CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tessa
Three weeks later
I SIT ON my balcony, my feet propped up on the railing as I watch night sweep over the city. Lights come on in the windows of the apartments across from me. The Eiffel Tower will be putting on its first show of the evening in just a few minutes. A glass of chardonnay sits at my elbow.
A perfect evening in Paris. A reward for an extremely long but productive day.
Too bad my chest still feels like a hollow pit.
I pick up my glass of wine. The recommendations Rafe made for Tessa’s Interiors have already paid off. I hired an assistant last week who has already earned her salary and will be getting a nice bonus at the end of the summer. Her assuming the administrative tasks has left me more time for my designs. I’m sticking to my proposed prices for Juliette’s house and an upcoming project for a London penthouse. But another new client, one I just signed a contract with yesterday, agreed to my new pricing.
And then there’s the addendum on my website. The one where I take on a limited number of clients a year who don’t have the funds or resources to afford my regular fees but need help the most. My ability to take on more clients with Veronica’s help, along with my higher fees, will help absorb the cost. So, too, will the partnerships I’m starting to develop with quality suppliers.
Business life is good. My limited personal life is, too. Yesterday was Katie and Nathan’s engagement party aboard a boat that cruised the Seine and gave awed guests jaw-dropping views of Paris at night.
I kept a smile pasted on my face most of the evening and offered up what I thought was an excellent toast to Nathan and Katie’s future happiness. I even managed to greet my parents and then keep my distance from them the rest of the evening. It didn’t stop my mother’s eyes from watching me like a hawk. Nor did it wipe the glower off my father’s face.
I inhale as somewhere a clock chimes. The lights of the Tower come to life, a distant sparkling gleam.
A knock sounds on my door. Too soft and tentative to be Rafe. Not that it would be him, I remind myself as I grab my crutches and get to my feet. For the first week, a foolish part of me held on to some distant hope that he might reach out. Might tell me that he wanted to change his mind.
Silence. Complete and utter silence. Which meant the next time I would hear from him would be in five months when he signed the divorce papers and officially ended our marriage.
With that cheery thought on my mind, I unlock the door without looking through the peephole.
And come face-to-face with my mother.
“Oh.”
She gives me a nervous smile. “Hello, Contessa.”
I wrinkle my nose at my full name. “Hi, Mom.”
She looks over my shoulder. “May I…? That is…”
Have I landed in an alternative universe? One where she’s asking to come in instead of just barging past me? Is this some sort of trap, or perhaps a bid to convince me to come home?
“Sure. Come in.” I step back and let her enter, closing and locking the door behind her.
She moves into the middle of the room, her eyes sweeping over the living space, the kitchen, the dining nook, the balcony and the Eiffel Tower. She turns in a circle, her eyes taking in the details like the mirror over the fireplace, the vase of pale blue flowers in the corner.
Flowers I bought that morning because they reminded me of a certain set of eyes.
God, I’m pathetic.
“It’s beautiful, Contessa.”
I grit my teeth, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Thank you.”
She turns back to me, hands clasped in front of her. She’s nearly sixty, but she could easily pass for someone fifteen years younger. Dark brown hair, the same color as Katie’s. A heart-shaped face with the faintest lines by her eyes and mouth. The same brown eyes as mine.
Eyes that are now full of sorrow.
I steel myself, waiting for the guilt trip.
“I’m sorry.”
I blink. “What?”
“I look around this room and I see…you.” She sighs. “The woman I imagine you would have discovered a long time ago if I would have just let go.”
Of all the things she could have said, this was the last thing I was expecting.
“I’m… Mom, I hope you can understand why I’m a little confused.”
“I can.” She takes a deep, shaky breath. “If now’s not a good time, I can—”
“No.” I take a moment, trying to wrap my brain around what’s happening. “Let’s sit down. Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Yes. But I can get it…” Her voice trails off. She blinks, then takes another deep breath. “That would be nice. Thank you.”
I recognize her words for what they are. An acknowledgment of my independence, that she doesn’t need to be hovering nearby, doing everything for me even as she slowly takes away my autonomy.
“I’ll let you know if I need help, Mom.”
She nods, her lips pressed together, and moves out to the balcony. I join her a minute later, setting her glass down as I ease into my chair and prop my crutches against the railing. My mom’s eyes are trained on the Eiffel Tower, her expression awed.
“How did you ever find this place?”
“A friend of Katie’s. She came here for a semester abroad, fell in love with Paris and stayed. She works for a property company that rents out places mostly to students.” I glance back at my apartment, pride filling my chest as the soft glow from the lamps washes the ivory walls with a pale gold hue. “I love it here.”
“I can tell.” She raises her wineglass. “You look happy.”
I take a sip of my own wine, trying to come up with the right words. Finally, I just blurt out what’s on my mind.
“Why are you here, Mom?”
The faint wrinkles in her forehead deepen as she frowns. “I was very angry when you first left. Like all the work I’d poured into keeping you safe all these years was for nothing.”
Even though I know I have nothing to feel ashamed for, my body responds to the decades-old fear of hurting my mother. My stomach pitches down to my feet as I force myself to hold her gaze.
“I’m sorry if I worried you, but—”
“I made a mistake, Tessa. A lot of them,” she adds into the surprised quiet that follows her pronouncement. “Too many. Mistakes I had ample time to reflect on once I was alone in the house. But you, or rather how I treated you, is probably the biggest mistake of all.”
My heart twists in my chest as anger I didn’t even realize I’d been holding on to started to unknot itself. “Mom…”
“I don’t know if you’re going to excuse what I did, so let me be the first to say there is no excuse. I…” Her eyes glint with unshed tears. “I feel like I clipped your wings. Like there were so many times you could have been happy, and I stole that from you because I was so afraid of letting you fall again.”
I reach over and cover her hand with mine. For the first time in a very long time, I feel connected to my mom.
“I’m the one who fell, Mom.”
She shakes her head. “I’m your mother. I didn’t lock the door that morning. I knew I was too tired, and I should have taken your aunt up on her offer to help. But I wanted to prove to your father…” She falters as a dull red stain creeps up her neck. “He was working so hard to try and earn your grandfather’s approval. I told him I could handle it. You, Katie, the house. We were fighting so much. I wanted to show him I could do it, and you paid the price.”
I look down at our hands stacked on top of one another, mine tan from my time in Greece, hers with the beginnings of wrinkles etching themselves into her skin. So much time has passed since that day. So much has changed. Yet the guilt we both carry lingers.
“I felt like it was all my fault for the longest time.”
Mom sniffs. “Makes us quite the pair.”
“I think what upset me the most was you not wanting me to use crutches. The wheelchair is easier, but I like having the choice and being able to move.”
“And I should have let you. Just after that incident in Dublin, I didn’t want you to be embarrassed again.”
I frown. “What incident?”
She stares at me. “You don’t remember.”
“No.”
She blinks rapidly. “I can’t believe you don’t remember. We went back to Dublin for a visit when you were ten or so. You were attempting to use crutches here and there. You stumbled and fell in a store. Some other girls laughed at you.” Her eyes narrow as they snap with anger. “There was a woman, too, who made a horrible comment about how I should just put you in a wheelchair instead of trying to show you off.”
I gasp. The vague stirrings of a memory, of laughter as I lay on a tile floor, stir. But it’s just that, a vague recollection.
“That was my final straw. After that, I just…I just wanted to keep you safe.” She sniffs. “And instead I hurt you.”
I want to say it’s okay. But it’s not. Finally, after years of suppressed hurt and frustration, my mom and I are clearing the air. Dismissing her apology would be a disservice to both of us.
“Thank you, Mom.”
She looks back at my apartment. Her smile is tinged with pride. Deep inside, I feel the edges of an old wound start to come together. Far from healed. But starting down a path I never thought possible.
“Yet look at all you’ve accomplished. It’s incredible.”
“Thank you.” I glance down, suddenly shy. “I actually just took on a new client. And hired an assistant.”
Her smile widens. “You always did have a knack for decorating. Maybe you can give your father and me some tips.”
The thought of going back to Santorini, of visiting, still makes my chest tight. But not nearly as much. And as I think of the home I grew up in, with its huge windows and colorful furniture, I smile.
“I’d like that. How is Dad?”
A shutter drops over my mother’s face. “Well, I think.”
“Is he not here?”
“No, he went back to Greece this morning.”
The pain in her voice is faint but present.
“Are you two okay?”
She shrugs. “After we saw you at Katie’s engagement party, we had…a very hard conversation.”
Alarm shoots through me. “Are you two…?”
Another shrug. “I don’t know. We both said a lot of things we’d been holding in for years. My anger at how he became so fixated on his career. His anger at what he saw as my lack of support and how I can become…fixated on things.” Her expression turns sad. “We both knew about that. But I didn’t realize the remorse he’d harbored all those years.”
“Remorse?”
“I think he knew, deep down, that he threw himself too hard into his career for where we were at in life. He’s carried guilt around all these years that if he hadn’t gone to Dublin that day, maybe you wouldn’t have fallen.”
I shake my head. “It’s hard to realize how much we’ve all been letting regret run our lives.”
“Until now.” My mother’s smile is almost shy. “You and Katie have accomplished so much. You especially since you left.”
She takes a sip of her wine. Even though it was the right thing to do, I realize that her staying back in Greece after I left, making a conscious choice not to interfere, to let me live on my own and make my own successes and mistakes, was not only a gift to me but must have been incredibly hard on her.
“Thank you, Mom. I…” I glance out over Paris, at the sights that have become so familiar to me. “I’m happy here. Happier than I’ve ever been.”
“But you’re still sad.”
I think of Rafe. Nod.
“You went to Corfu with Rafe.”
“How did you…?”
She gives me a look. “One, I’m your mother. Two, people talk.”
“Gossip strikes again,” I mutter, with no small degree of irritability.
“Are you and he getting back together?”
I shake my head, will myself not to lose my control and cry. “No. I wanted to, but he… Lucifer really did a number on him.”
“On both those boys,” my mother says grimly. “I had my suspicions. But every time I talked to Lucifer or them, they would either say nothing or insist everything was fine.”
“He… Rafe doesn’t think he can be a good husband. And he doesn’t want kids.”
“Oh.” Her mouth tightens. “But you…”
“Yes,” I say gently. “I can.”
Her eyes glint as she gives me a watery smile and then looks away. We sit for a long time, watching as more lights wink on across the city and life streams by on the sidewalks below.
“Do you love him?”
I don’t even hesitate as I nod.
“Have you told him?”
“What’s the point?” I finish off my glass of wine and set it down harder than I intended. “He doesn’t want kids.”
“If he truly doesn’t and you do, then no, it won’t work.” She frowns. “I just wonder…”
“I don’t want to push him, Mom. I don’t…” I try to think of a way to rephrase my next words so I won’t hurt her.
“You don’t want him to feel pressured into being someone he’s not.”
I nod, grateful she understands.
“I agree. I respect you, too, for learning a lesson I should have learned far sooner. I just wonder if he told you something and you backed off, or if you had a conversation about it. If you told him how you felt about him.”
The thought of telling Rafe I love him makes my breath hitch.
“I didn’t.”
“Because it was the right thing to do?” my mother asks gently. “Or because you’re afraid?”
The question stabs straight to my heart. I stare at her as the truth of why I held back even as I fervently wished for Rafe to put his soul on the line.
“Oh, God.” I run my hands through my hair. “I’m an idiot.”
“No. You’re just in love.” My mother surprises me by laughing and clapping her hands together as she looks up to the sky. “One of my wishes was that my daughters would always fall in love.”
“Well, we know Katie’s story has a happy ending. Mine may not.”
My mother is the one to reach across the table this time and grab my hand. “No matter what happens, enjoy the time you’ve had. Don’t focus exclusively on the bad. I missed out on twenty-one years because of that.”
“So did I.” I take a deep breath. “And maybe Rafe won’t be a part of my future. But I’m not ready to give up yet.”