Page 116 of The Moment You Know

“I left her,” he announced evenly.

Paige, in the process of taking a drink of her wine, almost choked on it. “Ashley? You left Ashley? Like, left her?”

He nodded. “I moved out of our house a few days ago and into the loft above the studio. I also fired her.”

“Is that what you meant when you said you were going to ‘clean house’?”

He nodded again.

“Wow. Um, I was just thinking you were just going to yell at her, or make her, I don’t know, apologize or something.”

“We were beyond that.”

She frowned, her mind whirling.

“What?” he asked.

“I … I’m thinking …” She waved her hand in the air. “Never mind.”

“No. Say it. You’re thinking I’m an asshole.”

“No, I’m not thinking you’re an asshole,” she quickly denied. “I’m just kind of in shock. And I’m sorry that you’re having to go through all this—it must be a really difficult time for you.”

He considered how to respond to that and finally went with the truth. “It actually hasn’t been that difficult for me.”

She blinked at him. “It hasn’t?”

“No. In fact, the hardest part about leaving her was having to explain to Jacob what was happening.”

At the mention of the little boy, Paige felt her heart clench as she thought about the child’s involvement in all this. “How did that go?” she asked, even though the less she knew, the better.

“He was a little confused at first and a little upset, but once he understood that he’d be living with me most of the time, he was pretty much okay.”

“Wait, what? Does that mean you have full custody?”

He shook his head, then gave her a quick rundown of how the custody arrangement had been made, and what it entailed. “I don’t know how long it’ll last, since Ashley has no idea what’s involved in taking care of a child for more than an hour or two by herself, so we’ll see.”

“What do you mean, she has no idea what’s involved in taking care of a child for more than an hour or two by herself?”

David tapped his fingers against his glass of beer. “She isn’t a very good mother, to be honest. She’s pretty hands-off and because of that, Jacob isn’t very attached to her.”

“Are you fucking—” Paige broke off to take a long drink of her wine. All she’d ever wanted was a child, so hearing that Ashley was ‘hands-off’ with Jacob almost brought her to tears. “Jesus Christ. Why did she even have him?”

“Jacob was an accident,” David answered after a slight pause. “Supposedly.”

“Supposedly?”

“That’s what Ashley said.”

“You think she was lying?”

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But how he was conceived doesn’t really matter to me … it only matters that he was. He’s the best thing that’s happened to me since our divorce. He’s my life and I would do anything for him. Anything.”

Paige swallowed hard at the absolute devotion in his fierce words. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“It’s kind of personal.”

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