Page 56 of The Marriage Auction 2: Part 3

Jack chuckled. “Family first, brother. Family first.”

Episode 75

Unforgivable

GIOVANNI

“And the nightmares? Have they lessened since the attack?” my therapist asked, her eyebrow cocked when I sighed deeply.

I crossed my ankle over my knee and tugged at my tie. The damn thing felt so tight that it was restricting my airflow.

“Is there a reason you are ignoring the question?” She tilted her head and stared at me.

When she did this, sometimes I felt like it was a game of chicken. Who would break eye contact first? Except uncharacteristically, I was always the one that looked away.

“Not exactly,” I gave in. “It’s frustrating to have my nights plagued by this. I eat dinner with my wife, make love to her, and then fall asleep with her scent in my nose, and her body tucked tightly to mine. Everything is fine. Fucking great even. I’m living the dream. I’ve always wanted Julianne.Always.

“Now I have her, and this shit creeps up when I’m sound asleep and attacks me all over again in the middle of the night. Why isn’t it going away?” I snarled and then clamped my mouth shut, realizing I was physically growling like an animal.

“It’s been a week, Giovanni,” she stated rather gently, then leaned forward and pushed the tissues closer to where I sat across from her.

“And?” I looked at her blankly and then felt the wetness around my eyes. “For fuck’s sake.” I reached forward, grabbeda tissue, and wiped at my leaky eyes. I didn’t even know I was tearing up. That’s how removed from all of this I wanted to be.

“And these things take time.”

“How much time? Give me a realistic timeframe to work with.”

She smiled and pushed a long strand of curly dark hair behind her ear. When she smiled freely, she was a knockout. A rather stunning, long-legged, curvy Black woman with style, elegance, and class. Which would put me off speaking about my private life with her—if she didn’t have this comforting way and lilt to her voice that somehow made me believe everything would be okay.

“Healing doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid. It takes as long as it needs.”

I groaned.

She held up a finger. “With that said, I can already tell you’re a lot calmer than you were the last two visits. That in itself is progress.”

I spun my finger in a circle. “Whoop-dee-doo. I don’t want to appear calm; I want to stop having flashbacks and waking in the night after having horrible nightmares that scare the hell out of my wife. Julianne is worried about me, and she has enough to worry about.”

“Oh?” she prodded, one of her overtly obvious ways of getting me to talk about something or someone.

“The judge sided in her favor regarding her case. And I, in turn, handed over my family’s percentage of our shared company so she’d have governing interest, and her brother can fuck right off.” I grinned, imagining how Brenden probably took the news when his lawyers were notified. He’d lost his wife and now primary ownership of FM Enterprises. It was the least he deserved for all the shit he’s pulled.

“Brenden, the brother. Your ex-best friend. The man married to your ex-fiancée, the woman who attacked you.” Her dark eyebrows rose toward her hairline.

“Exactly.”

“And how do you feel about sticking it to Brenden in this manner?”

I grinned. “Fucking fantastic.”

She shook her head.

“What? He deserves all of it. You disagree?” I scoffed.

“No, not at all. He has wronged you both deeply, and he’ll have to deal with the repercussions of his choices.” She nodded. “Doesn’t change the fact that what he did to you, to Julianne, still hurts. He is family.”

I made a rude noise with my mouth. “Not anymore.”

“Is that how Julianne feels? Have you discussed her brother and the chaos he and Bianca brought into your lives?”

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