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Startled by his statement, Crystal frowned at Remy, but as she sharpened her stare, her initial confusion turned to wide-eyed shock. “Remy,” she breathed in disbelief.
Nothing else. Just his name, spoken as if he was a ghost. He waited a beat. Waited for something . . . what, he didn’t know, but there was no ecstatic homecoming. No joyous reunion. No warm hug or tears of regret. It was, he thought, the ultimate rejection.
Tempest’s grip on his thigh grew tighter, but her touch barely registered. His mother took a step back and just stared at him as if he was the equivalent of the plague. She didn’t want to even be near him, while Kyle glanced from his mother to Remy, then back again, obviously trying to make sense of what was happening. Of what he’d just heard Remy say.
“Mother?” Kyle asked. “I don’t understand.”
She remained silent and it was completely fitting that the candle on Remy’s birthday dessert burned out in that moment, snuffing out any chance he might have had to make the wish he’d been contemplating. The thin stream of smoke evaporating into the air mocked him for believing he might be good enough for Tempest. That he’d ever be the whole, complete, un-fucking-broken man she needed in her life.
Right now he was shattered inside. A million pieces fracturing what was left of his soul and leaving it irreparable.
Without another word, and with everyone else still mute, he forced himself to stand up, withdrew his wallet and tossed down a handful of bills on the table that would more than cover their bill, then headed out to the car, taking his humiliation with him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tempest was in such a state of shock that it took her a few moments after Remy left the table to gather up her things and follow him out. She put the photo she’d given him for his birthday into her purse and started scooting out of the booth, her only thought to get to the man she knew was dealing with so much inner turmoil and pain.
As soon as she stood, she saw Kyle glance at his mother, looking utterly bewildered by the scene that had just transpired between Crystal and Remy.
“Mom, what’s going on?” he asked again, this time his voice demanding an answer.
Crystal’s hand fluttered nervously to the necklace at her throat, her fingers fiddling with the diamond pendant. “It’s nothing, Kyle,” she replied in a dismissive tone.
Tempest had every intention of pushing past the two of them and ignoring whatever conversation they intended to have in favor of getting to Remy, but Crystal’s cold response—and the way she was sweeping this entire issue under the rug as if it was a pile of dirt she didn’t want to deal with—enraged Tempest beyond anything she’d ever felt before.
“It’s nothing?” Tempest repeated incredulously, startling the other woman with her heated, angry tone that
drew stares from guests at nearby tables, though she didn’t give a damn. “How can you call your firstborn son nothing?”
Kyle’s jaw dropped at that revelation, his expression stunned.
“This is none of your concern,” Crystal hissed in a low voice, her face flushed with embarrassment at being called out in a room full of affluent people. “You don’t know anything about the situation.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Tempest took the two steps that separated her from Crystal and got right up in the other woman’s face, unleashing all the fury she felt on Remy’s behalf in a nonstop tirade. “I know everything about the situation. I know you relinquished all your parental rights to Remy to marry some rich guy and never looked back, and when Remy was orphaned at fourteen after losing his father and needed someone to care for him, you refused to take him in, which meant he spent four years getting shuffled through the foster care system, all because you are a selfish, despicable woman who only cares about herself. You, Crystal Lowell, are rotten to the core.”
Crystal’s green eyes had grown wide with every word Tempest threw her way. “How dare you!” she snapped indignantly, lashing out more out of self-preservation in the face of being publicly shamed than anything else. “You know nothing about me or my life.”
“I know enough,” Tempest said bitterly, a part of her feeling sorry for Kyle having to find out that he had a half brother this way, but it wasn’t her problem, or even Remy’s. “You abandoned your firstborn son for a life of luxury. You rejected the best man I’ve ever known, but you know what? As hard as his life might have been, he was clearly better off without you in it.”
With nothing left to say, Tempest brushed past the furious woman and picked up her stride to get to Remy as soon as possible.
“Jesus Christ, Mother,” Tempest heard Kyle say behind her as she kept heading for the front door. “What the hell is going on?”
Tempest refused to stick around a second longer to hear the pathetic excuses Crystal would undoubtedly come up with. There was no viable explanation to smooth over what she’d put Remy through as a child, and certainly no plausible answer or reason for abandoning a kid.
As soon as she stepped outside, she found Remy sitting in his car at the curb in the valet section, waiting for her. She slid into the passenger seat and buckled up and immediately felt the tension radiating from him. He didn’t look at her, didn’t say a word, just put the car into drive and merged out onto the street, his jaw clenched hard and his hands wrapped around the steering wheel in a tight grip.
The pain in her heart for this man was so great it hurt for her to breathe. “Remy, I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t,” he bit out, stopping her before she could console or calm him.
The one word was harsh, but Tempest could only imagine the depth of hurt and rejection he was dealing with. How raw his own emotions had to be after that painful encounter with a woman he hadn’t seen or spoken to in over twenty-five years. A woman who’d looked right through him and all but denied his existence. It didn’t matter if Remy was seven or thirty-four, being ignored and spurned by your own mother was a hard, emotional blow.
The drive back to her apartment was intensely quiet, and as much as Tempest respected and understood Remy’s need to process everything that had just happened in his own way, with each minute that passed in silence, she could feel him stewing on all the insecurities his mother’s rejection had instilled in him—which his ex-wife had reinforced. Could see him withdrawing into himself and shutting her out, and Tempest’s biggest fear was that he wouldn’t let her back in.
By the time he drove into the underground parking structure and brought the car to a stop in front of the private elevator that she and her brothers used to get to their apartments, Tempest knew he’d retreated entirely.
She swallowed hard and put her hand on his arm. “Remy, come upstairs with me so we can talk about this.”
