Beatrice’s eyes filled with grief that slowly morphed into resolution. “No, it’s not. You deserved better than either Perry or I have given you. You deserve to be loved for yourself and by someone who isn’t wishing every minute in your company you would move just a little differently, speak with less scientific jargon…”
“Just be someone other than who I am.”
“Yes. You deserve that.” Her mom’s voice rang with a loving sincerity Chanel hadn’t heard in it since she was eight years old and a broken vulnerability she never had. “That’s why I’m urging you with everything in me not to push Demyan away because how you feel about him scares you. I wouldn’t trade the years I had with your father for anything in the world, not even a life without the constant pain of grief that never leaves.”
“You think Demyan loves me like Dad loved you?”
“He must.” In a completely uncharacteristic gesture, Beatrice reached out and took both Chanel’s hands in her own. “Sweetheart, a man like that, he doesn’t offer you marriage when he could have you in his bed without it, not unless he wants all of you, but especially the life you can have together.”
Her mother hadn’t called her sweetheart in so long that Chanel had to take a couple of deep breaths to push back the emotion the endearment caused. “He’s really possessive.”
And bossy in bed, but she wasn’t going to share that tidbit with her mom.
“He needs you. For a man to need that deeply, it’s frightening for him. It makes him hold on tighter.”
“Did Dad hold on tight?”
“Oh, yes.”
Chanel had a hard time picturing it. “Like Perry?”
“Nothing like Perry. Jacob wasn’t petty. Ever. He wasn’t jealous. He trusted me and my love completely, but he held on tight. He wanted every minute with me he could get.”
“He still followed his passion for science.”
“Yes. I used to love him for it.”
“You grew to hate him, though, didn’t you?” That made so much sense.
Chanel hadn’t just spent her childhood as scapegoat to Perry for a man who couldn’t be reached in death. Her mom had punished her for being too like her father, too.
“I did.” Tears welled and spilled over in Beatrice’s eyes. “I betrayed our love by learning to hate him for leaving me.”
Chanel didn’t know what to do. Not only had she not seen her mother cry since the funeral, but they didn’t have the kind of relationship that allowed her to offer comfort.
“He doesn’t blame you.” Chanel knew that with every fiber of her being. Her dad’s love for her mom had had no limits.
“For hating him? I’m sure you’re right. He loved so purely. But if he were here now to see the damage I’ve done to you, to our bond as a family, he’d be furious. He would hate me, too.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHANEL COULDN’T RESPOND.
Her throat was too tight with tears she didn’t want to shed, but her mom was probably right.
Jacob Tanner had loved his daughter with the same deep, abiding emotion he’d given his wife. He’d expected a different kind of best from both of them than Perry ever had.
The good kind. The human kindness kind.
Beatrice sighed and swiped at the tears on her cheek, not even looking around for a tissue to do it properly. “I wish I could say I would do it all differently if I could.”
“You can’t?” Chanel asked, surprised at how much that hurt.
“As I have grown older and watched your brother and sister mature, had the opportunity to observe the way you are with them, it’s opened my eyes to many things. I have come to realize just how weak a person I am.”
“If you see a problem you have the power to fix and do nothing to change it, then yes, I think that does make you weak.”
“So pragmatic. Your father would have said the same thing, but you both would have assumed I had the power to change myself. If I did, do you think I would have worked so hard at changing you?”
“So, that’s it? Things go on like always?”
“No,” Beatrice uttered with vehement urgency. “If you’ll give me another chance, I will do better now.”
“So, you have changed.” Could Chanel believe her?
“I’ve acknowledged the true cost of my weakness. The love and respect of my daughter. It’s too much.”
“I don’t know if I can ever trust you to love me.”
“I understand that and I don’t expect weekly mother-daughter dates.”
“I don’t have time.” Chanel realized how harsh that sounded after she said the words, and she winced.
Her mom gave her a wry smile. “Your time is spoken for, but maybe we could try for more often than once every couple of months.”
“Let’s see if we can make those visits more pleasant before we start making plans for more.” Words were all well and good, but Chanel had two decades of her mother’s criticisms and rejections echoing in her memories.
Beatrice nodded and then she did yet another out-of-character gesture, opening her arms for a hug. When Chanel didn’t immediately move forward to accept, her mother took the initiative.
Chanel responded with their normal barely touching embrace, but her mom pulled her close in a cloud of her favorite Chanel No. 5 perfume and hugged her tight. “I love you, Chanel, and I’m very proud of the woman you’ve become. I’m so very, very sorry I wasn’t a better mother.”
Chanel sat in stunned silence for several seconds before returning the embrace.
“You don’t think I’m too awkward and geeky for Demyan?” she asked against her mother’s neck.
Still not ready to see the older woman’s expression in case it wasn’t kind.
But Beatrice moved back, forcing Chanel to meet her eyes. “You listen to me, daughter. You are more than enough for that man. You are all that he needs. Now you need to believe that if you’re going to be happy with him.”
“It’s only been a month, Mom.”
“Your dad proposed on our third date.”
The synergy of that took Chanel’s breath away. Demyan hadn’t proposed on their third date, but he’d told her then that they were starting something lifelong, not temporary. “I thought you got married because you were pregnant with me.”
“I was pregnant, yes, but we’d already planned to get married. Only, our original plan was to do it after he finished his degree.”
“You said…”
“A lot of stupid things.”
Chanel’s mouth dropped open in shock at her mother’s blunt admission.
Beatrice gave a watery laugh. “Close your mouth. You’ll catch flies.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
“Thank you. That means more than you’ll ever know. I know I don’t deserve it.”
“I didn’t say I liked you,” Chanel offered with her usual frankness and for once didn’t regret it.
Their relationship was going to work only if they moved through the pain, not try to bury it.
r /> “You will, sweetheart. You loved your daddy, but I was your favorite person the first eight years of your life.”
“I don’t remember.” She didn’t say it to belabor the point. She just didn’t.
“You will. I’m stubborn, too. You didn’t get it all from Jacob.”
“What about Perry?”
“I’ll talk to him. I guess I never realized how bad it was in your mind between you. He really doesn’t hate you. He’s even told me he admires you.”
Chanel made a disbelieving sound.
“It’s true. You’re brilliant in your field. I think it intimidates him. He’s a strong businessman, but if he had your brains he’d be in Demyan’s position.”
With a penthouse with a view of the harbor? Her parents lived in the suburbs and she couldn’t imagine them wanting anything different.
Her mother left soon thereafter, once she’d promised again to change and make sure Perry knew he had to alter the way he interacted with Chanel, too.
No one could have been more shocked than Chanel when she got a call from the man himself later that night. He apologized and admitted he’d thought she had always compared him unfavorably to her dad, just like her mom did.
Chanel didn’t try to make him feel better. Perry did compare unfavorably with Jacob Tanner. Her dad had been a much kinder and loving father, but Chanel agreed to try to let the past go if the future was different.
How had Demyan affected such change in her life in so little time? She wasn’t going to kid herself and try to say it was anything else, either.
Somehow Demyan had blown into her life and set it on a different path, one in which she didn’t have to be lonely or rejected anymore.
If she could let herself trust him and the love she felt for him, the rest of her life could and would be different, too.
She picked up the phone and called him.
“Missing me, little one?” he asked without a greeting.
“Yes.” There was a wealth of meaning in that one word, if he wanted to hear it.
“Yes as in yes, you miss me, or yes as in you will marry me?” he asked, sounding hopeful but cautious.