Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

In every way, we were perfect.

Perfect together.

But eventually, we did not drift apart. We broke apart.

And then he shattered us.

Ever since, I’d been sitting among the pieces trying to figure out how to start the process of gluing us back together.

While Remy had bought his mid-century pad, kitted it out with a personal style only an award-winning architect could pull off, and gone on with his life, falling in love with and introducing our family to another woman.

And I had to come to grips with that. Right now.

So it was going to make me later, but I checked the clock.

And I did what I did when I had to do something that didn’t fit into my life, my schedule, the load I carried.

I gave myself five full minutes to feel it.

This meant I sobbed in the parking lot for two minutes.

I struggled with pulling my shit together for two minutes.

I dried my tears and did my best to fix my face for a minute.

Then I pulled out of the parking lot and left Walgreens—and the love of my life—behind.





CHAPTER 2





Hugh Hefner





Wyn





Pulling up to the curb in front of Remy’s house, it was not the first time I considered how deeply it sucked that his house was so cool.

Once Manon left for school, I did things to the home Remy and I had raised the kids in. Things that gave me the world’s best bathroom and closet, but it usurped two bedrooms.

Even if her room was one of them, Manon was all over it.

She helped me with the design and was perfectly okay staying in the “guest” bedroom (because I let her redecorate, so it was mostly all her, just a more sophisticated, mature her). An additional carrot on that stick was that it had an en suite.

Sabre bunked with Yves whenever he stayed with me, something Yves was down with, but Sabre was upset I’d destroyed his bedroom even though he’d said, “I’m never moving back home,” approximately five hundred times in the months before, and then the years after he’d gone to school.

Not to mention, when he wasn’t cross-countrying it with his bros, he was camping with them, in Rocky Point with them, playing rugby with his league, interning at different firms (including his father’s), dating copious “babes”, or staying with his father.

Oh yeah, and when Remy heard about the renovations, he came over and we didn’t bicker about it.

He’d lost his damned mind and nearly shouted the house down about how “irrational” it was to take a house from a five-bedroom to a three-bedroom, and “…in this neighborhood, you’re flushing a hundred thousand dollars right down the toilet, Wyn.”

“Considering I’m dying in this house, Remy, what do I care?” I’d shot back. “The kids will bury me, sell it, and put their children through college with the proceeds. It’s a win for them in a time hopefully they’ll be so full of grief, they won’t give a damn about a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Bullshit, woman…” (And by the by, we’ll just say I was never, ever a fan of when the word “woman” came out of my ex-husband’s mouth, pre-divorce, but definitely not when he was yelling at me after it), “…when Yves is out, you’re either going direct to a high-rise with a concierge and a valet that parks your fucking car for you or you’re moving to LA. You intend to die in this house, my ass.”

As long as even one of my children was in Phoenix, my ass was in the Valley of the Damned Sun.

However, he might not be wrong, because I’d never considered it until he mentioned it, but someone valeting my car when I came home sounded heavenly.

I did not share that.

I said, “Considering I bought you out of this property and it’s only my name on the title, darling, what on earth does it matter to you?”

“Stop fucking calling me ‘darling.’ You know I hate it. It’s fucked-up New York Fashion Week bullshit.”

“I know it is,” I confirmed. “I also know how much you detest it, darling, so clue in. I use it to piss you off when you’re pissing me off in hopes you’ll get so pissed off, you’ll take off.”

Oh yes.

We had a very healthy divorce, Remy and me.

We won’t get into the argument we had when Sabre told him I was changing back to my maiden name.

My business name was still simply Wyn Gastineau, it had an “Inc.” behind it officially, but not as it was known in the biz. It was my name, the end.

But I legally went back to Wyn Byrne personally.

I did this after Myrna moved in with Remy.

Okay, since it was on my mind, we’ll get into it.

It went like this.

Remy: “So, you’re punishing me for being with someone else?”

I was, of a sort.

Me (in denial, not only to him): “The world doesn’t revolve around you, darling.”

Yes.

I’d thrown in the “darling.”

Remy: “Bullshit, Wyn. Has it occurred to you that we might not be together, but we’re still a family?”

Me: “I haven’t disowned our children. I’ve changed my name. And frankly, what my name is, is no longer any of your business.”

Remy: “You dumping my name and our history and every memory we’ve ever made is none of my business?”