Page 144 of The Moment We Know

Ashley blinked at him and quickly asked, “How has Jacob been?”

He leveled his dead shark eyes on her again, ignoring the question. “It’s obvious you don’t really love him,” he repeated as evenly as he could. “And it’s obvious you don’t really want him, either, so it would be in everyone’s best interest if you did the right thing and relinquished your parental rights to me, the one who does love and want him.”

She regarded him with a flat, calculating expression, one he was very familiar with and despised.

“You want me to make things easy for you? Well … go fuck yourself.”

“Hmm, I thought you might say that,” he mused, with a knowing smile. “But maybe you’ll change your mind if you know making things easy for me will make things easy for your boyfriend, at the same time.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her calculating expression slipping a little.

“I mean, that if you choose to not make things easy for me, and I have to take you to court to get what I want, then I’ll choose to not make things easy for Liam and take him to court, too, by filing a civil suit against him for abusing my son.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you seriously threatening Liam?”

“Yes, and I am not bluffing, by the way. I will go after your boyfriend, and it’ll be my extreme pleasure to do so.”

Ashley sat and stared at David, her cheeks flushed, her breaths rapid and shallow. “You. Fucking. Dick.”

He shrugged off the insult, amazed at how much anger she was directing at him for threatening her boyfriend, after directing none at her boyfriend for threatening her son. “Like I said, I’m done playing nice,” he told her, then leaned forward, casually resting his forearms on his knees and clasping his hands together. “So … it looks like you have a decision to make. You can either fight to keep joint custody of a child you don’t give a shit about, just to fuck with me—and fuck Liam as well—or, you can give up joint custody of a child you don’t give a shit about and save your prick of a boyfriend from a potentially messy legal battle.”

“I really hate you, right now,” she told him with a vicious sneer.

He could’ve easily responded in kind, but refrained, wanting to stay on track as much as possible. “So, what’s it going to be, Ash?”

“If I give you custody, how do I know you won’t go after Liam with a civil suit, anyway?” she asked, after a brief, charged silence.

“Because I’ll give you my word that I won’t.”

She shook her head. “That’s not good enough.”

“When have I ever lied to you?” he demanded. When she didn’t respond, he answered his own question. “Never, that’s when. I’ve never lied to you and I’m not lying now. If you give me custody, I won’t go after your prick of a boyfriend with a civil suit, even though it will pain me greatly not to. The two of you can then go enjoy your lives and do … whatever the fuck it is you do when you’re together. You know, without the inconvenience and aggravation of having to deal with a ‘fucking brat’ anymore.”

Another silence grew between them, becoming heavier and uglier as they stared at one another. with almost identical expressions of loathing. “So, what’s it going to be?” he repeated.

Whoosh.

As if spring-loaded, Ashley immediately turned away and grabbed her phone to read the text. Assuming it was from Liam, David watched as she proceeded to text back and forth several times with the prick. At first, Ashley seemed slightly on edge, as if their communications were tense (possibly from the continued delay of their evening plans), but after a few exchanges, David saw a shift in her demeanor. She relaxed a little and her expression became softer, with a smile curving her mouth.

When the texting mini-marathon came to a close, Ashley set her phone down and then directed her attention back to David once again. As she did, her smile slowly turned into a cold frown.

“You win,” she told him flatly. “Now get the fuck out.”

Chapter 59

As David walked to his car, heart pounding with adrenaline, he pulled the red jasper worry stone out of his pocket and tossed it in the air, catching it with a smile.

He knew it wasn’t completely over. He and Ashley would still have to appear in court to sign the new custody agreement (which needed to be drafted by the lawyer he needed to hire), but to him it felt over.

At Valerie’s house, he found Jacob asleep on the couch, with Valerie curled up beside him. There was an empty glass of wine on the coffee table, and a book boasting a Highlander with a flowing mane of ginger hair wearing nothing but a plaid kilt on the cover, that she was obviously too stressed to read.

“He fell asleep about fifteen minutes ago,” she said softly, so as to not awaken Jacob, although his ability to sleep like the dead made it unnecessary.

Nodding, David took a seat in the chair closest to his mom. “Good.”

“So, how did it go?” she asked, her expression a mixture of cautious optimism and dread.

He quickly gave her the details of the meeting, including the outcome.

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