Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
“No,” she spat. “I never loved you. Why would I? You’re gone all the time. You don’t accept payment for the brats you treat -- which is the reason you’re gone all the time! You spent all your time somewhere other than at home. Your daughter barely knows you. Now you’re trying to take her away from the only home she’s ever known?”
That bitch! She was trying to make Doc look like a horrible person when anyone could see Caroline loved her father. I could see the few people in the diner looking at us with frowns. They were looking at Doc like he was the villain in this story instead of the best hero.
“You’re a liar, Beatrix. Either that or you haven’t spent any time at all with your daughter.” I was livid! “How could you even say that? Caroline loves her father. She talks about him all the time. They’re clearly as close as any father and daughter. The man dotes on her, and she truly appreciates everything he does for her! Not to mention, the ‘brats’ he treats are children with cancer. If he lets his fee slide because their parents can’t afford to pay him, that makes him an outstanding person.”
“It’s all right, Lia.” Doc gripped my knee under the table harder, a warning to keep silent. Which wasn’t bloody happening.
“No! I won’t be silent! I’m not letting her berate you like that. Not when she’s questioning how much you love your daughter.”
“Caroline knows I love her. That’s all that matters, baby.”
“Baby?” Mrs. Collins scoffed. “She’s the same age as your daughter, Jude!” She looked from one of us to the other, a horrified look on her face before she frowned angrily. “Disgusting! Wait until the judge hears about that! If I’d known you were attracted to your daughter’s friends, I’d have divorced you long before I did.”
“Who I choose to be with is none of your business, Beatrix.” I thought it telling Doc called his ex by her full name. The only time he’d done that in my hearing was when she’d slapped me at the beach, and he’d stepped between us. Likely his signal she’d gone too far and he was taking over the situation.
“It is when you’re obviously bedding a girl instead of a woman.” When the whole of the diner gave Doc disapproving looks, I wanted to claw the woman’s eyes out. Doc still gripped my knee, giving it one more small squeeze.
“I have no idea what you think you’re gonna accomplish here. This isn’t the court. Now. Since I was obviously a bastard, why did you stay with me for eight years when you never loved me, Trix? I was never around. You accused me of neglecting our daughter, yet you stuck around for the better part of her life. What changed?”
“I got tired of your bullshit. What woman wouldn’t? I wanted a better life for my daughter.”
“Our daughter has anything and everything she wants. Always has. She’s not been neglected. She knows me well enough to throw me and Lia together when she could have kept us apart with a simple word to me. That girl loves Lia as much as I do, and that’s saying something.”
“Love,” Mrs. Collins sneered. “Do you even know what love is?”
Doc shrugged. “I thought I did. Now I know I was wrong.” Doc shook his head and chuckled. “All those years I tried to convince myself I loved you. I didn’t. I had no clue what it meant to love a woman until I met Talia.” A shrewd look came over Doc’s face, and he sat back, moving his hand from my knee to drape his arm over my shoulders. “If you won’t own up to why you wanted to be with me, I’ll come clean.” He sighed. “I was in love with the idea of you. You found out you were pregnant, and I latched on to the thought of having a family. A child who loved and adored me as much as I did her. I got that part of my dream. You, however… I admit, those first years, I worked a lot. Why? To try to keep up with your material demands. Season tickets to the Dolphins. A second home in Miami. Cars. Clothes. A fucking yacht, for fuck’s sake! Neither of us knows how to sail, but your boy toy Chucky does.”
“Charles has nothing to do with this.”
“Oh, it does when you started seeing him not two years after we married.” Beatrix made a scoffing noise, but Doc continued. “You think I didn’t know? I did. I just didn’t care. The only thing I didn’t like was that Caroline knew. I didn’t want her to see her father as stupid, so she and I talked about it. I explained that I didn’t care if you and I were together. My only priority was her. I did what I had to do by staying with you in order to provide her with as stable a home environment as I could.” The more he talked the madder I got at Beatrix. How could this woman, the mother of Doc’s child, have no more loyalty to him than this?