Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

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.

So it was a steady shift with Remy’s dad between iron control, which was a form of mental abuse, and casual neglect, which was not at odds with what Remy got from his mother, also iron control in the form of emotional abuse, mingled with casual neglect.

Although some words had been shared with our kids about Remy’s history while they were growing up, once they started maturing, not much had to be said. Guillaume and Colette didn’t hide from their grandchildren how they were with their son, and in Colette’s case, she treated them all exactly as she did her own child.

Truth be told, that was the same with me. Remy didn’t talk about his parents much to the point of actively avoiding the discussion. There were words shared, but they were the bare minimum.

However, they were enough, because I didn’t miss it either and I felt there was no need for him to have to go through it again by dredging it all out for me. Not if he didn’t want to.

And although Guillaume treated me (and eventually Manon) like he treated his wife, with urbane adoration, Colette abhorred me and put very little effort into hiding that.

So, the three of our children had been told of their father’s less-than-loving upbringing, they’d witnessed it and they’d been given a taste of it.

Therefore, when I took in my kids and all three of them looked like they’d been slapped, I knew they were belatedly realizing their mistake.

Because there was one thing Remy Jacques Gastineau had never fallen down on in his life.

Being the loving, supportive, attentive, kind, funny, protective parent he’d never had.

I stood too, touched the back of his hand and whispered, “Honey.”

He looked down at me and I drew in a sharp breath at the pain in his eyes.

“Dad,” Yves called.

Remy’s head jerked that way, and he growled, “Get over here.”

Without hesitation, Yves moved toward his father, and when he was in reach, Remy’s arm shot out, he cupped the back of his son’s head and yanked him the rest of the way.

Their bodies collided. I swallowed a sob. Manon let one loose. Sabre grunted. Yves wrapped his arms around his dad and Remy kept his hand on Yves’s head, pushing it into his neck as he curled his other arm tight around his son’s upper back.

“I will love you always, Yves. Always,” I heard him say.

“’Kay,” Yves pushed out, that syllable thick, and now he was clutching at his father’s shirt, the material bunched in his fists.

A tear slid down my face.

“Get this, son, there is never anything you can do and definitely never anyone you could be that would make me love you any less,” Remy stressed.

“I’m sorry I thought—” Yves began, voice still hoarse.

Remy cut him off. “No, Yves, I’m sorry I lost it like that. That wasn’t cool.”

“I get it,” Yves said.

“I know you do. It still wasn’t cool.”

He was kinda right, he was kinda wrong, and I was far from just kinda crying.

“Love you, Dad.”

“I’d step in front of a bullet for you, Yves.”

Yves’s back hitched powerfully.

Remy held on.

Okay, no, I was sobbing.

I then found myself caught at the waist by my daughter, who immediately pushed us into the two-man huddle that equally immediately accommodated to fit us in, and within moments, Sabre shoved in on the other side.