Page 106 of Accidental Blind Date
“You don’t believe me?”
“You said yourself that Jenna has never seen you as a fit parent on your own. You need a woman to help you win custody. You need me because of the girls. And I get that, I really do. But after the trial, you won’t need me anymore. And as much as I love your girls, I refuse to be expendable. I’ve already been that to someone before.”
“You really believe that?” he asks, clenching and unclenching his jaw as he fights the lump I can visibly see growing in his throat. I don’t let it sway me though. I’ve fought enough battles not to throw up a white flag that easy.
“I believe you’d do anything for your girls, yes. And you should.”
Dax studies me for a moment before taking a small step back.
“I think you should leave,” I tell him.
He swallows hard and his words come out clenched. “Is that what you want?”
My heart feels like it’s going to explode in my chest, but I hold my ground.
I have to hold my ground.
“Yes,” I say. “It is.”
Dax’s head jerks in a single nod and he turns to leave. But before the door closes, I add one last thing.
“Oh, and Daxton?”
He looks at me.
“My shop will never be a Hemingway.”
Chapter 38
Dax
How do you convince a woman that you’re not just using her to keep custody of your kids when you are actively fighting for custody of your kids?
If I had known that the whole Jax slash Dax thing could come back to bite me, I would never have done it. The right thing to do was obviously to let her know the scumbag stood her up and that I would gladly buy her a drink so she could forget about the guy, and I could forget that it was the anniversary of the day my wife died.
Of course, that’s not what happened. I lied to her, pretending to be her blind date with no intention of sleeping with her, and honestly no intention of seeing her ever again. How was I supposed to know that I would later buy out her bookstore and have to see her every day, pushing both my patience and my urge to make her mine again, over and over?
So, I made a lot of mistakes. But the one thing I did not do, and I am still not doing, is use her to keep custody of my girls. That part of the train wreck was just an unfortunate timing in the crossing of tracks.
As I make my way home after talking to her (with no success) I am wracking my brain on what I can do next. But between thefact that my love life is derailed, and my home life is headed down the same path, I feel helpless. It’s like the there’s a bridge over the top of me and the whole thing is collapsing and I don’t know which end to hold up.
And as if that’s not enough, my phone starts to ring, a number I don’t know. I ignore it, assuming it’s spam. But the voice message begins to place anyways.
“Mr. Hemingway, this is the Boston Police department. We are calling in regards to a break-in at the Way With Words bookshop. Please give us a call at–”
What the fuck?
The voice message cuts off as another call comes in over the top of it. It’s Kai.
“Hey, what the hell is going on?” I ask before waiting for him to answer.
“Apparently someone smashed a window. Not sure if they looted the place or if they were just drunk and fucking around outside the shop. But the cops are there.”
“Any idea who?” I ask, pulling into the left lane to make a U turn back in the direction of the shop.
“No one saw him. Cops apparently scoped the area, but we got nothing.”
“We got security cameras,” I say. “That’s not nothing. Why don’t you pull those up and check them out. I’m on my way.”
