Page 130 of Test the Ice
“I’m here,” I utter. “What do you need?”
“At the moment? I think I just need you.”
“You have me, Dimples,” I say.
Without missing a beat, I pick her up, cradle her legs in my arms and take a seat. She sits on my lap and holds on tightly to my neck. I shoot her a crooked smile, and she laughs quietly.
The moment doesn’t last long, though.
Reese’s grin fades into a somber look. She relaxes on top of me, her hands landing in her lap. “Today didn’t go well.”
“I assumed as much,” I say. “I already have a list of family lawyers who come highly recommended ready to go.”
She jerks backward. “You already have a list?”
Of course I do.
Then she shakes her head. “They’re going to be too expensive.”
“I don’t care how expensive they are.” I start to get up, holding onto her tightly. “The list is on my phone. Let me go get changed and grab it–”
“No!” she blurts.
I sit us back down. “No?”
She shakes her head, strands of her long hair falling from her messy bun. “I mean, yes, I want to see the list, but I don’t want you to think I only came here to ask you to help me with a lawyer.” She stares out at the ice. “I don’t know if a good lawyer will even help at this point.”
“These lawyers are highly recommended–”
Reese peers at me, her thick eyelashes batting against her cheeks. “He lied up and down during that mediation…he was convincing too. I probably would have believed him if I didn’t know firsthand that what he was saying was completely false.”
I let her go when she scooches off my lap. She stands in front of me, her arms crossed defensively. “I mean, he lied so well that, at one point, I started to wonder if I did the things he said.”
“He’s manipulative. He knows how to get you riled up.”
And I have to admit, I don’t fucking like it.
Reese huffs and tilts her gaze to the ceiling of the rink. “He painted me out to be an unfit mother, showing the mediator text messages that weren’t even from me.”
I sit up tall, my hands gripping the edge of the chair arms with force. “What? That would never stand in court.”
“He brought up my father, even though I haven’t spoken to him in years. I mean, he doesn’t even know I have a daughter! Which is exactly what I said, and you want to know what he did after that?”
I’m not sure that I do.
I nod anyway.
“He threatened to tell my father about Charleigh. His reasoning was that it’s my father’s right to get to know his granddaughter, just like it’s his right to get to know his daughter. Never mind the fact that I’ve given Benedict multiple opportunities. I’m not keeping her from him on purpose.”
My teeth clench together.
The more Reese rehashes everything from the mediation, the more riled up she becomes.
Once she starts to nibble on her thumb nail, I know it’s time to put a stop to the frenzy. “Hey,” I say, trying to soothe her.
She continues to chew on the end of her nail. “He only threatened that because he was trying to scare me. He knows I don’t want my father anywhere near Charleigh.”
Now, she’s pacing.
