Chapter 28
Zoe tapped on the front door, her heart thumping, her hands slick. She had a bad feeling about those three words—Can we talk—but she didn’t want her anxiety to color the conversation. Dan needed her, she reminded herself, to be there and support him, so that was what she was going to do.
When he opened the door, though, her resolve crumbled away as her heart plummeted toward her shoes. The look on his face… it was like someone had died.
“It doesn’t look like today was a good day,” she managed as she stepped inside.
Dan shook his head and then wordlessly he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close and burying his face in her hair. Zoe held him close, tried to imbue him with her empathy.
“Dan, Dan…” she said softly. “What happened?”
He released her on a shuddery breath and turned toward the sofa, raking a hand through his hair. “Lindsay wants to take Sophie to Dubai,” he stated flatly. “Permanently.”
Zoe had let out a soft gasp of surprise, even as she realized how much sense it made. Lindsay had pulled this trick before, after all, but Dubai…
“Does Sophie want to move to Dubai?” she asked.
“Apparently. Lindsay lovebombs her with presents and promises and she falls for it hook, line, and sinker. And who knows, maybe she’ll like Dubai… assuming Lindsay doesn’t get bored of her.” He raked his hands through his hair, yanking on the strands.
Slowly Zoe walked to the sofa and sat down, her mind whirling. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Dan had replied, but Zoe thought it sounded like he did know… and didn’t want to tell her. And then she realized she knew, too. Of course she did.
“You’re going to move to Dubai,” she stated, a fact. Dan glanced at her, startled, a little guilty. “Right? I mean, it makes sense,” Zoe continued. “You can work from anywhere, you can be close to Sophie. It’ll only be four years, I guess, until she finishes high school.”
Four years felt like a very long time. It felt like forever, and it was forever, when it came to them. How could you do a long-distance relationship for four years when you’d only been dating a week? But maybe that option wasn’t even on the table.
“Lindsay did suggest that,” Dan admitted. “But I don’t want to move to Dubai, Zoe, for a lot of reasons, but most of all, for you.”
Zoe’s heart gave a painful squeeze. It was halfway to a declaration of love, but she knew it wasn’t enough.
“Dan, Sophie needs you,” she told him. “Especially with the way Lindsay is. She needs stability in her life, and someone who isn’t trying to buy her love.
You told me yourself how she got into trouble when she was with Lindsay in New York—how much harder would that be, in Dubai? ”
“I don’t want Sophie in Dubai at all,” Dan burst out. “I don’t think it would be good for her. She’s meant to be starting at her new school in a few weeks. We’ve got her uniform already! And she was coming to like it here in Starr’s Fall—”
“Until Lindsay turned her head?” Zoe sighed. She knew enough about Sophie to see how easily that could happen. “She’s at an impressionable age. You shouldn’t take it to heart.”
“It’s hard not to,” Dan admitted. He hesitated, his gaze lowered on his hands laced on his lap.
“I didn’t tell you everything before, about Lindsay and me.
How… difficult it was. When Sophie was born, Lindsay was going to take six months off from her advertising job, her choice.
I was starting my business, working a lot, but wanting to support her.
I knew how ambitious she was.” He sighed, slumping against the sofa.
“But then when Sophie was five weeks old, she accepted a new job, a really intense one. She told me my business wasn’t really getting off the ground and I should be the one to stay home with Sophie.
We couldn’t afford fulltime childcare, and in any case, I didn’t want her in daycare that young.
And I wanted to support Lindsay, I’ve always wanted to do that, and so I did.
I shelved my business plans and focused on my daughter.
And Lindsay kept making these unilateral decisions, over and over again, telling me to get on board with them, and I kept agreeing, because I thought that’s what you did in a marriage, except she never once did it for me.
” He sighed heavily as he gazed up at Zoe with exhausted, bloodshot eyes.
“And now here we are, not even married anymore, and she’s doing it again. ”
“Oh, Dan.” Zoe’s heart ached for him—and for herself. She’d thought back in the beginning that their lives were both too complicated for a relationship, and it turned out she might have been right. “You’re a good man,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry Lindsay took advantage of that.”
“None of that should even matter, though,” Dan said wearily, his voice full of despair. “I have to do what’s best for Sophie. I know I do.”
Zoe’s stomach cramped. Here was the bad thing she’d been waiting for all along. “Can you talk to her?” she asked, a little desperately. “Sophie, I mean? Try to convince her to stay…?”
“I can try,” he allowed, “but right now she’s in Lindsay World, where everything is shiny and sparkly with promise. It’s hard, and it usually backfires.”
“And if she goes and doesn’t like it?” Zoe suggested, still sounding—and feeling—desperate. There had to be another way… “She’ll come back…?”
“I don’t want her to have to go through that,” Dan replied with a decisive shake of his head.
“Another round of having to choose between us? That’s the last thing Sophie needs, and knowing my daughter, she wouldn’t want to admit as much to me, anyway.
She’d double down on Dubai, no matter what it cost her—or me. ”
The way he was talking, Zoe realized slowly, was as if he’d already made his decision.
He had to go where his daughter was. Of course he did; he was that kind of dad.
He’d told her how much he’d regretted taking a backseat during that year in New York, when Sophie had lived with Lindsay.
He wasn’t going to let it happen again. Moreover, Zoe realized, she wasn’t going to let him.
Jenna had told her to fight for Dan, but maybe that looked a little different than any of them had thought. Maybe it wasn’t, like Maggie had said, being still, but rather… letting someone walk away.
She leaned forward, lacing her fingers with Dan’s as they’d done before. It was kind of becoming their thing, except it wouldn’t be after today. The knowledge, heavy and sure, made Zoe’s heart hurt. Gently she squeezed Dan’s fingers.
“Dan,” she said quietly, an ache in her voice. “You need to go to Dubai.”
He glanced up at her, startled. “Zoe…”
“You and I both know it. For Sophie’s sake.”
He shook his head, the movement seeming to come more from instinct than decision. “But—”
“What we’ve had has been great,” Zoe said steadily, “but you can’t base your life decisions on it.
I mean… we barely know each other.” Even if it felt as if they did.
Even if Zoe didn’t believe a word she was saying.
Sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind.
“Like, it could have been fun,” she added, “but I was already worried our lives were too complicated, and now it seems that they are, so I guess I was right.” She slipped her fingers from his.
“What I’m saying is, you should go. Don’t let anything here hold you back.
This wasn’t a forever kind of thing, anyway. ”
He blinked at her, looking dazed. “Are you breaking up with me?” he asked slowly.
“We didn’t really have anything to break up,” Zoe replied with an attempt at a laugh. “We never did have that clarifying conversation.”
Dan shifted in his seat, his hands resting on his thighs as he looked at her steadily, making her insides quake.
“Zoe, I appreciate that you’re cutting me loose here, maybe for my own sake, but…
if Sophie wasn’t going to Dubai… would you still be saying this kind of thing?
” he asked. “That it was fun, but…?” He shook his head.
“I mean, was this always something casual to you?”
He sounded so bewildered, and so hurt, that Zoe hesitated.
She didn’t want to lie to him, but what if the truth made him stay?
Or even if he didn’t stay, he’d feel guilty for hurting her.
And really, maybe it was better this way.
Relationships were risky. Love hurt. Today it was Sophie and Dubai, but what would it be next week or month or year?
Zoe had had too many bad things happen in her life. She’d lived most of her life expecting the worst. Sometimes, if the freight train was coming right at you, it was better just to get the hell out of the way.
“Dan, we’ve only been dating a few days,” she told him.
“Of course it was casual. And I told you that I wasn’t up for all these complicating factors.
My life is hard enough, frankly, and so is yours.
” She drew a quick, sharp breath. “Honestly, I think Lindsay’s doing us both a favor. It’s better this way.”
For a second, he simply gaped. Zoe held his gaze, but only just. She felt as if she’d told a mouthful of lies, and yet part of her believed them.
Deeply. She’d started this whole charade for Dan’s sake, but as she’d spoken, she’d realized how much easier and safer it was, to let him go.
She’d been on an emotional rollercoaster since Dan had come into her life, zooming up and down, never sure where she was.
Maybe it really was better this way. For both of them.
At least it kept either of them from getting hurt.
Well, she thought as she looked at Dan’s troubled expression, at least it kept her from getting hurt.
“Okay,” Dan said at last. He stood up, looking like he’d been sucker punched. “If that’s how you really feel then, I guess… there’s nothing more to say.”
Zoe nodded her acceptance, and they both lapsed into a somber silence. “So are you going to move to Dubai?” she finally asked.
He looked at her for a long moment. “No,” he said at last, startling her. “I’m going to fight for my daughter to stay here, where I genuinely think she’ll do better.”
For a second, Zoe could only blink. “What…”
“My first impulse was to move,” he told her.
“Because I’d do anything for Sophie, I really would.
But doing anything isn’t the same as doing what’s best, and I don’t need to jump when Lindsay asks me to, because I’m not married to her anymore, and that’s not what a real and healthy relationship looks like.
So I’m going to tell Lindsay that I’ll go to court if I need to and figure out a way to keep Sophie here. ”
“Oh…” Zoe whispered. She had no idea what to say.
“Did you mean what you just said?” Dan demanded. He sounded angry, and Zoe took an instinctive step back. “Or was that you just chickening out the second things got a little complicated? Tell me the truth, Zoe. I think I’m owed that much.”
“I…” For a second, Zoe couldn’t speak. “I was scared,” she whispered. “I still am. And I meant what I said about it being complicated. That… scares me.”
He nodded. “It scares me, too.”
“Dan—” Zoe began, although she wasn’t even sure what she was going to say.
“But the thing is,” he continued, his voice rising and catching, “I wasn’t letting being scared hold me back. I wasn’t going to make being scared the thing. And in fact, I wanted to do the whole scared thing with you. Face our fears together.”
“Why,” Zoe asked in a shaky voice, “does it feel like there’s a big ‘but’ coming?”
“Because there is,” Dan told her flatly.
“Because having Lindsay come back and rake up all these old hurts and fears in me… it’s made me realize I am not going to fall into that old people-pleasing pattern again.
I’m not going to do all the heavy lifting and hope to hell that someone raises their damned pinkie finger for me.
And I’m not going to do everything I can to convince someone—you—that I’m worth it.
That I’m worth the fear and the complication and the trying.
” He held up a hand to forestall any protests, although Zoe was too shocked into silence to offer one.
“And I know,” he told her, “that it’s early days for us. What we had has been brief but intense. I get that, and I’m not asking for a proposal or even any kind of commitment at all. I just wanted you to be willing to try.”
“Dan…” Zoe said again, brokenly, but he shook his head.
“No,” he told her. “No. I’m not doing this. Not for anyone, and not for you. It’s over, Zoe, and I’m the one ending it.”