Chapter <b>225 </b>


    -CELINE POV-


    The rain trailed behind us as we headed to the clinic that morning.


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    It wasn’t pouring, just a drizzle that blurred the windows and cast a dreary shade over everything.


    Hunter remained quiet as he drove, one hand gripping the steering wheel and the other tightly held on his thigh, as if he might cause himself injury.


    I wanted to say something….about the weather, about Caesar’s new obsession with dinosaurs, anything that didn’t matter. But my throat stayed locked, and the silence stretched until we parked.


    The same waiting room. The samemp glows. The same rug. I hated how familiar it already felt.


    Dr. Maxwell nodded at us when we entered. “Wee back. Sit.”


    Hunter and I sat side by side on the couch. He was close enough that his shoulder brushed mine when he shifted, but his eyes stayed down.


    Dr. Maxwell folded his hands. “Last time, we touched on anger. Today, I want us to move underneath that. Anger is often armor. What’s it hiding?<b>” </b>


    My stomach twisted. My mouth was dry. I opened it, then shut it again. Hunter beat me to it. His voice was low, hoarse.


    “It hides guilt.”


    I turned toward him, startled. He still wouldn’t look at me.


    “I keep thinking,” he went on, his fingers digging into his knees, “about that day. If I had told the guards not to let anyone in. If I had made that decision sooner. If I had…..” His voice broke. He swallowed hard.


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    “……if I’d <b>just </b>been there.”


    I stared at him. His jaw was trembling. Hunter Reid, who always looked untouchable, was trembling.


    Dr. Maxwell nodded gently. “So you punish yourself with what–ifs<b>.” </b>


    Hunter gave a small, bitterugh. “Every morning. Every night. I can’t close my eyes without


    seeing her fall.”


    。(57),


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    Something broke down inside me.


    I’ve been so wrapped in my own pain, my own me, I hadn’t stopped to see how haunted he looked in the quiet moments. The shadows under his eyes.


    The way he avoided the nursery. But then the words tumbled out of me before I could stop them. “And I keep thinking maybe it’s my fault too.”


    Hunter’s head whipped toward me. “Don’t.”


    “I was the one who grabbed her,” I whispered. “I saw that ne and I snapped. If I had just let it go, if I hadn’t reached for it…..”


    “Celine,” he said snappily, and his voice was shaking now. “No. Don’t you dare do that. Don’t


    you


    dare put that on yourself.”


    The tears came hot, unstoppable. “But I did. I fought her. I let her get maybe if I’d been calmer, stronger, maybe…..”


    under my


    skin. And


    Hunter caught my wrist suddenly, his grip desperate. “Stop. Just stop.” His eyes were wet, the kind of wet that made my chest ache. “You think I can live with myself if you start carrying that too? You think I can breathe knowing you me yourself?”


    I blinked at him, stunned. His hand trembled around mine.


    Dr. Maxwell leaned forward slightly. “Do you hear what you’re both doing? Trading me like it’s currency. Each of you trying to take the whole weight so the other doesn’t have to. But all it does is bury you both deeper.”


    Hunter dragged his hand down his face. His shoulders slumped, his disguise cracking wide open. For the first time since I had known him, he looked small.


    “I don’t know how to fix this,” he said, his voice raw. “I don’t know how to fix you, fix me, fix us. And it kills me.”


    My chest twisted. For years, Hunter had been unshakable, the man who bent the world to his will. Hearing him admit helplessness made the room tilt.


    “I don’t want you <i>to </i>fix me,” I whispered. He looked at me then, finally, truly looked. His eyes were red, his face pale.


    “I just want you to sit with me,” I said. My voice cracked. “Sit with me in this pain. Don’t try to carry it all alone. Don’t shut me out.”


    For a long second, we just stared at each other. And then Hunter broke. His face crumpled, his


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    hands covering his eyes. His shoulders shook once, twice….and then the sob tore free.


    Not loud. Not dramatic. Just raw, ugly, broken.


    I reached for him before I could think. My arms wrapped around him, pulling him against me, and for once he didn’t resist. He buried his face in my shoulder, his body trembling as if years of restraint had finally cracked open.


    I cried too, silently, my tears soaking into his shirt. We held on to each other like people clinging to wreckage after a shipwreck.


    Dr. Maxwell let the silence go on for a while, allowing us to gather our thoughts. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm and steady.


    “This,” he said, “is grief. This is the truth underneath the anger. You lost something you both loved. And love doesn’t vanish because of me. It aches because it mattered.”


    Hunter’s breath was ragged against my skin. My fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, holding tight. For the first time since that day, I didn’t feel alone in my grief. It was unbearable….but it was ours.


    ***


    **


    -HUNTER’S POV-


    I hated the drive to Dr. Maxwell’s office. Three weeks in and it still felt like walking into an ambush. Not with her….not with Celine…..but with myself.


    She sat next to me, silent, her hands sped in herp. In recent days, she had be less vocal, not the tense, cutting silence of rage, but rather the sort where her mind seemed to wander far off.


    And each time I looked over, the dread washed over me again: I was watching her slip away, one quiet moment at a time.


    Maxwell didn’t waste time today. He leaned back in his chair, eyes steady on us. “Last session, you both let yourselves feel the weight of what you lost. Today, I want you to tell me what you still want….from yourselves, from each other, from this marriage.”


    My throat tightened. My instinct was to say ‘her. Just her.‘ But before I could, Celine spoke.


    “I want a life again,” she said softly.


    Her voice wasn’t bitter. It wasn’t broken. It was steady. She sat straighter, eyes on Maxwell, not me. “I want to stop being defined by grief. I want to wake up with something to look forward to. Something that’s mine.”


    My pulse jumped. ‘Something that’s mine.


    Maxwell tilted his head. “Do you know what that something is?”


    Celine hesitated, then nodded. “Art. I applied to schools again.”


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    The words hit me like a punch. My stomach knotted, my hand tightening on my knee until my knuckles ached. ‘France. I already knew it, even before she said it.


    Maxwell nced at me, maybe reading my reaction, before asking, “How does it feel to say that out loud?”


    “Freeing,” Celine whispered. Her lips trembled….not with fear, but with the courage it took to finally speak.


    I couldn’t stay quiet anymore. “France.”


    Her eyes flicked to me. “Yes.”


    I leaned forward, heat rising in my chest. “That’s across an ocean, Celine.”


    “I know.”


    “You’d be leaving me. Leaving Caesar.”


    Her voice wavered, but she held my gaze. “I wouldn’t be leaving forever. Just to study. Just… to breathe again.”


    The room spun. My chest caved under the effect of it. She wanted space……away from me, away from us. Maxwell’s calm voice cut through the storm.


    “Hunter. Tell her what you’re feeling right now.”


    I dragged a hand down my face, every muscle in me screaming to shut down, to lock it away. But that was why we were here, wasn’t it?


    “I’m scared as hell,” I admitted, the words rasping out of me. “Scared that if you go, you won’te back. That you’ll wake up one morning in Paris and realize you don’t need me. That maybe you’d be happier without me.”


    Silence. My chest heaved, and I finally forced myself to meet her eyes.


    Celine’s face softened, but her voice was steady. “Hunter, I don’t want to leave you. I want to find myself again so I cane back to you whole. Right now, I’m… half of who I used to be. And you deserve more than half.”


    I shook my head, voice rough. “You’re everything to me, even broken.”


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    She smiled faintly at that, but her eyes were wet. “But I don’t want to be broken forever. If I don’t do this now, I’ll resent myself. Maybe even resent you.”


    The words cut me open. Resent me.


    Maxwell spoke again, quiet but firm. “What I hear is this: Celine is asking for space to heal herself, and Hunter is afraid that space means losing her. Can either of you find apromise here?” <fnc375> N?w ?ovel chapt?rs are published on find?novel</fnc375>


    Compromise. The word burned.


    I wanted to say no. I wanted to say she was mine, she belonged home, she belonged here. But when I looked at her, really looked, I saw the trace in her eyes I hadn’t seen since before the fall…..hope.


    Hope terrified me, but it was also the only thing I wanted for her.


    I swallowed hard. “If you go… promise me one thing.”


    She blinked. “What?<b>” </b>


    “Promise you’ll let me in. Calls, visits, whatever. Don’t shut me out.” My voice cracked. “Don’t make me live like a stranger while you’re finding yourself.”


    Her eyes softened, and she reached for my hand. Her fingers slid into mine, warm, fragile, but there.


    “I promise,” she whispered. Something inside me loosened, painfully slow, like a knot I had been strangled by for years.


    Maxwell’s voice was calm, grounding. “That sounds like the beginning ofpromise.”


    I didn’t feel peace. Not yet. The thought of her on another continent still wed at me. But as I sat there, her hand in mine, I realized something I hadn’t before.


    I would rather risk the distance than risk losing her altogether.


    And maybe….maybe….that was what loving her really meant.