hiding from you.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise this time, my eyes widening at the ease of his admission. “Why?”
“Because I owe you an apology, but I also needed time to think,” he said, the humor draining from his eyes as they held mine. “I owe Leah an apology as well. It turns out her stunt at the party won her a lot of positive attention, as I’m sure you’ve seen online.”
I nodded. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the chatter. Marketing is on it, though. They’ll let us know if anything changes, but that doesn’t explain why you’ve been in hiding.”
“We’ve got more buyers for the product now than the factory can keep up with,” he said as if that explained everything. “If the orders keep coming in the way they have been, we’re not going to have enough of the product on launch day. I’ve been working at increasing our capacity.”
“Okay, but that’s great news.” I frowned again. “Why aren’t you happy? Even Annie says you’ve been in a mood.”
“Oh, I’m not happy,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he flashed me a brief smile. “I’m thrilled, but I’m also disappointed in myself.”
The smile disappeared as he scratched his beard, his gaze wandering to the unlit fireplace beside us. His shoulders slumped and he dragged in a deep breath before looking at me again. “I was so obsessed with this being my last launch that I lost sight of the bigger picture. Do you know the orders were hardly trickling in before those videos of Leah went up?”
“I’ve seen the reports,” I said. “We’d barely started marketing it at the time, though. It’s not unheard of for the orders to be slow so early on.”
“No, but it is unusual,” he said. “Especially because we’d already put word out to all the big buyers, but there just wasn’t much interest. It seems people aren’t all that taken with sweethearts anymore. They’re after strong women with minds of their own, and apparently, those who have the balls to stand