Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 130022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Remy and I sat on edge—literally on our perches, and figuratively in our emotions—waiting.
Yves’s eyes were on me, they flicked up to his dad, then they settled on me.
“I’m gay,” he declared.
I blinked.
Remy didn’t move.
Was that all?
And more importantly, was drama a genetic trait?
“I know that—” Yves started to go on.
He didn’t finish.
“What do you know?” Remy barked.
I jumped in surprise at his tone.
Yves’s gaze sliced up to his dad.
I looked up at Remy too, and saw he was far from bland.
His jaw was set, his cheekbones were flushed.
I knew that look.
He was furious.
Oh God.
“Remy,” I whispered.
“What do you know?” Remy repeated, aiming these angry words Yves’s way.
Wait a minute…
How was this happening?
Remy was not that man.
It was part of being a true man’s man. It was one of the myriad reasons I’d loved him as deeply as I’d loved him.
This kind of thing had never, not ever, been an issue with him.
I’d worked at Bergdorf when we met. I had every intention, twenty some years ago, of being what I eventually became. I’d gone from sales associate to personal shopper and had just started to cherry pick my own clients when Remy and I decided to start a family. We’d also decided I’d stay at home when they were little, but I’d go back to it when our last entered kindergarten.
This I’d done.
Remy worked in the design world. He was at a big firm at first and then struck out on his own. He’d had lots of clients and part of his job was to be in the right places at the right times to find more.
We were active. Social. Had a wide range of friends.
We still did, and for the most part (outside Kara, Bernice, and obviously Bea, as well as Remy’s childhood friends back home, Beau and Jason), we’d managed not to make them pick sides in the divorce.
We had people from every walk of life in our spheres.
This was never an issue for him.
Nothing was ever an issue for him.
If it was, it would have been an issue with me.
We’d also never discussed it, but we didn’t because of just that. It was never an issue, which was one of the reasons, for me, why it was so attractive about Remy.
He didn’t have to play cool.
It was just who he was, and he expected others to be the same.
And that was it.
Yves didn’t answer his father’s question, but I could see my son’s throat ripple with another swallow.
It was Manon who was staring daggers at her father, and Sabre’s face was getting red with anger.
“How about you, Sah?” Remy asked his eldest. “You into guys?”
“No, Dad,” Sabre spat. “Don’t be a—”
“You’re into girls?” Remy cut him off.
I started pumping his hand.
He ignored it as Sabre answered, “Yeah, but what does it—?”
“So, when’s the family meeting for you to announce that?” Remy demanded.
I stopped pumping his hand and started thinking.
Fast.
“Manon, what are you into?” Remy asked as I did that.
“Dad, you’ve made your point,” she said softly.
“Have I?” Remy returned. “Have I made my fucking point?”
Okay.
Oh God.
Oh hell.
“Remy,” I whispered urgently.
He let my hand go, stood, leaned forward and roared at his youngest, “You know your mother is all good, but you staged this fucking show because you thought I”—he pounded on his chest— “wouldn’t be?”
Yves stood too. “Dad—”
“Are you fucking joking about that shit?” Remy asked.
Sabre also stood and shouted, “Dad, this isn’t about you!”
Remy turned to him. “It isn’t? Seems to me it is. You knew, Manon knew, your mother doesn’t give a shit and you knew that too. So this isn’t about me?”
I hated, especially when I thought he was out of line or acting irrationally, when he asserted things, and he was right.
Remy’s attention shot back to Yves.
“Is that the kind of man you think I am?” He shook his head sharply. “No. Strike that. Is that the kind of father I am to you? And if it is, how is it that? Tell me. How? When did I ever, Yves, ever give you the impression my love would come with conditions?”
I felt that slice me wide open.
Because there it was.
And the vein of open, oozing hurt threading through his words underlined it.
Remy’s mother was vain and cossetted, a social butterfly born in the wrong era, though there was no era that would make it all right for your narcissism to trump motherhood.
Her love of her only son had conditions, boy did it ever. When she wasn’t treating him as an accessory, he was tested by her from the moment he could cogitate. And when he failed, which was often (in Colette’s estimation), her punishment was masterful in its cruelty.
Remy’s father ignored this entirely, but his love came with conditions too.
Remy was going to be the man Guillaume wanted him to be, that being a man just like Guillaume, and he put a great deal of effort into it. This happened when Guillaume was around, which wasn’t that often, considering he was off making scads of money or attending one of the mistresses he hid from Colette, but not from his son.