I was still sitting there, stunned and confused, a few minutes later when April poked her head into my office. “What was that about with Whitney?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“She, uh, wanted to ask me something about Sylvia.”

“Is everything okay?”

I shook my head. “Hell if I know.”

April’s head tilted in sympathy. “I’m sorry, Henry. I know things have been rough for both of you.”

“Yeah.” I rubbed my face with both hands. “Hey, is it okay if I take off for the day? My head is spinning.”

“Of course. Take the night off, go grab a beer with a friend or something. We’ve got things covered here.”

I stood up and grabbed my coat from the back of my chair. “Thanks. See you Monday.”

“Henry!” Mia embraced me, kissing my cheek. “Come on in, you handsome stranger. Lucas told me you were stopping by.”

“Sorry to barge in on you like this. I know you guys probably have Saturday night plans.”

“We’ve been married for eight years, Henry. This is what Saturday nights look like.” She gestured down at her sweats and bare feet. “But we do have wine.”

I smiled. “Of course you do.”

She motioned for me to follow her. “Come on, we’re in the family room.”

Lucas looked up from where he sat on the couch pouring wine into three glasses on the coffee table. “Hey,” he said, his face breaking into a grin. He stood up and offered his hand. “Long time, no see.”

“I know, sorry. The start of the year has been kind of crazy.”

“How are things going in the vineyard?” Mia asked.

“Good. All good there.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I just needed to escape for a little bit.”

“You’re always welcome here.” Mia’s face was concerned. “But is everything okay?”

“I think so.” I let my arm fall and shrugged. “But there’s this certain situation I’m feeling really confused about. I guess I could use some advice.”

Lucas handed me a glass and grinned. “Does this certain situation have a name?”

I nodded sheepishly. “Yeah. It’s Sylvia.”

Mia gasped. “Sylvia Sawyer?” Then she looked at her husband, one eyebrow arched. “You knew about this?”

“There wasn’t much to know,” Lucas said, settling on the couch again. “At least, not at Christmas.”

“Uh, yeah, a few things have happened since then.” I sat on a chair across from them.

“Like what?” Lucas asked.

“Like I fell in love with her.”

Mia squealed and jumped onto the couch next to her husband, arranging herself cross-legged before leaning forward to grab a glass. “Start at the beginning and tell us everything.”

I told them the story of reconnecting with Sylvia, how quickly things between us had progressed, how neither of us seemed able—or willing, at first—to slow down, and the disastrous New Year’s Eve debacle.

Lucas listened silently and attentively, looking every inch the therapist with an ankle crossed over one knee, his elbow resting on the arm of the couch, his chin in his hand. His wife, on the other hand, reacted with loud gasps, sighs, and sounds of dismay wherever appropriate. Her body language was just as dramatic—she’d clap, rub her palms together, tug at her hair in frustration. I half expected her to get on the floor and start kicking and screaming when I told her that Sylvia had broken it off in early January.

But she only sighed dramatically and nodded in sympathy. “Poor thing. You can’t choose yourself over your children. You just can’t.”

“I know. And I’d never expect her to.” I went on to explain how Sylvia still wanted to work at the winery, and how I’d felt obligated to keep my promise to teach her.

“You felt obligated?” Lucas questioned, a knowing smile on his lips.

“Okay, fine.” I raised my palm. “It was a way I could still see her and talk to her, be close to her. But I swear to God, nothing ever happened between us. For a solid month, we did our best to just be friends.”

“And what happened?” Mia asked.

“What happened was we fell in love anyway,” I said, frustrated all over again. “It didn’t matter that we weren’t sleeping together, or doing anything physical at all.”

“Of course not.” Mia shook her head. “Because your connection to her isn’t just about sex. It goes deeper than that.”

“Which is what scares her.”

“Do you think it’s too soon for her?” Lucas asked, breaking his long silence.

“Lucas!” Mia reached over and slapped his arm. “No, it’s not too soon. This woman loves him. She admitted it.” She looked at me for confirmation. “Right?”

“Right. But she also told me to forget her, like in the same breath.” I explained what happened the last time I saw her. “I told her I loved her. I told her I wanted to take care of her. I wouldn’t walk away without a fight. And she said I had to—that she didn’t know how to let herself be loved like that and she was too scared to try.”

Mia had been sliding down on the sofa ever since I started talking, as if my story was deflating her hopes like a balloon losing air, and finally wound up in a puddle on the rug next to the coffee table. “That’s it,” she said. “I’m dead.”

Lucas exhaled heavily. “You’ll be okay.”

“Here’s the last part,” I said. I told them about Whitney overhearing the entire conversation, running into them last night, and the visit at the winery today. “So now I have no idea what to do. I’m terrified of fucking this up again.”

Mia sat straight up. “I know what you need to do.”

“You do?” I asked.

“Yes.” She nodded defiantly. “Listen, I get this woman. Maybe I didn’t go through everything she did, but I feel where she’s coming from. I don’t know if we’ve ever told you this, but right before I met Lucas, I was engaged to someone else who jilted me a week before the wedding. Paris was supposed to be my honeymoon, and I went by myself—the last thing I expected was to meet the love of my life tending bar in the Latin Quarter my first night there, but I did.”

I looked back and forth between them. “I never knew that.”

“Now, when I walked into that bar, I was angry, depressed, and miserable. I had the worst attitude ever.”

“The worst,” Lucas confirmed.

“But Lucas saw something in me that even I couldn’t see. He made me believe in love. He made me believe I was worth it. He made me believe that anything was possible—all I had to do was trust him.”

“But how?” I said, leaning forward, elbows on my knees.

“He refused to give up,” she said simply. “I tried to sabotage us. I broke it off in a train station, said au revoir, and walked away.” She looked at her husband. “Remember that, babe?”

He nodded. “You walked the wrong way.”

She laughed. “Yeah, that should have been a sign right there. But the point is . . .” She looked at me again. “I thought I was doing the right thing. And even better, I was taking control of it. I wasn’t going to give some half-French bartender-slash-psych professor the opportunity to abandon me—I was going to leave him first. And I did.”