“Uh, not a lot, how about you?”

“I found some stuff on my dad’s computer.” I hit Print on the loan documents. I’m sure there must be a folder in my parents’ filing cabinets with signatures. The most recent are signed, scanned PDFs, but the older ones are drafts with no signatures.

“What kind of stuff?”

“Financial stuff connected to Linda that might explain why she wanted custody so badly . . .” I trail off as I note the time in the corner of the screen; I didn’t realize it was almost midnight. “But it can wait.”

“I’m not going to sleep anytime soon, if you want to talk it through.”

“My parents loaned my aunt a lot of money.”

“What constitutes a lot?”

“Tens of thousands over the past decade and a half. And that’s just based on the documents in one folder. I have no idea if there’s more that’s unaccounted for.” I rub my temple, the dull throb telling me a headache is on the way.

“I can come over.” There’s a short pause. “If you want help going through what you found. Or it can wait. I can shift my appointments around tomorrow morning, unless now is better.”

“Now is better.”

“I can be there in fifteen.”

“Okay.”

While I wait for her to arrive, I rifle through my parents’ filing cabinets. At the back of one I find a thick folder with Linda’s name on it, but before I can open it, Kailyn texts to signal her arrival. I find her on my front porch in a pair of black leggings and a ratty It’s My Life hoodie, hair in a messy knot on top of her head, wearing her glasses, holding two takeout bags and a tray with coffees.

She smiles a little uncertainly. “I brought fuel.”

“Good thinking.” I take the coffees from her and step aside. “Come in.”

We stand there for a protracted moment, staring at each other. Neither of us certain what to say, maybe. Tension lingers between us; unanswered questions hang in the air like thick fog. I’ve missed her, more than I wanted to admit.

“Want to show me what you found?” Kailyn asks.

“Yeah, follow me.” I incline my head toward the office.

“Oh, wow,” she murmurs as she takes in the papers lining the desk; the endless loan documents, the emails she printed out from the boarding school. She raps on the desk with her long, polished fingernails.

“And I just stumbled across this right before you got here, but I haven’t had a chance to look through it.” I offer her a chair and we pull up close to the desk as I flip the thick file folder open. Inside are printed copies of the loan documents, bank statements from my aunt with maxed-out lines of credits, credit cards with outrageous balances, and agreements between her and my parents that she would pay back the money.

I rub my temple as all the pieces finally click into place. “She has a gambling problem.”

Kailyn stops biting the end of her pen so she can respond. “I was about to say the same thing. It would explain the trip to Vegas and the comment about doubling what they lost last time.”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it? Now I know why she’s so desperate to make me into some kind of villain and take custody of Emme.” I motion to the sea of papers spread out before us, still reeling. “This proves Linda’s intentions were purely selfish. She planted a bottle of vodka on a thirteen-year-old for Chrissake.”

“There’s no way she’ll get custody now, not with all of this and that recording.”

“I wouldn’t have figured this out without you.”

“You would’ve, it may have taken longer, but you would’ve found all of this eventually and put it together.” She squeezes my forearm. “I just want Emme to be where she belongs, Dax, and that’s with you.”

She seems so sincere, but it’s hard not to wonder how much of this is her wanting to help and her still working the partner angle. “Is that all you want?”

She regards me uncertainly. “What do you mean?”

“How much of this”—I tap the printed emails and glance down at her hand, still on my arm, keeping us connected, which I’ve missed over the weeks since I’ve seen her—“is to get you closer to your partnership? I don’t know what’s real and what’s not with you, Kailyn. I don’t know if I can trust your motivation for helping me.”

Kailyn drops her hand to her lap and focuses there for a few seconds. “I know I broke your trust when you were in a vulnerable position and that earning it back won’t be easy, but know that everything I’m doing right now is because I want what’s best for you and Emme, and that’s for you to have each other.”

She takes a deep breath. “I admit that when Beverly presented me with the offer for partner, I took you on as a challenge. I had a very different opinion of who you were. I also wanted to make sure that Emme wasn’t being taken advantage of. I had no idea what your reasons were, if you were just after Emme’s money like Linda so clearly is.” Kailyn meets my gaze with an imploring one of her own. “The first few years of my life weren’t good, Dax. Thankfully, I don’t have a lot of memories, but the ones I do have are the reason I’m here fighting for Emme to stay with you. I want you to know that the partnership stopped being a factor when I realized how hard you were trying to do what was best for Emme.”

“And when was that, exactly?”

“When you called me from CVS.” She smiles a little, maybe at the memory. “That’s when I saw the real you.”

chapter twenty-six

AMENDS

Kailyn

I will him to say something, anything that will let me know forgiveness is possible.

Confirmation comes in the form of his mouth crashing down on mine. For a moment I’m frozen and stunned, but my body seems to know exactly what to do even if my brain takes a few seconds to catch up.

Dax drags me out of my chair and pulls me up against his body, tongue stroking inside my mouth, arms wrapped around me. There’s no place I feel safer than where I am right now. And I know that giving up the partnership was the right thing to do if it means I get to have this man instead.

We have the wherewithal to make it to the bedroom before we’re frantically undressing. We collide with need and want, apologies given and accepted through touch. And when he’s finally inside me again, the ache that’s been weighing down my heart finally dissolves.

“Dax! Are you up? I’m leaving for school in, like, fifteen, and the house doesn’t smell like coffee!”

I bolt upright, the covers dropping to my waist. I mouth shit while Dax blinks blearily, confusion turning to heat as he takes in my bare breasts.

He clears his throat and calls out, “Be right down!”

A long silence follows before she finally replies, “’Kay.” A few seconds later her bedroom door closes.

Dax gives my bare breast a squeeze. I smack his hand, my nipple already perking up from the attention. “What the hell am I going to do?”

“Uh, maybe there’s still something of my mom’s in the back of the closet? I know Emme missed a few things when we cleaned everything out. We can pretend like you showed up this morning?” It’s more question than plan, but it’s a whole hell of a lot better than the alternative.

I find a plain black dress that’s about two decades old and close to my size. I guess it could be considered retro. I shimmy into it. It’s tight at the hips, and the hem falls below my knees since his mom was several inches taller than me.

I finger comb my hair because Dax doesn’t have a brush. I still have sleep lines on my face, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I follow Dax to the kitchen. Thankfully, Emme is still in her room, so I’m able sit my ass down at the island and calm my breathing.

Dax is all smiles as he goes about making coffee. I don’t know how he can be so calm when it feels like my heart is going to slam out of my chest. The bag of doughnuts I picked up on my way over last night helps make our charade look more authentic, minus the fact that there’s no coffee to go with it. It’s not that I have an issue with Emme knowing that Dax and I are talking again, it’s her finding out because I’ve just walked out of Dax’s bedroom with a serious case of post-sleepover sex hair.

Dax passes me a cup of coffee just as Emme appears. She shrieks and rushes over, throwing her arms around me. “Oh, hi! I didn’t hear the doorbell ring!”

“Dax and I have a meeting this morning. We thought we’d go together.”

She releases me and steps back, panicked gaze darting between Dax and me. “What kind of meeting?”

“The good kind, don’t worry,” Dax reassures her. At least we’re hoping it’s going to be the good kind.

“Oh. Okay. Can you drive me to school so I can hang out with Kailyn for a bit?”

“Sure.”

Emme tells me all about her weekend plans, which include a sleepover at her friend Marnie’s. I glance at Dax and he grins, clearly thinking the same thing I am. Dax runs upstairs to change into a suit before we drive Emme to school. We’ll be coming back here as soon as we drop her off, but this keeps up the ruse.