13. Do It

CHAPTER13

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.

“You do drinks, I’ll serve up,” I offered when he had the plates on the counter.

He looked at me, nodded, then moved out of the kitchen to his wet bar where he stored his wine.

Though, Manon told me, in the other wing of the house there was a walk-in wine room that was, “So rad, Mom, you wouldn’t believe.” Apparently, you could see it from the pool. However, I had not seen it as I had not been in that wing or near his pool.

Remy had lived there two and a half years, and I’d been in the living room and family room.

And that was it.

I shook off these thoughts, and how they were distressing me, and got down to sorting the food.

When I opened the lids, it was no surprise to see he got me my favorite. Combo platter with pulled pork and brisket.

It was also no surprise Remy got a combo too: pulled chicken and turkey.

He had always, from the time I’d met him, had a mind to healthy living.

This didn’t mean he didn’t drink or eat sweets or snack. He did.

Just that, for the most part, he selected healthy choices and never really went overboard on anything.

It also meant, even after he quit training for triathlons, he ran, went to the gym and lifted weights, and always played rugby.

Rugby was his thing. He went out of his way to follow the MLR in the U.S., the same with the European, Australian and New Zealand leagues.

He was so into it, he’d played in a league in New York, and one of the first things he’d done when we moved to Phoenix was find one here.

Then, in usual Remy fashion, five steps ahead of any game, he got deeply involved in the junior league, building that up, as well as the senior league.

He did this because he loved the game. He did this because he wanted others to love it.

And he did it because he knew he couldn’t play in the adult league after a certain age because he might get hurt, being mid- or late-forties and playing with guys in their twenties and thirties. But he wouldn’t want to quit.

He’d also given this to our boys.

Sabre and Yves both played junior, Yves still active, and Sabre had found a team in Tucson.

They loved playing and I loved watching, regardless of the fact that, more often than not, they’d end up bloody.

Still, they were all very good at it, the best on their teams (I will admit to some prejudice about that). And it was an interesting sport, far more than any other (I will admit to some prejudice about that too).

I, on the other hand (and I’d given this to my daughter), loved food, but hated physical activity.

I’d struggled with this in my twenties and thirties.

But in my forties, I realized it was who I was.

I was not sedentary by a long shot. And although I could go overboard, sitting around eating wasn’t my way of life.

My epiphany to being at one with this came when, one day, I heard that Tina Turner said she stayed in shape, and had those amazing legs, simply by walking every night after dinner.

That might be a fib, and it should be said she made this comment while she was touring, and I’d seen her on stage, so walking wasn’t all the exercise those great gams got.

But it made me think.

And after some reflection, I realized I liked to walk too. I also liked to stretch.

So I didn’t knock myself out, but I did both.

Not every day, but regularly, I’d walk. Sometimes I’d do it twenty minutes, sometimes I’d get into the music or podcast I was listening to, and I’d walk for over an hour.

But even if that was as and when, nearly every morning before I took a shower, I did some stretches and some crunches to keep my limbs supple and my core strong.

But that was it.

And unless I found something else I liked, it always would be and I was okay with that.

This was even if (the same as when I first met Remy) I’d carried extra weight. I’d then put on some when I was pregnant with the kids, and I didn’t take it off. And sadly, my coping mechanism after Remy left meant I’d added a size.

But two nights ago, my ex-husband said he wanted to fuck me in my tub.

And since then, I’d reflected on those words.

After he left, I’d convinced myself there was a time when Remy wasn’t attracted to me.

But taking some time (a lot of it), I realized he had never, not once, given me indication he was not attracted to me sexually or aesthetically, this being during pregnancy, post-pregnancy, in the years in between as life happened, which meant age happened, and both happened to me.

In fact, I’d always been curvy, from the minute I met him. Sure, I was curvier now, but he got three kids out of that.

I also remembered that I was not one of those women who had to put up with her man admiring other women, because he never looked. Never. Not once that’d I’d noticed in decades.

It was me for him.

He was just into me.

Then.

And, apparently, now.

Which might be why Myrna hurt as bad as she did and why I’d talked myself into thinking he’d lost interest in me.

For Remy, it had always just been me…until her.

Though, it was perhaps more important, after struggling with my body image and confidence as many girls and young women my age did, I got over it, and not just because my husband made no bones about the fact he was very attracted to me (even if that helped a ton).

I was around beauty for a living.

I saw it in its classic sense. I saw it in its atypical sense. I saw it in its edgy sense. I saw it in its unexpected sense.

And thus, I saw it was everywhere, in everyone, with one key component that was the same for all.

The people who had it knew they did.

If you thought you were beautiful, you just were.

When I realized the key to being beautiful was knowing you were, I realized I was beautiful.

And that was the end of it.

So there I was in Remy’s kitchen facing a version of us in food form.

Remy had his turkey and chicken, I had my beef and pork, and that was who we were. It always had been.

And it worked.

Not because he didn’t mind if I stole some of his, or I wouldn’t complain if he took a forkful of mine.

And not because I was a together twenty-something when he met me, and I got I was all that.

But because that was the place Remy put us from the minute he met me.

And he’d never moved us from that place.

Not even when he left me (no, I had not missed the admiring glances or even the smirks during birthday parties or Christmas Eve, not to mention some of the times he came over to pick a fight, I was just determined to think they were about something else).

If he’d been a different man, I might not ever have come to terms with my body, face and style. Say he’d been Bill, who was a nice guy, but I’d always cringed before he’d broken it off with Janelle and we were around them, and he’d say things to her like, “Babe, maybe you should lay off the fries.”

Remy would never do that, and not because it wasn’t nice or appropriate.

But because it wouldn’t occur to him. If I wanted fries, he’d want me to have them, and if they landed on my ass, he didn’t care because he loved my ass however it came.

Because how it came was with me.

“I’ve got a Zinfandel or a Bordeaux here,” he called, breaking into my thoughts. “But I can go to the wine room and grab something else.”

“Zinfandel,” I told him, getting out of my head and into piling the food on the plates.

He arrived with the uncorked wine and the glasses.

He poured through an aerator as I finished with the food.

That was more Guillaume in Remy.

He knew good wine. He understood why it was good. And he knew it was important to aerate a young wine to relieve the tannins.

I had an aerator. But I rarely used it. I just opened the wine, poured and drank it.

Though, I did taste how much better it was when it was aerated.

Remy set the glasses at the end of the countertop where there was a large seating area with four stools, instead of taking them to the round dining table in the corner of the family room with its smoked glass top sitting on a thick, geometric walnut base.

I was relieved he didn’t treat this as formal.

We were far from casual, hanging out, talking.

But it still felt nice—comforting—that he went that route.

And I wasn’t surprised when he got out cloth napkins with lime green and robin’s egg blue boomerangs and chocolate brown lines with coral and aqua balls on the ends.

Remy had outlawed paper napkins, plastic cutlery, straws and any but necessary use of paper towel in our house around the time he switched to committing to using at least sixty percent of reclaimed materials for all his builds.

He never, however, gave up on the Ziplocs.

This thought meant I was smiling to myself when Remy hustled me out of the way to commandeer the plates and grunted, “Sit.”

I sat, he set my plate in front of me, grabbed cutlery while I put my napkin on my lap and he asked, “What’s with the smile?” as he sat beside me and nabbed his napkin.

I pulled mine from my lap and held it up to him.

That was when he smiled and said, “Manon. Last year. Christmas. As a joke. I told her I was not George Jetson. She told me they worked with my house vision. I think she thought I’d bury them in a drawer. But I use them because they make her smile. I have a service that does my laundry, and when they go in, I request they come back ironed.”

That made me laugh.

It also made my heart swell.

He really did love his daughter.

All his kids.

But there was something sweet about the fact Manon was Daddy’s Girl.

It was sweet because I had a sister.

And we both knew how beautiful it felt to be Daddy’s Girl. I loved that my daughter had the same thing.

While I was laughing, Remy invited, “Dig in.”

I did that next.

Remy did too, but he also started the conversation.

“Before we get into the nitty-gritty, I have—”

“Can we not?” I blurted, the words coming out even before the thought behind them hit my brain.

“Sorry?”

I put my fork down, grabbed my wine, took a sip (excellent) and set it down before I looked to him.

We were at corners from each other, and I knew, if I shifted the right way, my knee would touch his.

I didn’t know for certain what I wanted. In between bouts of Remy, I was staying busy with life and keeping whatever was happening with Remy to happening with Remy.

It was hard, but it was also the best way forward.

Reflecting about where my mind had gone and finally being honest about my behaviors (and his) was one thing.

But there was no use obsessing about Remy when he had the answers, or we could work on the answers together, or we could see there were no answers, but that had to happen together too.

But now…

Now, for some reason, I just wanted barbeque, our daughter’s napkins and Remy.

“The nitty-gritty,” I said softly. “Can we just…?”

I trailed off because I didn’t know how to say what I wanted without taking us, and especially him, places we weren’t ready to go yet.

“Get to know each other again?” Remy suggested. My tone had been soft, his was gentle. But when I didn’t immediately answer, he went on, “Pretend?”

Pretend.

Pretend this wasn’t just his house and our house was now just mine?

Pretend the last three years didn’t happen?

Just…pretend?

“Fiona was in town this week. Noel was full throated in his complaints about the fact he had to rearrange my entire schedule yesterday afternoon so I could view properties with her. But it was all worth it because I really like to spend time with her. She came over for a glass of wine before she had to leave last night, and I will never forget the look on Theo’s face when Fiona Remington walked into the living room.”

Speaking of looks I wouldn’t forget, Remy Gastineau had given me many in our lives together.

The one he had when I walked down the aisle to him.

The expression on his face when I told him I was pregnant with Sabre (and then Manon, and then Yves).

The way he looked the first time Sabre was placed in his arms (and then Manon, and then Yves).

The one he wore when I walked into Spring House, up in Montana. A house he’d designed and built. And I’d wandered around it, knowing it was different. Knowing he was shirking off the tethers of his firm. What he was told to do, what he was supposed to do, clearly making his own mark. And I told him it was by far the best work he’d done to date. Then he’d told me he wanted to quit the firm and start his own. And I’d instantly said, “Do it.”

And that one right there.

The one that was him and me eating barbeque at his counter in his house and pretending we hadn’t imploded.

That we were still us.

At the same time giving him another massive hint that was where I wanted us to get back to being.

“If Theo sticks around, he might want to get used to that,” Remy noted.

“My clients don’t tend to walk into my living room, Remy.”

“Manon has worked the last three summers in your warehouse, Wyn, and she’s getting a degree in fine arts. That degree has a zero-point-one job placement rate, unless she gets a couple of graduate degrees. She’s unofficially mentoring herself at your shop, likely because she wishes Noel was her brother by blood and she doesn’t want him to feel his position is challenged. Regardless, it doesn’t take a psychologist to see, if you allow it, this is going to be a family business. And although Theo is a solid guy, I don’t like the idea of Yves sticking with the first person he’s with rather than having some experience and knowing what he really wants. But if they work, Theo will be in our family.”

“I need to start taking Manon to shows,” I murmured.

“You do,” he agreed.

We shared a familiar weighted glance while sharing familiar agreement about one of our kids.

Then I turned back to my barbeque, and in between bites, I told him, “I mentioned Fiona for a reason.”

“Let me guess. She’s not finding a house. She’s finding a lot and wants me to scrape the house on it, if it has one, and build one for her.”

I faced him again. “How’d you guess?”

He smiled, shook his head and went for his wine. “Because I never should have done the Heald home. I’ve had calls from A-listers, B-listers, aging Hollywood royalty and a straggle of wannabes.”

“This is good,” I said.

“This is a disaster,” he replied. “Because, honey, those people are pains in the ass.”

“Fiona isn’t,” I disagreed, and I would know, because I had a lot of clients and a goodly number of them were a pain in the ass.

“They all are,” he refuted. “I swore to myself after Heald, not again. Christ, it’s a wonder I didn’t do time for murdering him when I worked with him. I changed my design fifteen times at his demand.”

I couldn’t believe I forgot this. It had done Remy’s head in. The guy was ridiculous, not only with his indecisiveness, but his demands on Remy’s time.

“Since then, I’ve had preliminary consultations with three actors, a director and a producer. All big names. All came to their meetings with definitive ideas, but before a week was up, they were already phoning repeatedly to suggest changes and additions. Now, I put them off before it gets to the consultation stage.”

“I don’t think Fiona would be like that. She’s decisive. Case in point, she found a piece of property north of Carefree yesterday and she’s buying it.”

He shook his head and went back to his food.

“Remy,” I called.

He shoved some turkey in his mouth and looked at me.

“Do you really have a two-year waiting list?” I asked.

“Literally, for someone to get direct to me, yes. For one of the talented people I employ, no. But it’s anywhere from eight months to a year. But they all want me. And I don’t bump people up the list. So if they want me, they wait for me.”

Well, damn.

Now I was in the position of asking my ex-husband, who I’d fallen into working on our relationship with, for what amounted to a very big favor.

Remy knew me, which was why he asked, “You told her I’d do it?”

“I told her I’d ask, and this is going to sound like pressure, still, you should know. I might not have texted you the other night if Fiona hadn’t told me I should.”

“Typical, she gives something, she gets something,” he muttered, and in his mouth went some beans.

“That’s life, for the most part,” I pointed out.

“Not for everyone. That’s just how those people work,” he replied, and I felt my eyes narrow.

“You hardly hobnob in Hollywood to know how they work,” I noted.

He took another sip of his wine before he looked me direct in the eye. “You think I haven’t lived my life around entitled people and don’t know how they work? My life has been the figurative carrot and stick. Emphasis on stick, Wyn. And I didn’t work my ass off to manage my own goddamned firm, to have a new line of privileged assholes taking their whips to me. If they want me, they can wait for me.”

Emphasis on stick…

Taking their whips to me…

Entitled people…

Privileged assholes…

We were both creative.

We could both be prone to drama.

But this was intense language, and because it was, an unexpected cold started creeping over me.

“Are there deeper issues we should be talking about?” I asked hesitantly.

“Not if we’re not getting into the nitty-gritty,” he answered.

“I think maybe we need to.”

He sat straight.

And then he announced, “Great then. Mom’s dying of cancer.”

I gasped.

“Yep,” he said. “She wants me to come and see her. She wants the kids to come and see her. Or, at least, Dad does since he called to share this. Therefore, I’m sure you won’t be surprised, he was thrilled we’re working on things and I’m sure he wants you to come and see her, but mostly that means he wants you to come and see him.”

“Remy,” I whispered, watching him closely because this had to be confusing news to him.

But the bottom line was, your mom was your mom.

“And by the way, he’s been calling these last few days, but I didn’t talk to him until after I got off the phone with you yesterday. And that was the first time I’d talked to him in three years.”

Another gasp and then I asked, “Three years?”

A short nod and then, “Not a surprise, Mom was far from upset we broke up and she was happy to explain that to me as only Mom can do. Dad was devastated, but he didn’t call to share that. When I hung up on Mom and blocked her, Dad called not to say how upset he was that I’d done something as fucking stupid as leaving my beautiful wife. Nor did he call to try to explain why Mom behaved the way she did and apologize in her stead. He demanded I make amends. To her.”

“Some things don’t change,” I said hesitantly, saying this, but thinking how much I wished they did, especially around this very thing for Remy. And more hesitantly, I asked, “Are you going?”

“Did you fuck someone after I left?”

Hang on.

Wait.

Okay.

Um.

Hell no.

Remy did this, and it always happened around a discussion about his parents.

Precisely, anytime I got near to understanding how he truly felt about them.

Obviously, it wasn’t hard to discern they weren’t close. Equally, it wasn’t hard to discern they were difficult people, so it would be no fun having them as parents and that easily segued into them not being close.

But any deep discussion about this was a no go.

He’d try deflection. Or he’d attempt distraction.

Or he’d pick a fight.

All of which he was doing right now with that one question.

“Let’s stay on target,” I suggested.

“No, Wyn. I’d like to know how guilty I really should feel about how I fucked up with Myrna.”

Do not bite, Wyn!

“You don’t need to feel guilty, Remy. We were divorced. You were free to do what you wished.” It took a lot, but I said it, and I wasn’t sure I meant it, but that didn’t stop it from being the truth. “Now, let’s get back to the equally uncomfortable subject of your mother dying.”

“I was free to do what I wished, so you were too, is that what you’re saying?”

“Okay, let’s just get out of the nitty-gritty,” I requested, maybe somewhat desperately. “How was your day?”

“My day was shit because my mom’s dying, my kids have to go back and forth between two houses because I failed my marriage, and my wife is dodging a direct question because she doesn’t want to say to my face she took a cock that is not mine.”

Ding!

Done.

“Remy!” I snapped. “Stop being an ass.”

“Just tell me, did you fuck someone else, Wyn?”

“We never have to talk about this.”

“Okay then, I’ll let that slide for now. Do you forgive me for Myrna?”

“I don’t even know all the reasons why you walked out on me,” I reminded him. “Let’s not put the cart before the horse and get into all of this.”

“So that means…no. You don’t forgive me.”

“I know you don’t have a close relationship with your mom. I know why. Now she’s ill and she wants her family around her, and her family is my family, so we need to talk about that.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know why, Wyn.”

“Sorry?”

“You don’t know why I’m not close with my mother.”

Oh God.

Now that we were here, with that new look on his face, did I want to know?

I wasn’t sure.

My mouth was because it ordered, “Then tell me, Remy.”

After decades of evading this, he immediately turned his head and pointed to a white scar that was around three inches long. It marred his tanned skin about an inch down from his hairline, just behind his ear.

I’d asked him about it years ago.

He’d told me it was a rugby injury. He was down on the pitch and got stepped on by some cleats.

Now, I sat frozen to the spot, knowing that was a lie.

He turned back and shared, voice detached, “Dad was away on business, but he was supposed to come home. He didn’t come back when he was supposed to, even when he did.”

I sensed where this was going, but I didn’t say anything.

Remy kept sharing.

“He had a local fuck.”

Yes.

That was what I sensed because Guillaume cheating on Colette, and Remy knowing it, was one of the things I did know about his folks.

“I’d met her,” he carried on. “He took me to her place once and I hung in her family room while they fucked in her bedroom. We were supposed to be having father and son time. Her name was Estelle. She was gorgeous. Brashly gorgeous. What my mother would refer to as low rent or trashy. She was a lot younger than my mom too. She made me an ice cream sundae and told me I was a heartbreaker. Then she took Dad down the hall, and as he was walking away, he told me to be quiet and behave.”

I could not believe my ears.

“My Lord, Remy.”

“But that day, the one he was supposed to come home, he called Mom and told her he was going to be away another couple of days. She was furious. But this time, she held it in check. At least she did until she got another call. I don’t know who it was from, probably a friend of hers. One who saw Dad with Estelle. He was in New Orleans. He was home. But he didn’t come directly back to his wife and son. He went to his local fuck.”

I reached out and touched his arm, murmuring, “Oh, honey.”

“Though, he sent flowers,” he continued. “Or his secretary did. When Mom got them, that was when she lost it. Took the vase, struck me with it. It broke on my skull, and the edge cut me. It cut deep. Water all over the place. Red roses everywhere, all mixed with my blood. Mom was hysterical. Our live-in, Marjorie, took me to the hospital and called Dad’s secretary. He came home then. Home. Not to me in the hospital. To our house. To her. Soothing her, telling me when Marjorie brought me back that we had to understand how delicate she was. How women reacted to things differently. How very, very good we had to be not to upset Mom.”

There was no buzzing in my head this time.

It felt like my veins had turned to acid and I was deep breathing while trying not to come out of my skin.

Remy, however, grew silent and I knew story time was over.

“How old were you?” I asked.

“Seven.”

Seven.

He’d been seven.

Good God.

I continued deep breathing, but now while trying not to will my body to dematerialize in Phoenix, rematerialize in NOLA, so I could slap a dying woman silly.

I then tried to leech all accusation out of my voice when I asked, “Why have you never told me this story?”

“Because I learned to be very, very good not to upset the women in my life.”

I sat back like I’d been struck, but he leaned forward.

“You don’t get it,” he said harshly.

And his face was suddenly ravaged, a hundred times worse than the harshness of his words.

“Then explain it to me,” I replied gently.

“It’s all I knew. Don’t make waves. Smooth things over. Be good.”

“Okay,” I prompted. “For her, but for me?”

“Of course for you. More for you than I’d ever do it for her.”

This made sense.

And yet it really, really did not.

“I want to understand, Remy, I truly do, but I can’t say I’m getting it.”

“I love you.”

I sat still on my stool, staring at him.

“Nothing should touch you,” he went on.

Oh God.

He kept going.

“You don’t feel pain. You don’t get upset. Nothing touches you, Wyn. I have to make that so. Do you get it?”

God.

“Life isn’t like that, Remy. It’s impossible to make that so.”

“I know that. I’m fucked up, but I’m not stupid.”

“I wasn’t saying you were.”

“I’m saying I don’t make you feel pain. I don’t upset you. I don’t cause you harm in any way.”

“You never would,” I assured, then added, “I knew that. I never doubted it.”

“She broke my arm. She gave me a concussion. And once she shook me when we were on the stairs, lost control, and I fell down. Half a flight. I dislocated my shoulder.”

Some force surged through me so strong, it drove me to push my stool back and stand up.

Remy stood up with me.

Broke…

Concussion…

Lost control…

Half a flight…

Dislocated.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered, my words strangled.

He pointed at my face, and if I thought his expression was ravaged before, I didn’t understand the meaning of the word.

It was that now.

And I felt it.

I felt it in every cell that made me.

“That,” he growled, jerking his finger in my face gain. “That right there is why I didn’t tell you.”

“Do you not think I should know my husband’s mother beat him?”

“I absolutely do not think you should ever know that, and it is fucking killing me telling you now.”

“Remy,” I breathed, wanting too much all at once.

To shout at him, scream, rant, rave, dissolve into anger to balm the hurt that he never trusted me with this.

But the bigger needs were to touch him, smooth my hands over him, make him absorb how loved he was, find a way to go back in time and save him from his mother, from that fucking father of his, from his unhealthy need to shield me from, from…

Shield me from him.

Shield me from the man I loved.

“I needed to know all of that,” I said.

“You don’t need to know it, Wyn. I’m looking at you right now, and it’s written all over your face how much you don’t fucking need it.”

“I need every part of you.”

“Not that.”

“Every part, Remy.”

He reared forward so fast I didn’t have a chance to lean away.

“Not that!” he roared in my face.

I went silent.

Then I demanded, “Give me your phone.”

“What?”

“Give me your phone!” I screamed.

His movements wooden, he reached to his back pocket, pulled out his phone and handed it to me.

I looked down at it and asked him, “Same passcode?”

“What are you doing?”

It was the same passcode because I entered it, my birthdate (for God’s sake!), and I was in.

I went to his contacts.

“Wyn, what are you doing?”

“I’m calling your fucking father.”

He slipped his phone out of my hand.

My head shot up. “Give that back.”

“I’m seeing we both need to take a breath, drink some wine and—”

“Give it back.”

“Wyn, there’s no point phoning him. Trust me, he doesn’t give a shit.”

I put my hands in his chest and pressed hard into the firm bulges of his pectorals.

Then I fisted my fingers in his shirt, pulled out then pushed in.

After that, I let him go, walked around him, through his kitchen to the back wall and stood at the wall of windows, staring at the lit, deep-clean aqua of his pool.

He had a dinette set out there: white table, white bucket chairs. A seating area with four white armless chairs facing each other, two-by-two. Not to mention, two other seating areas that had loungers.

Every inch was perfection, not even a hint on that white of the famous Phoenix dust that coated everything, and my guess was, he maintained it himself.

She shook me when we were on the stairs, lost control, and I fell down. Half a flight.

I closed my eyes.

Half a flight.

Twenty-four years, I didn’t know.

Twenty-four years.

And I didn’t know.

Remy was behind me when he said, “She’s dying, and I need to go see her. I also need to talk to our kids, give them the information to help them make the decision on their own of whether they want to go or not.”

I opened my eyes. “Does that information include them learning their grandmother physically abused their father and their grandfather doubled down on that abuse by making his son responsible for it?”

Remy didn’t answer.

I turned and looked up at him. “You are not going to that den of jackals without me.”

His torso swayed back, and his brows shot up.

“She might be dying, but a cat’s at her most dangerous when she’s vulnerable. No way…in fuck…are you facing that bitch without me.”

There wasn’t a lot of space between us, but after I said that, Remy negated it by moving into me. He then smoothed my hair from my face and held my head in both hands before he dipped down so we were nose to nose.

“I hate that you know,” he whispered, and that was no lie, I could see it in his eyes.

This was killing him.

“I hate you didn’t tell me,” I retorted.

“Do you understand why I didn’t?”

“No, I don’t, Remy. I really fucking don’t.”

He closed down, started to move away, but I shot my hands up, caught his wrists and stopped him.

“Don’t you dare move away from me,” I snapped. “You did that once and it’s not happening again.”

He stood stock still.

“We’re telling our children and they’re all coming. Your entire family will be with you when you go back there, Remy.”

“It should be their choice.”

“They’re coming.”

He took a second with that before he agreed, “Okay. We can tell the boys, but Manon never knows.”

I felt my brows shoot together. “She will know.”

“No way, baby.”

“We are not her, Remy. Manon and I are not porcelain dolls who shatter at a blunt touch and cut you with our edges. We’re not that. Stop treating us like that.”

He looked in agony when he said, “I don’t know any other way, Wyn.”

“Then it’s time to learn.”

He took another second with that and then he said, “I’ll bump Fiona to the top of the list.”

God.

This man.

I pushed through his hands on my head to plant my face in his chest.

He wrapped his arms around me, and I felt his breath in the side of my hair.

I stood in his arms, taking on the crushing weight of understanding I didn’t have the information, but that didn’t mean I failed to understand, for decades, my husband was battling some pretty fucking significant demons.

His mother had essentially shoved him down the stairs, he’d twisted this in his head that he had to be all things to me (as well as, obviously, Manon), and I had bitched to him about Bea’s ugliness, telling him the nasty things she’d said about him.

He should have told me.

But I knew one thing.

The Gastineau family were skilled with façade.

And I’d just learned Remy was the master.

This did not enrage me.

No.

No matter what I’d lost to it.

Nope.

You see, I did not go from a loving family in a small house on a small farm in a small town in Indiana to styling award-winning movie stars by backing down from a challenge.

Oh no, I did not.

If I wanted something, I got it.

I wanted my husband back.

All of him.

And by God, I was going to have what I wanted.

“Do you want Lisa to make the arrangements, or Noel?” I asked his chest.

His arms tightened. “Lisa can do it.”

“Do you want me to call the family meeting, or do you want to do it?”

“I’d like to further discuss Manon being there.”

I tipped my head back. “No, Remy. From here on out, from Yves being gay to you surviving your upbringing, there is no more hiding in this family.”

“She has to know she can count on her father for anything.”

“And you have to get, she already does.” I shook my head. “How perfect do you need to be, Remy?”

“I walked out on you when your business exploded, and I understood that you never again had to count on me for anything. How perfect do you think I need to be, Wyn?”

My God.

This man.

I forced my hands between us only to lift them and cradle his jaw. “I counted on you for everything.”

“If you did, you’d know you could throw away a glass of wine, because there’s more where that came from, and if that’s what you wanted, I’d break my back to make sure there always would be.”

Oh.

My.

God.

I closed my eyes, shoved my fingers up into his hair and pulled his forehead to mine.

“I need to know,” he said, his voice thick, and I opened my eyes.

“Know what?”

“Is this what it seems? Are we working on us?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said instantly.

That was when my arms got caught between us when he crushed me to him.

His face was in my neck, which meant I told his ear, “Let’s eat. Talk about our days. Get you through this with the kids, your parents, and then we can…figure out all the rest.”

“All right,” he said into my neck.

“Somewhere in all that, I’ll call Fiona and tell her it’s good to know the right people.”

He gave me a powerful squeeze that nearly made me peep.

Then he lifted his head and I saw conflict mixed with warmth and humor in his eyes.

This was the gift my husband gave me before he gave me another and smiled.