Page 97 of Outcast’s Vow

“I like her,” she says. “You two are a beautiful match.”

My husband’s franticness is suddenly quelled. He freezes at his mother’s words. I swear I even witness a slight blush on Baptiste’s cheeks.

Somehow, I get the feeling that bringing me here today was some sort of secret test.

And I get the feeling that I’ve passed.

* * *

After coffee with his mother, Baptiste drives us back home. And as we sit cruising through the city, he starts to talk. And I don’t interrupt.

“All the bad things about myself can be blamed on me,” he says. “And all the good things can be attributed to my mom.”

It’s like there’s been a faucet loosened, and now his words come pouring forth.

I don’t want to ever turn it off.

“Thanks for hijacking my schedule and taking me there today, Baptiste,” I say. “I really admired her.”

“She admired you, too. I could tell.”

“And what about your dad? Is he in the picture?”

“The only memory I have of my father is him walking out the front door,” Baptiste replies slowly. “I saw how love for a man ruined Mom’s life and kept her under a boot. I saw the dark side of wanting to love someone. Love can’t exist when people can be manipulated like that.”

I can see it all so clearly. A young boy with dirty blond hair watching his father leave. A boy witnessing his strong mother break, and with no means to comfort her. An experience like that would shape a man forever. It would make him someone who has learned to fight every minute of every day to protect himself.

So, this is why he doesn’t believe in love. Why he’s put up walls around his heart. Trauma like that would affect even the strongest of men.

And Baptiste is, after all, human, despite his insistence to the contrary.

“I know you’re scared of what I might do, girl,” Baptiste whispers. “I know your fears. But I can promise you I’m not like your ex. I’m not like your father. And I hope to God I’m not like mine. I’ll never walk out the front door.”

“You are not like either of them,” I answer.

“You are my wife,” he says. “I have sworn a vow to you. That vow remains for the rest of our lives. And I never break my vows.”

I lift my hand to rest against his cheek. I kiss him tenderly.

He’s telling the truth.

36

BAPTISTE

I lead her to our bed once we get back to the penthouse. Sylvie, deliberately silent, follows me. We close the door behind us, and I wordlessly cradle her face in my hands, gazing upon her smooth, soft face as if seeing her for the first time.

And then I kiss her. She kisses me back.

And we drift toward the bed.

This is a long kiss. A kiss of understanding. A kiss that can only be shared between two people who know deep, intimate parts of each other’s souls.

Even thinking something like that a few short months ago would send me into hysterics. Denial. Protest. But that was before I met Sylvie. That was before all this – whatever feeling this is – washed over me.

And, holding my wife in my arms, I realize that I have never felt so damn alive. That’s why I keep going.

Her fingers find mine, and they loop. Her thumb traces along my hand. I exhale.