Too Late To Love Me I Already Left With His Twins (Lydia and Dave) novel Chapter 206

Dave POV

Tomorrow.

After their swimming classes.

One conversation.

One chance to either begin fixing this properly or traumatize two six year olds permanently.

No pressure.

I stared at the message for almost a full minute before forwarding my entire afternoon schedule to my assistant with one instruction.

Push everything after 5 p.m.

Immediately my phone started buzzing with confused replies from executives, board members, assistants and investors asking if the schedule reshuffle was urgent.

It was.

Just not in the way they thought.

Because somehow explaining my catastrophic marriage history to two children felt significantly more terrifying than negotiating billion dollar acquisitions.

I called my Daniel first.

Bad decision.

The moment he picked up, he already sounded entertained.

“You sound stressed,” he said immediately.

“I need help.”

“Oh this is serious.”

“I have to explain things to the kids tomorrow.”

Silence.

Then slower now:

“…Everything?”

“I cannot tell six year olds their father was emotionally incompetent with a side of mistress complications.”

“You’d be surprised what children understand emotionally.”

“That is exactly what scares me.”

He sighed softly.

“Okay. So what exactly are you planning to tell them?”

And honestly?

inst line

That was the problem.

Because how exactly was I supposed to simplify this disaster into something age appropriate?

Hello children.

Your parents got married because your great grandparents treated marriage like diplomatic negotiations.

Then your father emotionally abandoned your mother, prioritized another woman, panicked when she got pregnant, accused her of manipulation, disappeared for six years and has now returned trying to become emotionally available after catastrophic character development. 1

Wonderful.

Perfect.

Excellent material for children.

So naturally, I did what every emotionally overwhelmed person with internet access does.

I started researching.

And God.

The internet had apparently seen everything.

By the second hour I had parenting forums open across three tabs, child psychology articles on emotional processing, divorced parenting blogs, therapist recommendations, co parenting guides, trauma informed communication frameworks and one terrifying Reddit thread titled:

“How honest should you be with children about failed marriages?”

The answers alone nearly gave me hypertension.

One parent said honesty builds trust.

Another said too much honesty damages emotional security.

One therapist recommended “age appropriate emotional framing.”

Another recommended “protecting children from adult complexities,”

At some point I was sitting cross legged on my hotel suite couch with my iPad, three coffees, highlighted notes and enough emotional panic to qualify for medical observation.

And the worst part?

People online had actually gone through situations like this.

There were fathers rebuilding relationships after abandonment.

Mothers navigating co parenting after betrayal.

Children asking difficult questions too early.

People trying to explain adult mistakes without emotionally transferring the damage onto their kids.

For the first time in a very long time, I realized something uncomfortable.

Cast line

I was not unique.

St painfully human.

Eventually I started taking actual notes.

Not business notes.

I would tell them that their mother and I got married before we truly understood each other properly.

That I made selfish decisions.

That I hurt their mother emotionally.

That when she told me about the pregnancy, I reacted badly because I was immature and afraid.

That their mother was brave.

That she raised them with love.

That my absence was my fault, not theirs.

And that I was trying now because I wanted to know them properly.

Not because I suddenly remembered they existed.

Not because of guilt.

But because they mattered.

By the time I finally stopped typing, it was almost midnight.

Midnight.

I stared at the amount of research sitting across my screen and genuinely laughed tiredly to myself because the last time I had prepared this hard for something, it had involved international investors.

Apparently fatherhood required more preparation than corporate warfare.

Who knew.

Till checked emails afterward because unfortunately capitalism never sleeps.

There were pending approvals from Singapore.

Two acquisition updates from Johannesburg.

An investment restructuring proposal waiting for my signature.

Currency instability reports.

Shareholder pressure.

One of the acting executives requesting approval for a media strategy I normally would have rejected instantly.

But my brain was nowhere near business anymore.

I responded mechanically for almost an hour before finally sleeping sometime after 1 a.m.

The next morning started at 7.

Morning jog.

Coffee.

Review calls.

Meetings.