Page 44 of Best Kept Vows

“Yeah, baby.”

I took a deep breath. “How…how do you feel about couples’ counseling?”

I waited for him to lose his shit, but he surprised me by smiling. “I was thinking exactly the same thing.”

“You were?”He was?

“Yeah.” He sat on the stool next to me at the kitchen island. “I…have things I need to deal with. I know that.ButI also thinkweneed to talk through…stuff. Like you said, you’re carrying a lot of resentment. I need to hear about that.”

“You do?” I couldn’t believe it. Sebastian wanted to go to therapy with me. This was an alternate universe, for sure.

He gave me a sad smile. “I love you. I want to get us back to a better place…not where we were, because that’s not possible—we have both grown and changed—but to find a new balance for us.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with my husband?” I blurted out.

“I am a man who’s learning to be a better husband and father,” he said softly, a wealth of regret in his eyes.

My lungs forgot how to work for a moment. Sebastian wasn’t exactly arrogant, but he wasn’t big on apologies. He was also a little antiquated in his view of men and women and their roles in society.

“And…how did this…whatever this is, come about?”

He pushed a strand of hair behind my ear. It was an intimate and affectionate gesture, and once again, I wondered if I was doing the right thing by moving out. I could lose the marriageandhim.

Well, if you lose him because you left for a bit, then he’s not worth keeping.

“I realized that I’d been putting peace with my mother above your happiness.”

Well, knock me down with a feather.

“And then I found out how you’ve been taking care of my father. It made me realize that I had lost touch withyouand my father. I’d…lost touch with myself.”

Sebastian was a good man. He was an intelligent man. What he wasn’t was self-exploratory. He believed he knew the difference between right and wrong, and no one could tell him otherwise.

I slumped in my chair. “Sebastian, I don’t know what the right thing is anymore.”

“I got news for you, baby, neither do I.”

“That doesn’t sound promising,” I said, chagrined.

Sebastian chuckled softly. “I don’t know about that, baby. Maybe I’m finally getting my shit together.”

I stared at him, searching his face, checking for cracks, looking for hesitation. There was none. Only the same exhaustion I felt, the weight of everything we had been through, but beneath that, there was also resolve. We were going to make this work…somehow.

I let out a shaky breath. “Ah…Luna recommended a therapist. Aurora speaks well of her also.”

“Do you want me to make the appointment?”

The weight pressing inside of me didn’t disappear completely, but it shifted and lightened just enough for me to breathe.

“Yes, please.” I immediately forwarded Dr. Monica Ryan’s contact information to him. “Ah…do you think we need individual therapy as well?”

Why the hell was I asking him? How wouldheknow? Neither of us had ever done this kind of thing before.

“Why don’t we see this Dr. Ryan, and let her advise us?” he suggested.

“Good idea.”

I finished my coffee, and then, knowing I couldn’t delay it any longer, I stood and walked to the bedroom to pack.

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