Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

So…

“Yeah, wow.”

“No, I mean, yes, wow, to the Winston but also wow, you have this all planned out.”

“Have I ever fucked around?” he asked.

“No,” she answered. “Though, honey, I’m all for lavish, but you know me well enough to know I would never be involved in anything obnoxious.”

“I’m just saying, you’ll get what you want.”

And it wasn’t like she didn’t before.

But her parents insisted on paying for everything, and because they did, Wyn adjusted what she wanted to what they could afford.

It was a beautiful, amazing day, even if Colette minced through the affair like she had to be wary just in case they didn’t clean up all the hog droppings.

But he knew his wife then and now.

If she’d had the money, it would have been vastly different.

“I know what you’re saying,” she said softly.

He moved them beyond that. “So start thinking about it because we’ll need to do it before we get close to Sabre’s graduation. I don’t want to steal his thunder.”

“You’re certainly taking a lot for granted after one very nice orgasm.”

“Just very nice?”

“Yes, though it was more like very nice. However, I have a feeling the next one is going to be better.”

He made a noise that was a lot like a growl, which meant his wife reciprocated with a purr.

Yeah, the next one was going to be fucking awesome.

“Christmas,” he said.

Her eyes got big. “Like, you mean, for a wedding?”

“Yes.”

“I am obviously going to need to be married in Oscar de La Renta.”

He grinned. “Obviously.”

“It would take a small miracle to have a gown ready for December.”

“Then New Year’s.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Remy, that’s only an extra week.”

“Good thing Monday is a workday, and you can get on it.”

Her mind wandered, he saw it in her face. “This would be a perfect challenge for Noel.”

“Baby, right here.”

She focused on him again.

“Sleeping by my side?” he prompted.

And that was when he saw her face get soft, she cupped his cheek, and she whispered, “Just try to stop me.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

He felt his stomach twist, his throat get tight, and his voice was hoarse when he said, “If I could go back—”

“Stop it, Remy.”

“I hate I hurt you.”

“I know. I hate it too, and part of that is knowing how much you hate it. But it’s over.”

“I’ll never—”

She shifted her hand, so her fingers were over his lips.

“The hurt will never die if I have to live the rest of my life watching you suffer for it. It’s over, Remy. There’s more to figure out, but we’ll figure it out. Now,” she moved her hand, “kiss me before I go clean up.”

“I love you, Wyn.”

“I love you too, Remy.”

“I know,” he whispered. “Fuck, do I know.”

After he said that, he kissed her.

But she didn’t go clean up.

He went to the bathroom to get a washcloth to do it for her.

And after that, they discovered they both were right.

The next go was even better.





CHAPTER 17





French





Wyn





“When Pépé kicks it and we inherit his fortune, we’re buying a plane so we can take family vacations like the Kardashians,” Manon decreed.

“If I ever do anything like a Kardashian, shoot me, bro,” Sabre declared.

“Only if you make me the same promise,” Yves replied.

“Double suicide it is,” Sabre agreed.

I looked between the front seats of our rented Denali to the back where my two big boys were crunching my girl in between, and I watched them solidify their agreement with a fist bump.

They were being funny, even if it disturbed me greatly that Manon was cold-bloodedly spending her inheritance before she got it.

But I wasn’t surprised since she’d been confronted by the enormity of it considering Remy had just driven into the back drive of his parent’s home in New Orleans. A drive that had been paved in bricks in the 1910s. A drive, Remy had told me, that replaced the dual line carriageway that used to be there when it became clear automobiles weren’t going away.

The residents and guests staying at the house used that ingress, also using the stately porticoed door to the side for entry into the home. Other guests used the front door that faced the veranda at an angle to the side. An odd arrangement, that Remy explained when I’d asked after it.

“It’s about the windows, baby,” he’d said.

And when he’d shifted my perspective, I saw he was right.

Because beyond the regal white columns, past the graceful hanging lantern, if you didn’t get stuck on the manicured, potted, conical miniature evergreens dotting the porch among the curlicued wrought iron furniture, the fifteen-foot-high windows flanked by their narrow black shutters gave more than a glimpse of the opulence within.

Therefore, if that large, two-story home with its front veranda, top balcony and wide yard of velvet green skirted by a black-painted iron fence and trimmed by bird baths and meticulously tended greenery wasn’t in-your-face shouting, The people inside are loaded!, a view through the windows did.