Love Her or Lose Her (Hot & Hammered #2)(34)

She shrugged a shoulder. “It’s just an appointment.”

Armie cleared his throat. “I take it you want to open your own restaurant, Rosie?” He waited for her nod to continue. “And why is it significant that you made the appointment this week to see the space?”

“I’ve been putting it off,” she said haltingly.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I . . .” She glanced over at Dominic before lowering her gaze. “I just wasn’t confident I could run my own place.”

“Why did that change?”

“I thought it was the club. The women supporting me—and I think that has a lot to do with my boost in confidence—but it wasn’t until I got the letter from Dominic that I felt prepared to take the chance.”

“Earlier you said Dominic’s letter made you feel more like Rosie. The Rosie you want to be, that you felt you used to be.” He went quiet for a moment. “Your success is your own, Rosie. You did something brave. But a marriage is about support. Would you like to acknowledge Dominic’s letter—and support—might have helped push you toward your goal?”

The back of Dominic’s neck tightened. “She doesn’t need to do that.”

“I want to.” She looked down at his hand a moment before covering it with her own. “Your letter helped. Thank you.”

Satisfaction wove around his lungs and it took him a long time to draw a decent breath. “Okay,” he said hoarsely.

“And, Dominic,” Armie continued. “Would you like to acknowledge that Rosie needs words and they are supremely important to her and thus vital when it comes to making this marriage work?”

“Yes,” he rasped.

“Well done, Team Vega.” Armie nodded and all three of them seemed to let out a long breath.

Crazily enough, Dominic felt a change in the air as if something had cleared.

“Time for your next homework assignment.” The therapist winked at them both. “Still no sex. Sorry, folks. But I’m giving you the next best thing.” He clapped once. “Mother Nature.”





Chapter Twelve


Twilight crept in as Rosie and Dominic hiked along the path toward the nature preserve. He thought therapy had hit peak weirdness during their game of Minion-themed Chubby Bunny, but he’d been dead wrong. Today they’d been assigned the task of setting up a campsite—together—as a means of learning to work as a team. And while he definitely didn’t mind spending time with Rosie, he could admit to a growing impatience to have their problems solved. Every moment that passed meant missing her more, and this exercise felt like a damn waste of time when they could be moving her back into their home, where she belonged.

“Now seems like a good time to remind you that you picked the therapist.”

Rosie lifted her chin and shot him a glare from beneath her eyelashes, knitting Dominic’s stomach up tighter than a concrete slab. Back in the day, he used to refer to that look as the Death Laser. It meant she was not in the mood for his shit and he better tread more carefully than a man with size-fifteen feet crossing a field of land mines.

He hadn’t given her a reason to grace him with the Death Laser in a long time and he didn’t like that realization one bit. There should be passion between them. They should get pissed at each other once in a while, shouldn’t they? Every time they used to make up, he was only more grateful to have her. Their first argument in recent memory had happened the night she left.

That thought hardening his jaw, Dominic shouldered the bags of equipment he was carrying and picked up his pace, catching up with Rosie as they entered the nature preserve. Maybe now was a good time to remind her of the fire between them—and he didn’t mean the sexual inferno that never waned. Was there anything at stake between two people who couldn’t conjure up enough feeling between them to have a decent fight? Dominic didn’t think so.

Their stakes had never lowered. They’d just been hidden. He’d have to jog her memory.

“Was this therapy technique listed in the Yelp reviews?”

She slapped at a mosquito on her arm. “Which technique is that?”

“The technique where we pay money to a therapist, and in return, he assigns us manual labor.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Maybe you didn’t scroll down far enough.”

“I scrolled.” They entered a clearing and she turned on her sneakered heel. “Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

Maybe. “Nope.” He dropped the canvas bag filled with tent poles. “We’ve had some good ones, though, haven’t we? Remember that romantic phase you went through when we were seventeen, reading those books about vampires and werewolves?”

“Of course I remember them.” Rosie surveyed the area. “Actually, I’ve been considering a reread—”

“Christ. Please don’t.”

A laugh puffed out of her, genuine curiosity flitting across her gorgeous face. “Why?”

“You really don’t remember, Rosie? The weeks you spent reading those books were the worst of my life. Nothing short of turning pale and granting you immortality would make you happy. You locked yourself in a closet and sent me one-word text messages until I was ready to lose my mind.”

She winced. “Oh. Yeah.”