Page 44 of Aftermath

"Are we really gonna move to Delano, Dad?" she cried.

"No. I promise." He hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head. "Now, go to your room while I talk to Mom."

"But—"

"Go," he commanded softly, and Riley slumped her shoulders and went upstairs to her room. Austin faced Jade next, wondering why they hadn't separated yet. It was clearly long overdue. "How long have you been thinking about divorce?" he asked bluntly. Because he couldn’t believe this was new. He'd only been home for less than a month. A marriage didn’t fall apart that quickly—not after fifteen years.

Jade swallowed, a flicker of regret flashing across her features. "The past year… I'm really sorry, Austin—"

"Don’t apologize." Austin didn’t want to hear it. "I should've seen it coming. God knows I see it now." He sat down at the table; Jade cautiously joined him. "But what's this crap about Delano?"

"I've been offered a job there," she admitted. "I want to take it."

Austin nodded, just wanting to get this over with. It was becoming abundantly clear to him that in order to heal, he needed to be by himself. Not counting his daughter.

"Riley stays with me."

Jade's eyes widened. "What? No!" she cried out. "I'm her mother; she should be with me."

A small and sinister smile made its way to Austin's face. "Wrong way to phrase it, Jade. She should be with you if youwanther to. Not because you're her mother." Anger burned in his eyes. "How will you even deal with all this? You're just going to pack up the house, move to Delano, get settled in a new place, adjust to your new job, enroll Riley at a new school,anddeal with the fact that she doesn’t want to be there?"

Jade glared at him. "Don’t drag this out. I want an easy divorce, and you being bitter won't help."

Austin couldn’t help but laugh. "Bitter? Oh, Jade." He chuckled and shook his head. "You have it all wrong. You're under the impression that I want us to stay together." Jade suddenly looked shocked. "Truth be told, I honestly don’t give afuckabout you anymore." That was aimed to hurt, and it looked like it did. But his ex-wife-to-be fucking deserved it. The way she'd treated him since he came back home… "You manipulative little…" He trailed off, angrier than ever before.

"Austin," Jade choked out. "What are you doing? How can you say that to me—"

"Asks the woman who told me to get over a five-month long kidnapping without so much as a pat on the back." Austin raised a brow. "You've used that as an excuse to get out, haven't you?" Jade didn’t respond. But Austin didn’t need her to. She'd never been a good liar; he could see the truth written on her face. "God, you're fucking selfish." He didn’t want to think that about the woman he'd spent fifteen years being married to, but there it was. A few years of taking each other for granted and just going through the motions… Jade was right.

He was bitter. So was she.

"And my mom wonders why I resent you," Jade chuckled humorlessly through tears.

Austin stared at her long and hard, finding it difficult to stick with one emotion. Anger was the only one that persisted. Then there were fleeting moments of pity, sorrow, compassion, understanding, regret, and disappointment.

"If it's any consolation, I know I haven't been the best husband." He wanted to add that he'd at least stood by her side all these years, and up until he felt more drawn to Cam than Jade, it would've been true. But he didn’t want to lie to Jade, though the reason was Cam. If Austin claimed he'd been nothing but faithful, it would be like denying what he'd started with Cam. He couldn’t do that. Hewouldn’tdo that.

"I'm sorry I pushed you to leave the past in the past," she muttered, not sounding particularly sincere. "I did use it against you—thought you'd leave before I could."

Manipulative was right.

That was where the majority of Austin's bitterness stemmed from. He felt betrayed. He'd gone through hell, and Jade had used it as an excuse to get the fucking ball rolling.

"Riley stays with me," he repeated. Now he was eager to get this over with. Even if a divorce took at least six months to be finalized in the state of California, they could separate immediately. "We'll divide all the assets, and I won't demand child support." He made more money than Jade, so the idea was ridiculous. "She can stay with you every other weekend, and whenever she wants to see you, I'll make it happen."

"It's not right," Jade gritted out. "If anything, we should ask her." She almost looked smug.

It proved that Jade didn’t know her own daughter as well as she liked to think.

Riley was Daddy's girl. Through and through.

That night, Austin sat in the chair by the window in Riley's room after she'd cried herself to sleep. Despite the obvious resentment and hostility between Austin and Jade, they'd managed to cool off before they sat down like responsible adults and told Riley that Mom and Dad were getting divorced.

Riley had reacted like any other ten-year-old girl would; she'd been inconsolable. Mom and Dad were supposed to stay together—end of story. But, thankfully—depending on how you looked at it—she was old enough to know that some marriages didn’t work out. It was a harsh reality, but she wouldn’t be the first in her class to have divorced parents.

Spending time with her classmates had shown her both sides of the coin. There were parents who didn’t get along after a split; their homes weren’t as nice to be in—more fighting going on. There were parents who got along great; their kids grinned and said what it was like to have two birthdays, two rooms, and two Christmases. Then there were those friends of Riley's who had to deal with their parents remarrying…

Riley hadn't liked the idea of her parents finding new spouses.

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