“Ms. Richards, how good to see you on a Monday.”
“Hey, Michael, how are you?” Chanel asked. “This is my, um—”
“Xavier Grant,” I introduced, wrapping my hand around Chanel’s waist.
“Yes, we’ve been expecting you. Dr. Winston said to send you in once you two arrived. You can go on back,” Michael told us.
I followed Chanel as we passed a couple of closed office doors with official name plaques outside of them, until we arrived at the one withDr. Winston, Psy.D.on it. Chanel rapped a couple of times on the door, and a feminine voice on the other side called for us to enter. As soon as the door opened, my nose was hit with some light floral scent, maybe lavender. A petite older woman with copper-toned skin and graying hair at the temples stood. Her warm smile seemed friendly enough.
“Chanel. And Mr. Grant, I presume?” Dr. Winston questioned.
“Xavier, please,” I responded.
“Nice to meet you, Xavier. Please come in and make yourselves comfortable.”
I followed Chanel as she took a seat on the leather couch across from the door. The office was small, but not in an uncomfortable way. I settled into the couch, throwing my arm closest to Chanel around the back of the couch, my fingertips grazing her shoulder, and unbuttoned my suit jacket.
“Xavier, Chanel is used to our sessions by now, but since this is your first time here, I will give you a short introduction. I’m Dr. Winston. I specialize in cognitive and behavioral therapy, which focuses on changing our thoughtpatterns to change our outward behavior. Many times, it’s important to first understand our thoughts and beliefs that lead to certain behavior. Chanel has done a lot of this work over the last few months. She’s told me about the argument you two got into the other week, but I’d like to hear your perspective.”
“I got into a fight with her ex at a club of mine, and she got upset.”
Dr. Winston wrote something down in her notebook. I looked at Chanel, who was giving me an incredulous look.
“Was that it?”
I sighed. “Nah, we got into the argument afterwards, and I said something I shouldn’t have.”
“What was it?”
I hesitated.
“He said I killed a baby and that he was afraid I’d do the same to ours if I ever got pregnant again.”
Damn. That stung to hear out loud.
“I never said—”
“You didn’t?” Chanel asked.
“No, I said—as I’ve tried to explain, that yes, you had an abortion and—”
“And that you believed I’d do it again if I ever got pregnant by you, right?”
“Are you going to let me finish talking?” I was getting annoyed.
“Okay, how about we calm down and let me sort this out. What I’m hearing, Xavier, is that Chanel confided in you that she’d had an abortion not too long after leaving her former fiancé, is that correct?”
I nodded.
“And while, at the time, you didn’t have an initial reaction, upon seeing her ex at one of your clubs, all your anger at him for what he’d done to Chanel and the fact that she’d had an abortion boiled over, leading you to attack him. Is that fair to say?”
I thought about it. Chanel was staring straight ahead at Dr. Winston. That was completely accurate considering I’d had a PI tracking Ethan and been waiting for months to catch up to him.
“Yeah, that’d be fair to say.”
“And Chanel, how did it make you feel when Xavier phrased your abortion that way?”
Chanel’s eyelids closed for a second before opening again. “Like shit, to be completely honest. It felt like shit.”
