Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

“Then perhaps when you’re here, you and I can have a conversation.”

“About what? Your ‘shortcomings’?”

“No one is perfect, Remy,” he bit out. “Including you.”

“I think you missed the point earlier, considering I just told you I learned that when I was four.”

Guillaume said nothing.

“I need some time with the kids, with Wyn, to decide what we’re going to do, and then I’ll call to let you know when to expect whoever is coming.”

It was very soft when his father asked, “Do you doubt I love you?”

“No, I doubt you know what love is.”

Remy heard his father’s hiss of breath and he wanted to feel nothing, but he didn’t because this was his dad. And unless you were a psychopath, no matter the time or maturity or wisdom you amassed in your life, you gave a shit about your parents. What they thought of you. What they felt for you. And what they felt about how you thought of them.

“Ça me blesse,” Guillaume whispered.

(This wounds me.)

“That was harsh, but I’m sorry, Dad, it was also true.”

“I will be gone one day too, son, and when I am, when my presence on this earth and your feelings about our family history don’t blind you to it, you will understand.”

“I walked out on my family once in my life and it destroyed me to the point I’ve been functioning on autopilot for three years, and now I will do whatever is necessary to rectify that mistake. You walked out on us all the time and never understood the devastation you created when you did, or you ignored it because dealing with it didn’t fit into your life. So, in a way, I already understand. But don’t fool yourself to make yourself feel better. I also never will.”

“You are forgetting in all of these daggers you’re aiming my way, that not only is your mother dying, I’m losing the love of my life.”

“The love of your life?”

“Surely, you cannot doubt that,” Guillaume huffed.

“Wyn is the love of my life too.”

“As she should be, she’s an incredible woman.”

Remy kept talking, again like his father didn’t speak.

“And because I was lonely and stupid and couldn’t face the fact that I’d failed my wife and family, I let another woman into my bed, and I will regret that until my dying day. What were your excuses?”

Another sharp breath and then, “Please call me when you know your plans.”

Which meant they were done, and Remy was good with that because he had work to do.

“You’ll either hear from me or Lisa.”

“Fine.”

“Take care.”

“I will give your mother your love.”

Remy blew out a breath.

And then he said, “Goodbye, Dad.”

And with a good deal of relief, he put the phone in its cradle, that conversation out of his mind, and got to work.





CHAPTER 13





Do It





Wyn





As I walked up to Remy’s house the next evening, I focused on each step I took.

This was because he had the door open, was lounging in it wearing another pair of faded jeans, a pale green, slightly oversized button-up, which fell open at the throat and rested beautifully on his broad shoulders, and he was watching each one of those steps.

I didn’t stop to greet him at the door.

Before I’d fully arrived, he turned to the side, an indication to come in.

I only spoke when I’d squeezed by him, he’d closed the door and turned to face me.

“Hi.”

He smirked, I felt my vaginal walls contract, and he replied, “Hi. Hungry?”’

I nodded.

He took my hand (yes, took my hand) and led me to his kitchen.

And right into it.

Okay.

After he’d walked out on me, he’d spent precisely (I counted), five and a half months in his apartment before he moved into this house.

As such, I’d been to that house for another family meeting, before the one Yves had called last week, to discuss Manon’s high school graduation party.

Also, as we decided was fair to each other and the children so they didn’t have to split their celebrations, Remy had hosted each of our children’s birthday parties once in the time since we’d been apart (I had the other times, it was coming up to his turn again), and I’d attended.

And in the beginning, pre-Myrna, when we were attempting to be good, divorced parents, I had spent Christmas Eve there and Remy had made his mother’s (read: one of his mother’s housekeeper’s) famed etouffee. It was our family’s Christmas Eve tradition and one of the few things he allowed into our lives that had anything to do with Colette.

In other words, since it was open to the family room, I’d seen it. I’d walked by it.

But I’d never walked into his kitchen.

And I didn’t understand why being in his kitchen felt so profound.

But it did.

He let my hand go, went to the oven and opened it, asking, “Do you want wine or a martini?”

“Wine,” I answered as he pulled out the takeaway from keeping warm.

“Right,” he murmured, setting the food containers on the counter and reaching to get down plates.