Page 26 of His

And with that, she disappears into the master bedroom once again.

Sixteen

Sabine

Coffee in hand, I knock on the door next to the guest bedroom.

“Come in,” Astor yells from the other side.

The room is no larger than a walk-in closet. Cillian is sitting behind a built-in desk that lines one side of the room, and Astor is sitting on a bench seat under a window, balancing a laptop on his lap. The scent of fresh paint lingers in the air and I assume they’d recently renovated the space into a temporary office.

Cillian’s over-six-foot frame dwarfs the desk. He looks both comical and uncomfortable.

“Excuse me,” Astor says to Cillian as he rises from the bench. He grabs my hand and kisses me on the forehead. “Good morning, beautiful.”

I blush, while secretly loving the display of affection in front of Cillian.

He motions me outside the room and closes the door behind us.

“How are you? Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Just wanted to say hi.”

“How did you sleep?”

“Well, actually.”

We step outside onto a small patio and follow the cobblestone pathway to the cliff, and away from prying eyes.

The sun dances on the ocean below us and there’s a light breeze in the air. Back in Louisiana it’s probably already eighty degrees. Here it’s barely seventy.

We both drag in a deep inhale, clearing our lungs of the darkness in the house behind us.

“I have news,” he says, turning to me.

“Good or bad?”

“Good. I spoke with my attorney today. We’re going to begin the process of untangling everything in preparation for a divorce. He’s putting together a whole team to deal with it all. I have a conference call with everyone next week.”

I can’t hide my surprise.

“How do you feel about that?” He asks, eagerly with a hint of desperation in his voice.

Astor is doing everything he can to keep me happy and make me comfortable in this crazy situation we’ve found ourselves in.

“I feel good about it—very good.”

He smiles broadly and he brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “Okay, good. But I do want to add—when Valerie was in the hospital, I made a promise to her that I would take care of her; that I would be there for her. It’s important to me to honor that, but I can do it without being legally married. She’ll have me and a medical team at all times.”

“I understand, and I’m okay with that.”

He sighs, his eyes trailing my face as if he never wants to forget a line of it. “God, I love you. I know this is hard, and it’s going to be a long process, but we took a big step today.”

I smile. “One at a time, right?”

“Exactly. Oh. And Cillian and I walked the grounds today and there’s a spot we could build a little house in the interim for you to live in if it gets that bad.”

“Are we going to be here that long?”

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