Page 124 of The Husband Contract

His eyes devour me, and I start giggling. “Don’t start that again, Sebastian.”

I point at him and make a face.

“It’s true.” He pauses, then laughs. “But maybe it’s too soon for me to be talking about fate and magic again.”

“I think it is a little too soon for that,” I say, unable to swipe the giddy smile off my face. “And especially don’t ask me to go on a hike or stargazing.”

It’s his turn to start chuckling. He looks toward the window. “It’s a nice day out today.”

“Are we really going to talk about the weather?” I tease him.

He turns back to me and shakes his head. “No, actually, I don’t want to talk about the weather. I have something to show you.”

“Oh?” I stare at him in surprise. “Not more evidence and photographs, I hope.”

“No, I think I’m done with all the evidence and photographs I could ever want.” He shifts closer to me. “There's something… that Jack found, and I thought you might like to see it.”

“Oh? What did Jack find?”

“Well, I told you his investigator was looking into things for me as well.”

“No… I don’t know if I realized that,” I say.

Sebastian lets out a sigh. “There was a point where, I guess subconsciously, I knew I didn’t trust Louisa. She was presenting me with cold, hard facts—with photos, with receipts—but something still didn’t add up. I asked Jack to put his investigator on the case. In fact, Jack has never liked Louisa, and he was suspicious of her the entire time. He’d already hired someone, and let’s just say his investigator did a really exhaustive search.”

He runs his fingers through his hair. “I can’t believe I was such a fool to ever trust her.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “We don’t have to keep going on about it, Sebastian. I get it. I know.”

He looks at me, and there’s such deep pain in his eyes that my heart constricts. “I just… I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want?—”

“Hey, I’m here. We’re here. We’re talking. I know.”

He sighs. “I have something for you.”

I watch as he grabs a blue folder from the table. He opens it and takes out a piece of paper. It’s brown and faded.

“What’s this?”

“Look at it,” he says.

I see it’s a wedding certificate with my parents’ names on it.

“Wow. You found my parents’ wedding certificate?”

“Yeah. I mean, that was easy to find,” he says. “But I also have some photos.”

He hands me some printouts. They’re of my parentswhen they were younger. I’ve never seen these before. My breath catches, and I feel emotional.

“Wow… oh my gosh. Where did you find these?”

“It turns out your parents had friends, cousins, coworkers… people took lots of photos, especially back then.”

“Wow. Thank you.” I press the photos to my heart. “Can I keep these?”

“Of course,” he nods, gesturing to two books next to the folder on the table. “Those are their yearbooks. I thought you might like to see the clubs they were involved in, and some photos of them when they were younger.”

I start crying tears of joy, tears of happiness. I’m absolutely overwhelmed.