Chapter 04 - Learning the Truth.

Jeremy Danielson…

For the last year, at least, I have felt almost numb. Empty might be a better word actually. Yes, empty. Devoid of any emotion other than pain. Pain at my marriage ending. Pain at the possibility that a family might be off the cards for me. Pain at having got it all so wrong. Pain at having to start my whole life over again. Everything I did, everywhere I went and everyone I talked to felt utterly pointless.

I had even given up everything that my ex-wife, Lauren had demanded in the divorce - I mean what was the point? She has already ripped my heart out and stomped all over it. What exactly were possessions when I had no will to even enjoy them anymore?

My heart hardened as the days ticked by - bitter and determined to guard my heart at all times from here on out. I picked up women, but I remained detached and shamefully selfish. Where I had once been more than a selfless lover, I turned almost cruel and honestly, I didn't like who I had become but I couldn't stop myself. Anger fuelled me for a good few months after Lauren left. I was so determined to prove that I didn't need my ex-wife that in the end I knew that I was only hurting myself. Once that thought took root inside my head, I found myself pulling back. I stopped going out. I stopped picking up random women and decided to take time out just for me.

Yes, I wanted a family, and I wasn't exactly getting younger, but the truth was - having a kid was a huge deal and I didn't want it to be with just anyone. However, the problem with that being that most women my own age, either already had a family of their own and didn't want to add more at their age, or they simply weren't interested in having a family. That was when I realised that I may have to look for someone slightly younger.

Enter Dakota.

No. What the fuck am I even thinking? That she would somehow fall at my feet and willingly offer to be my kids' mother. Yeah, I can see it now - announcing to Jason that his little princess was going to be having my kid - he'd blow a gasket, or end up having a heart attack, neither of which appealed to me. With that thought in mind I had to consciously push the idea of me and Dakota aside because there was no future there. I knew it.

Yet.

It was almost as if she were a magnet dragging me towards her like I was a giant ball of steel powerless to fight the pull. I had felt it in the car on the drive back to the house, the way my body was hyper-aware to the proximity of her. It took a real effort not to keep turning to look at her. Especially when I could feel her gaze falling on me constantly. Christ, I need to get laid. I am pretty sure that my reaction to her is simply because I am horny. Right?

Wrong asshole! My mind mocked me, you want her. Plain and simple. You are attracted to her, and she is clearly attracted to you too. Claim her. Make her yours. Take what is yours.

Shaking my head of the traitorous thoughts running rampant through my mind as I stood in the shadow of the hallway of my best friend's house and listened as she explained the circumstances that had brought her home. Hearing the things, she had been subjected to - left me flush with anger. Actually, anger is too tame a word, I was fucking furious. Livid with Anna for putting her kid through what she had.

"I kept trying to tell myself it wasn't mom's fault, she is ill-"

"Ill?" Jason asked, as I let my back rest against the wall to listen.

"Bipolar-"

Shit. It never once crossed my mind that Anna was mentally unstable. I mean it isn't like I have all that much experience of dealing with that type of illness but hearing Dakota talking about it left me with little option to let myself feel the pride in my girl.

My girl? Really? I am still doing that, huh?

"Shit, princess I had no idea!" Jason offered, reaching for her hand once again and giving it a gentle squeeze.

"It hasn't been easy to live with her but when she met Stuart, it seemed to just get all the worse. I don't know but it was like she started to resent me being around - she even acted jealous at times and that wasn't something I could understand at all because I had made it abundantly clear that I was not interested in him, Hell, I made it clear I didn't even like him-"

"That was why she hit you?"

"Sort of-"

Anger was lacing my veins. A deep-rooted sense of ferocious rage coiled my body tighter than a virgin on prom night as I continued to listen with bated breath to what Dakota had to confess.

"What does that mean?" Jason was using his soft and calm voice, but I could see the way he was also coiled just as tightly as I was.

"Well, it was a couple of days ago - I was in our kitchen washing the dishes from breakfast and rushing to do it because Char' and I were going to get our nails done and I was already running late. Anyway, I wasn't even aware that Stuart had walked into the kitchen until he was right behind me and gathering my hair to the side of my neck-" she continued to explain as a slither of disgust washed through her body and my anger started to reach boiling temperatures inside me, "my entire body went rigid, and I pushed back against him telling him to get his fucking hands off me. I don't know, maybe me pushing back against him in an attempt to dislodge him was like a green light or something but before I even knew what was happening, he pushed into me until I was trapped between him and the sink and his hands were tearing at my jeans, which was when…"

"Anna walked in?" Jason guessed.

"Yeah," Dakota's head dropped as if truly ashamed but Goddamn it, she had nothing to feel ashamed about, "I don't even-"

"Hey, it's ok princess, you are safe now," Jason closed the distance between him and his daughter quickly and pulled her into his arms. Fuck I have never felt so jealous in my life, and I know how utterly irrational that is because he was her dad, but I wanted to be the one to hold her. I wanted to be the one she turned to. I wanted to be her protector.

What. The. Fuck. Is. Happening. To. Me?

"She was so mad, dad. I mean livid - she looked at me like she hated me, even at her lowest and worst with the bipolar, she has never reacted to me like that. I didn't even get time to defend myself before she was on me and yanking me by my hair, pulling me away from him and throwing me across the room and then came the punch -"

Jesus Christ, Anna. Thank God she wasn't in front of us right now because I honestly don't know what Jason, or I would do to her if she were.

"I didn't want that dad; you have to believe me-" her tone turned almost frantic.

Fuck. She really believed that it was her fault when nothing could be further from the truth. Willing Jason to say the right thing I felt my entire body relax when he replied to her, "of course I believe you, princess. This was not your fault. This was something that was done to you and your mother should have kicked Stuart's ass, not turn on you. You are in no way to blame for this!" It was almost as if this was what she had been waiting to hear as her body slumped into my best friends and she sobbed silently for a bit.

I have to get a grip on this. Jason and I have been best friends for our whole lives - and that means that I can't pursue whatever these feelings I am having for Dakota are.

It doesn't matter that she is someone who has my heart jump-starting again after a long dead period of feeling nothing but cold emptiness. It doesn't matter that her touch warms me from the outside right down to my bones. It doesn't matter that I feel a connection that I can no sooner explain than I can understand it myself.

When we touched at the airport it was almost like an electric current flowing between us and that was from a slight brush of our flesh, what would it feel like if it was a prolonged touch?

What would it feel like if we made love?

Made love? What the fuck am I? A fifteen-year-old girl?

For the past year, making love was not a term I used for what I did. Fucking was much more appropriate. But with Dakota - I don't think that it would ever be just fucking. No, I have a sneaking suspicion that she would consume me with absolutely no effort on her part.

I have to find a way to douse the fire that was growing between us because if I even slipped once I was done for. I would lose what I really didn't want to lose - Jason. There is no doubt in my head that he would never allow me to date his only daughter. Dakota was his princess and that wasn't something that would change anytime soon, if ever.

But even as I thought all of this - I couldn't stop my own thoughts from clouding over everything else. It was as if they were on a constant loop.

Dakota Roth was mine.