Page 85 of You Know You Wanna

“Jacqueline happened.” I pulled her closer, kissing her gently. “I’m so, so sorry you had to go through that. If I’d known she was coming, I’d have warned you, but I had no idea.”

She tilted her head back, her eyes on mine, and brought her hands to my chest. “Is everything okay? Why is she here? I thought she wanted Laurene to come meet her in London in a couple weeks.”

“She did want that the last time I spoke to her, but Jacqueline is unpredictable.” I tightened my grip on her hips, so afraid she was going to run but knowing that I had to be honest with her. “At risk of scaring you away, things might get ugly now that she’s here, Birdie. If you stay close to me, I can’t guarantee she won’t hurt you again.”

“She blindsided me this morning,” she emphasized the word. “Not hurt. Blindsided. There’s a difference. Now that I know what I’m up against, it won’t happen again.”

“You don’t know what you’re up against, though.” It pained me to say it, but she had to be prepared. “Jacqueline isn’t like you, baby. Which is a great thing. Fucking fantastic, actually, but that doesn’t change the facts.”

“So tell me the facts,” she said calmly. Leading me over to a little bench in the corner, she sat down and turned to face me. “You haven’t told me much about your divorce. She won’t be able to scare me if she doesn’t have any ammunition.”

I raked a hand through my hair and looked around her bright and airy studio. With the colorful yoga mats and equally colorful cubbies. The knickknacks and the cheerful pictures on the walls. Plenty of natural light streamed in through the large windows and the vibe in here was so relaxed and happy.

“If I tell you about all this, I’m probably going to lose you,” I said quietly as I brought my gaze back to hers. “It really wasn’t pretty and some of the things I did, I’m not proud of. Some of the sacrifices I made.”

Birdie was like this place. She was sunshine and color. She was fresh air, natural light, and feeling free. While I’d been here, I hadn’t acted much like myself at all outside of those first few days. She didn’t know the guy I was going to tell her about, and I wasn’t sure I wanted her to.

Ultimately though, he was me. I was him. I was going to lose her anyway and the least I could do was try to mitigate the damage Jacqueline was going to do by being honest with Birdie now. She was right about the ammunition thing.

If I told her the truth, Jacqueline wouldn’t be able to hurt her as much. “You’re sure you want to hear about this?”

She nodded. “You’ve mentioned the divorce was nasty. What made it so bad?”

“She tried to take me for all I had. Apparently, she felt like I wouldn’t have had anything if it hadn’t been for her, and because of that, she felt entitled to everything.”

Birdie’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t interrupt me.

“I gave up a lot. I gave her a lot more than she was legally entitled to, but she wouldn’t stop. She just kept coming at me, demanding a share of my business as well, and that was where I drew the line.”

“Which is understandable,” she said gently. “If you had given her that, she would’ve remained an even bigger part of your life.”

“Which is exactly why she wanted it.” I blew out a deep breath. “When it came to custody though, we couldn’t reach an agreement at all. For the longest time, we fought about Laurene and neither of us relented, but then one day, I realized that we’d kept fighting for the sake of winning.”

“You weren’t fighting for what was best for Laurene?” she asked, frowning.

I looked right into her eyes and admitted one of the worst things I’d ever done. “No. We weren’t. We both kept insisting that we wanted what was best for her, but when it really came down to it, we just didn’t want to lose.”

“What did you do?”

“I relented,” I said. “I went home after an entire afternoon of settlement negotiations and I really thought about what would be best for her. I work a lot, and I didn’t see that changing, so I relented. I thought what was best for Laurene would be going with Jacqueline.”

“I’m so sorry, Remington.”

“I know now that I should’ve fought harder for her,” I admitted. “I should’ve done things differently. At the time, I relented on the one thing I shouldn’t have, and in doing so, I hurt my daughter. I made her feel unwanted and unloved, and now, I’m going to have to fight for her anyway, which means that I should’ve just kept doing it back then instead of putting her through all this.”

Birdie didn’t say anything for the longest time, but when she did, she surprised me. “What does Jacqueline want?”

“For me not to be happy,” I said honestly. “That’s the gist of it. I left her. I divorced her. I didn’t forgive her for cheating on me and I didn’t even consider taking her back after I found out. She’s been trying to punish me for it ever since.”

“Wow.”

“Yep. Every time I think I’ve created enough space between us and that we’re finally moving forward, she backtracks and snakes her way back in.”

“Well, then I think the best thing you can do is to be happy,” Birdie said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You can’t let her keep you from moving on, Remington. You also can’t keep letting her punish you. Why would you?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’m still not scared.” A slow smile spread on her lips as she took my face between her hands. “I’m saying that you and I should just act like normal. Like we have since we met each other and that we shouldn’t allow her to drag us down.”