Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)(35)

“How is your sister? Did she ever start the bakery like she wanted to?” he asked, and Annalise loved that he remembered that little detail from their phone conversations years ago.

“Yes, she did. She runs it with her husband now, and she has three kids. So she’s been busy.” She pictured Noelle and Patrick up before dawn, peddling baguettes and croissants, and loving their little corner shop in Paris. Annalise adored that bakery too. When her sister had struggled to secure a loan to start it up, Annalise had given her the money she’d saved from her café job in college – the money she’d once earmarked to see Michael. But they’d lost touch, and her sister needed the help, so it seemed as if fate had intended something else for her savings. She was glad to have helped her sister start up her business, and that business had provided the foundation for Noelle’s family.

“I’d say they’ve both been busy,” he said with a wink, and she returned her focus to him.

“True,” she said, laughing. “The kids are great. Nine, eleven, and twelve. She’s exhausted all the time.”

“I’m exhausted just hearing that. Does that mean you have to take care of your mom more?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes, but that’s okay. My mom took care of me. It’s only fair,” she said, then softened her voice, placing her hand on his arm. “Is it weird to hear other people talk about their mothers?”

His eyes darkened briefly, then he shook his head. “No. It’s the way it should be.”

“Do you ever see her? I know you did at first, but then you didn’t ever want to anymore.” They’d talked about his mother, and he’d told her that he’d visited her in prison a few times when he was in high school and college. He’d stopped after that, though.

His jaw was set hard, and he heaved a sigh. “You’re right. I used to, a long time ago because I wanted to try—I don’t know—maybe to understand what had happened, and why she’d done it. But soon enough it was clear there was no way to make sense of it. I couldn’t be near her anymore. I don’t think of her as my mother, and I haven’t in years.”

She ran her hand down his arm. “I understand why.”

He turned his head and met her gaze. “Not everyone does,” he said in a quiet voice.

“You mean other women?” she asked, and a brief burst of jealousy flared inside her at the prospect of him with other women. Of course, he hadn’t been celibate over the years, but the thought of him with someone else was like a hot poker jabbing her flesh.

He ran a hand across his jaw, shaking his head. “Just people in general. My brother Ryan, and even Shan for a while. They wanted me to visit her, but I just couldn’t.”

“Do you think it’s because you were closest to your father, or just because that’s simply how you feel?” she asked as the plane began to level out, nearing its cruising altitude.

“Probably both.”

“Do you think that will ever change? Your feelings for her?”

“I don’t see how it could. Unless she was found to be not guilty,” he said with a scoff, as if that were truly impossible.

“Is there a chance of that happening?”

“Not a chance in hell, as far as I can see,” he said, then cocked his head, studying Annalise’s expression as if he were looking for answers to an unspoken question. “I believe there are other people who are also responsible, but I don’t believe she’s innocent. So I don’t see how I’d ever think of her as a mother again.”

“Are you okay with that?” she asked quietly.

“Are you okay with that? With me feeling the way I do?”

She nodded resolutely and ran her fingers across the back of his neck. “Of course. It’s your life. It’s your choice.” The tension seemed to lessen in his shoulders as she touched him, and she was struck with a memory as crisp as the images in front of her—a phone call, years ago, a couple months after she’d left Vegas and returned to France. It was one of the few times she’d heard him shed tears. His mother had just been found guilty of murder for hire, and had said her good-byes to her family before she was taken away in the bus to prison. He was choked up, and it had shredded her to hear him recount the day. But her emotions were nothing compared to what he was feeling at age seventeen with a family pulverized by tragedy. The pain had started to fade from his voice over the next few calls and letters, and he’d told her, “Talking to you is one of the few things that makes me feel okay.”

Okay.

Such a small, flat word. But it was all he wanted, and it was enough. To feel okay. Somehow, she’d given that to him. Perhaps she was doing the same now, helping him see that it was indeed okay to not want to be his mother’s son.

“You sure?” he asked, and his voice was laced with nerves, like he desperately needed her reassurance.

She cupped his cheek and spoke confidently. “Yes. You’re a man without a mother. And it’s okay to be that way. It’s like she died, too, and your mourning for her just took a different shape.”

His eyes locked onto hers, and he relaxed further. “Sometimes I wondered if I was too hard on her. Too angry. Too unforgiving. But then she admitted to Ryan that she did it. I don’t need to forgive her.”