Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

“I missed a few pills and—”

“Myrna, if that was the case, you should have told me, and we shouldn’t have had sex.”

“I couldn’t know the condom would break.”

He wasn’t going to allow her to try to pull that shit again.

He’d seen the fucking evidence, for fuck’s sake.

“It didn’t break,” he bit out.

Her neck started getting pink.

Yeah.

He sounded like a fucking bull when he breathed out hard through his nose.

Then he said softly, “You tampered with them.”

“Remy,” she whispered.

Yeah.

She fucking tampered with them.

“And then you had a pregnancy scare, which, fortunately, was only a scare. And equally fortunately, it made me investigate things, and that, Myrna, as I’ve explained before, is what you cannot ever come back from. And I cannot even begin to imagine how you think you could.”

“Okay, but really, there’s more to talk about.”

She could not be sane.

“I’m fifty-four goddamn years old and you were trying to trap me with a kid by poking holes in fucking condoms and skipping pills. There is not anything more to talk about.”

“I’m thirty-nine and my time is nearly up, and I wasted a year of that time with you,” she spat.

“And well before you did that, I told you I didn’t want more kids,” he returned. “So if that was important to you, you should have left me.”

“I was in love with you!” she yelled.

“If you were, then why the fuck would you betray me that way?”

“Because maybe, if I gave you a kid, like she did, you’d love me as much as you love her,” she shot back.

Remy said nothing.

Myrna did.

“And maybe, if we had a kid, you’d give them and me some of the attention you shower on Manon.”

“Listen to yourself, Myrna. You’re jealous of my daughter.”

“Tell me I don’t disappear when your precious Manon is around.”

His gut twisted in a foul way.

“This is actually repulsive,” he told her.

“Think of it from my perspective,” she begged.

“I am, and what I think is that somehow, to my disgust, after successfully managing not to do this exact thing for thirty years, I got involved with my fucking mother.”

Her head jerked like he’d hit her.

“Oh, but Wyn isn’t like Colette,” she baited.

Remy shook his head. “We’re not doing this.”

“Did you think of her when you fucked me?”

“You’ve got the couch until Saturday, Myrna.”

“Impossible,” she said like he didn’t speak. “You couldn’t think of her. She’s fat, I’m not. I cannot even begin to imagine,” she mimicked his words, “how she got as far as she did in fashion with the way she is. Talk about Colette. All of that type are just like your mother. All they give a shit about is appearances. Including Wyn.”

Remy said nothing, just crossed his arms on his chest, but she was finally doing something she’d never really done, even when she’d told him she thought she was pregnant, and he found out how that might occur.

She was pissing him off.

Myrna wasn’t finished, though.

“You are an incredibly fit man, you take your health seriously, what you do is important, lasting, it’ll leave a legacy, you have actual talent. Tons of it. What do you see in her?”

“She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, she always was, and she is to this day, not only because she physically just is because she’s fucking gorgeous and has amazing style, but also because her heart is big, and her first thought is not for herself, but for kindness. Even with that, she’s driven, ambitious, focused. She’s the best mother I’ve ever seen and she’s an insanely good lay. And yes, before you ask, she’s so much better than you, I wonder how we got to the point of you living with me. No wait, I remember. You asked to move in due to your situation with your old place, and you needed some time to save up to find something better, so you weren’t supposed to be here this long in the first fucking place.”

“I cannot believe you just said that to me,” she hissed.

“Unlike you, Myrna, I have never not told you the truth.”

“Fuck you!” she screamed.

“Friday,” he returned. “Out by Friday. Or honest to God, Myrna, I’ll put you out.”

“You’re going back to her, aren’t you?” she demanded.

And again, Remy told her the truth.

“Yes, Myrna, I am. As fast as I can get her to forgive me and let me back in because leaving her was the biggest mistake I’ve made in my life, and I’ve been paying for it from the moment I picked up my suitcases and walked away.”

She scored a point with, “And still, you got involved with me.”

Remy nodded. “Yes, I did, and I’m sorry for that, because I swear to Christ, I was always honest with you. But I can’t say the same about how I was with myself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Actually,” she flicked out a hand, “I do.”