Page 93 of The Love of Priest 2

Priest chuckled; he expected her to want to hear the good things he had to say about her.

Locking their fingers together, he lifted her hand to his lips, where he placed a kiss on it.

"You take everything into consideration, no matter how big or small it is.

Your first instinct is always to be nice, no matter how much trauma that has brought you.

You're very optimistic. You're a natural nurturer.

You take such good care of me,Gioia—mentally, emotionally, physically.

I can go on if you need me to." He raised a tempting brow.

Britain laughed before sitting her hand on the side of his face, caressing it. "No need. Save the rest for your wedding vows.”

"But I want you to know all the good things about you outweigh every moment you shut down, lashed out at me, or ran from our issues. We're a unit," he reminded her. "Where you fall short, I'm not too far behind and vice versa.” Hearing his encouraging words brought Britain instant comfort.

"Thank you, P," she expressed her gratitude as she reclaimed his hand in hers to place some light kisses on his knuckles. "I don't know why, but I thought after you saw the things on that memory card, you would view me differently. I thought you'd pity me," she explained, voicing her concerns.

Priest shook his head. He would have never done that to her. "Never. You've shown me who you are, and I only go by that. Besides, I didn't only see bad things on there. There were some good moments too.”

Britain hadn't taken the time to go through the images and videos she had compiled from her past in a while. Quite frankly, she had been so focused on living her new life, she had forgotten all about it and what she had put together. "Really? Like what?" She asked him.

Clearing his throat lightly, Priest shifted his attention from the road and briefly placed his gaze on her. "You looked beautiful while you were pregnant," he complimented her.

He could feel Britain’s tension in the connection between their hands. She inhaled a deep breath as she put a smile on her face. "You think so?"

Britain really did want to be more open about the situation.

She had pushed that part of her life so far into the back of her mind, but she was beginning to feel like it was not only unfair to her healing, but also to her daughter.

Britain mostly acted as if Dreux had hardly existed, which wasn't right.

Priest nodded his head. "I remember you told me you weren't in your best health during that time, but you looked gorgeous, nonetheless. You carried her well. Motherhood suits you," he went on.

"Why don't you wanna have children then?" she asked, ultimately shifting the direction of the conversation.

Priest expected it; however, a heavy sigh still aired out of him. "I never said I didn't want to."

Britain scoffed lightly. "You probably didn't say it so blatantly, but you definitely hinted that you don't want kids.”

"It's complicated," he settled with a shrug.

Britain pointed to the navigation screen on the dashboard of the vehicle. "We have 25 minutes left of this drive," she told him, indicating that the matter could be explained to its full depth within the duration of the rest of the drive.

He chuckled at her persistence. He decided not to avoid her advances and continued with the conversation.

"You know how when you're a kid, you can imagine yourself having a family of your own, the house you're gonna live in, the car you gonna drive, and your career?

" Priest asked as he glanced at Britain briefly.

Britain chuckled as the thoughts of her childhood expectations surfaced in her mind.

When Britain was younger, she thought by the time she hit 25, she would be well established, married, and working on building a family.

Little did she know, she ended up being at her lowest point in life at 25.

"Yeah, I used to think I would be famous and married with kids by the time I was 25. "

A laugh drifted out of him as he found her young aspirations amusing.

"See, it wasn't like that for me," he revealed and shook his head.

"I'm not saying that's the reason why I'm okay with never having children, but that was never a part of my end goal in life," he explained and shrugged his broad shoulders.

Britain let out a sigh. Although she didn't feel as though his excuse was enough to justify them never having children, she was going to validate how he felt regardless. "Understandable; however, do you think I'm okay with never having children?"

Priest pursed his lips. "Are you?" he asked.

Britain quickly shook her head. "I want kids, Priest. I talk about it so much because you're the man I want to create a family with."

He could feel a heaviness shackle his heart.

Talking about children was always a conversation he avoided.

Kids were the joy of the world, and he was wonderful with them.

He was a nurturing and caring person, so Britain just didn't understand why he was so adamant about never having kids. "Gioia, I don't know," he sighed.

She was trying her best not to get worked up about the conversation. She wanted it to be an open space in their relationship. The last thing she wanted was to make Priest avoid ever talking about the matter again.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked as she lifted her perfectly arched brow at him.

He sighed as his broad shoulders slouched. "My karma," he admitted shamelessly. "What if every fucked-up thing I put out into this world comes back tenfold on our kids?"

Britain rested her head on the headrest of her seat. He had many deep-rooted fears, and the source of them all was the way he grew up and how he continued to live. She knew that no matter how hard she tried to convince him otherwise, he needed to figure it out himself.

"P, we aren't God. We will never know how our kids’ lives will turn out beginning to end.

All we can do is raise them and take it day by day.

If you don't want what you consider your karma to come back on them, then you just have to do your due diligence as a dad and give them the childhood you never had," she explained, hoping Priest could see things from a different standpoint.

She awaited a response, but he opted out of giving her one.

Instead, he let his mind ponder what she told him as he continued to drive in the direction of Havani's office.

Figuring the silence had lasted long enough and Priest wouldn't be rendering her a response, she spoke up once more.

"Children are a dealbreaker for me, Kanaz.

I want nothing more than to be a mother," she let out as she angled herself so she was gazing out of the window.

"I don't want you to feel as though I'm forcing your hand, but we have to figure this out and come to an understanding before we get married.

I don't want to subject ourselves to a lifetime of unhappiness.”

Priest nodded his head. "Heard'ju."

Eventually, the two arrived at Havani's office, which was located in a strip mall in the inner city.

It was Britain's first time exploring the inner city since she had been staying in the outskirts near their estate.

She was pleased to see the resemblance of the strip mall to the many she'd seen in The States.

Once Priest parked, he exited the vehicle before making his way around to open her door.

Together, they walked into the office hand in hand, her feet feeling much heavier than his.

Priest held the door open for her to step inside the office.

They were greeted by the receptionist. She offered a polite wave to him since she knew there would be no chance the two would understand each other with the language barrier.

Priest stepped in quickly, picking up the conversation with the receptionist. As always, whenever he handled any exchange of words in Italian, Britain simply looked at him in admiration.

He always told her that soon she would be grasping onto the new language, but she knew herself well enough to know that she wouldn't take to learning the language as easily as he had.

The two were ushered down the hall to what Britain assumed was Havani's office. Priest thanked the receptionist before applying a light knock on the door.

Britain let out a deep breath, hoping to ease her nerves.

She tightened her hand around his as the door was pulled open, revealing Havani’s radiant smile.

Despite the nervousness that rained down on her, Britain couldn't help by smile once she noticed that Havani too sported a gap between her teeth.

As childish as it sounded, that made her feel a little better.

She watched as Priest and Havani greeted each other.

Britain was always amazed at how quickly Priest was able to form genuine bonds with people.

From what she heard from him, he didn't even complete his first course of sessions with Havani before he had to return to The States, yet he was just so open and comfortable with her.

He had great intuition, so his comfort with Havani gave her the notion that Havani wasn't just some crooked therapist who was just going to repeat her problems to her in different words.

She was legit, and that scared Britain shitless.

She hated getting deep when it came to her own trauma.

Something told her that this first session with Havani would lead her to better methods of coping.

Havani's attention diverted over to Britain, a wider smile panning her face. "So nice to finally put a face to a name," she said as she stuck her hand out to Britain.

Britain matched her smile while placing her hand into hers. "It's nice to meet you."