Page 56 of Second Chance Husband

I looked down at my silk robe, and then at my hair still piled on the top of my head.

“Not even close. But I have a couple of hours before we have to be down for the wedding and cocktails. I thought you wanted to get with your brothers early though. Your parents had something in mind?”

It was odd to think that we were here for their wedding. I hadn’t been to either of their other ones, and if I remembered right, August hadn’t even been to his parents’ second wedding. He had been grounded and hadn’t wanted to go at all.

What a crock of shit. His parents had tried to break down his family.

“Well, Mom and Dad decided that they wanted to have time for just the two of them, rather than with us. So they’re doing their pre-wedding ritual, not that I ever want to know what that is.” He visibly shuddered, and I winced.

“Do you think it’s something that they’ve done before every wedding? Or maybe it’s like a lighting of a candle ceremony.”

“These are questions I don’t have answers to, nor do I want to think about ever again.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly.

He shrugged. “There’s nothing really we can do. Other than hope for the best. We’re here because kicking the family out completely hasn’t worked in the past.”

“They seem like good grandparents though.” I stood up then, setting my makeup brush to the side. I went to him, placing my hands on his chest. When he slid one of his up to grip my wrist, keeping me there, some part of me settled. He wasn’t pushing me away.

“They’re good grandparents. Odd that it surprises me, but they really are.”

“But that doesn’t give them a right to treat you as they did in the past. And it’s a complicated situation that I know that you all are working on.”

“Exactly. And I know one day we’ll figure it out. Whether it be they’re out of our lives completely, or they become the greatest grandparents ever. However, after this? I’m done. I don’t want to have to try with them much longer. And if that makes me a bad son, then it does.”

I put my free hand up over his cheek, cupping it. “That doesn’t make you a bad son. It makes you someone who’s finally protecting himself.”

“I don’t think I did a very good job of it in the past. But I’m going to protect you, okay?”

I froze, blinking up at him.

“What do you mean?” I asked softly.

“I know my parents haven’t had much to do with us in the past.” He paused. “Whatever us is.”

That wasn’t ominous at all.

“But I haven’t done a very good job of making sure that you’re safe in whatever this freaking family may be.”

“Your parents have never bothered me.” I lifted my chin and met his gaze. “They don’t know me. And frankly they don’t know you. But they have never bothered me and I’m fine with that.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing?” He frowned. “I wasn’t really good to you before.”

My heart did that little quickstep, and I shook my head. “Let’s just focus on today, okay? And the future.”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to investigate the past. Neither one of us were ready to go there. Especially not on a day like today when the past seemed to be wrapping its claws around our throats. It didn’t matter that it was selfish and probably weak of me, but I didn’t want that. I just wanted now.

For once, as a person who spent most of her days thinking about the future, I wasn’t going to think about it.

“You know, if you want, I can start the car, and we can make our way out. You don’t have to protect me from your parents. They don’t even know I exist.”

And oddly that didn’t give me pang of hurt. After all, if I had been in his parents’ vicinity back when we had first been married, maybe things would have been different. Most likely for the worse. Because I saw day in and day out what their inactions and reactions did to him.

You couldn’t blame your parents for everything, I knew that, but some parts you could. The way that my mother tried to control my life and push me into a box of her own making had forced me to make decisions that I might not have otherwise at the time.

Namely getting married not once, but twice. The first because my mother had said no, and she had resented me for it, the other because I had thought I’d been ready, and it had somehow made her happy. Why I had thought that would have been important at all, I didn’t know, but there was no turning back from that. Jacob was over, and my relationship with my mother needed to be over soon.

“I’m sorry for bringing you into all this. It really doesn’t make much sense, does it? The whole getting married multiple times and splitting up your kids throughout their whole life? I don’t understand them.”

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