Page 38 of Fierce-Dane

“Oh, it didn’t and it did,” she said. Might as well just leave it at that. No reason to say that she was worked up enough that she pulled her little toy out of the drawer and took care of another need.

She didn’t do it often and maybe that was why she was as worked up as she was.

“Are you working all weekend? I mean I know you are, but are you actually seeing clients all weekend?”

“Not the entire time,” she said. “I have several tomorrow, but Sunday is my paperwork day. I end up in my office or working the desk if I need to. What do you have planned with the kids? Anything?”

“We are going to some hot air balloon show tomorrow. Sunday we’ll relax.”

“That sounds like fun,” she said.

“Ever been to one before?” he asked.

“Nope. There are a lot of things I haven’t done,” she said.

“Maybe we can talk about them on Monday. Though with our schedules it might be hard to do some things.”

“We can make it work enough,” she said. “But don’t feel as if I’m one of these women that needs to be entertained or is high maintenance. I’m not really.”

She’d never be that person. Sabrina tended to be when she was younger and that was why her mother and sister fought as much as they had.

She hoped her sister was happy in her life and got what she wanted out of it. And if she wasn’t, then she prayed Sabrina found it.

Just like she’d hoped she found it too.

Maybe she could with Dane, but she wouldn’t put all her eggs in one basket.

If she learned one thing about life, it was that you can only depend on yourself.

Letting someone else in could cause you to lose control of your voice or actions. She’d never let herself get in that position.

11

TEAM DANE

Dane pulled in front of Sloane’s house. It was a cute two-story. Looked to be older but nicely maintained. He’d bet it had some handcrafted character inside of it too.

Unlike his new build in a development.

The house that Mel had been dreaming of since they’d first gotten married. He wanted her to have it.

He’d been willing to give her the house in the divorce on top of it because he was going to be the nice guy and he wanted his kids to be comfortable and not uprooted.

She didn’t want it. Said she needed her parents’ help and would live with them. That the new home was too big and hard for her to maintain. There wasn’t anything he could say to that and let it go. His ex lived there for a year before she bought her own house.

There wasn’t enough equity in the house for him to even give her half and she didn’t want it. Mighty nice of her in the end, but he would have taken more of a loan out if he had to.

Mel never asked for anything in the divorce. They split custody and she didn’t argue once about that.

She never asked for alimony either. No child support. Nothing.

He felt like shit and had been told more than once he shouldn’t.

She wanted the divorce. He’d done nothing wrong and was willing to try to make things work.

He wanted to give her everything she wanted during their marriage and he knew that might have been his biggest mistake.

No more though.

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