“I don’t have a mother,” she blurted out. “So this is all new to me.”
Helene nodded. “I understand that. I didn’t have a good relationship with my mother. Sometimes growing up, I wondered if it would have been easier if she’d disowned me instead of spending every waking second being disappointed in me.”
Roz nodded, mortified as she dashed tears away with the white napkin from her lap. This was not the conversation she’d intended to have with her new mother-in-law. She didn’t believe for a second that shouting, I still wonder that about my father! would be the best way to foster the relationship Helene seemed to be asking for.
But Helene’s story so closely mirrored the way Roz felt about her father that it was uncanny. How familiar was she allowed to be on her first one-on-one with Helene? This was uncharted—and so not what she’d expected. If anything, she’d earned an indictment for playing a role in the problems that Helene had just thanked her for helping to solve. There’d been two naked people in that hot tub, after all.
“I’m sorry about the photograph,” she said earnestly and only because Helene hadn’t called her on the carpet about it. That was why Roz and her father were always at such odds. He always adopted that stern tone when laying out Roz’s sins that immediately put her back up.
Accepting the apology with a nod, Helene waited for the server to put their salads on the table and leaned forward. “Trust me when I tell you that we all have questionable exploits in our pasts. You just got lucky enough for yours to be immortalized forever, which frankly wouldn’t have happened if you’d been with anyone other than Hendrix.”
That was entirely false. Bad luck of the male variety
followed her around like a stray dog, waiting to turn its canines on her the moment she tried to feed it. Roz swallowed and ate a tiny bit of salad in order not to seem ungrateful. “I have a tendency to get a little, um, enthusiastic with my exploits unfortunately.”
“Which is no one’s business but yours. The unfortunate part is that my son forgot that political enemies have long reaches and few scruples. You can only tell the kid so much. He does his own thing.” She shrugged good-naturedly, far more so than should have been the case. It was a testament to Helene’s grace, which was something Roz had no experience with.
“You’re very generous,” Roz said with a small frown that she couldn’t quite erase. “Most parents aren’t so forgiving.”
At least that had never been Roz’s experience. Parents were harsh, not understanding.
“I’m not most parents. Hendrix is my life and I love him more than I could possibly tell you. He saved me.” Helene paused to eat some of her own salad but Roz didn’t dare interrupt. “I have a bit of a wild past myself, you know.”
Was this the part where Roz was supposed to nod and say, Why yes, I have heard all the gossip about your rebellious teenage years? Especially when Roz’s own rebellious teenage years had been nothing but practice for her even more defiant twenties, when she’d really tested the limits of her father’s patience.
“Getting pregnant at seventeen was a huge wake-up call,” Helene recounted in the pause. “Without that baby, I might have continued in a self-destructive cycle that wouldn’t have ended well. And now look at me. I created a successful business that Hendrix runs like the maestro of the boardroom that he was born to be and I’m running for governor. Governor. Some days, I don’t know what I did to earn these blessings.”
Roz’s own eyes misted in commiseration as Helene dabbed at hers with her napkin. “I honestly wasn’t sure what to think when you asked me to lunch. But making each other cry wasn’t even on the top ten.”
Helene’s smile widened. One thing Roz noticed, no matter what, the woman’s smile never slipped. It was a trait she’d like to learn because not for one moment did Roz believe that Helene’s life was all smooth sailing. No, instead, Helene had some innate quality that allowed her to be happy regardless of the subject or circumstance. Voters must really be drawn to that happiness the same way Roz was.
Of course that apple did not fall far from the tree. Hendrix’s bright personality had been a huge turn-on. Still was. He just laced it with pure carnal intentions that he did not mind making her fully aware of, and then followed through like the maestro of the bedroom that he was.
Roz shivered and tried like hell to reel back those thoughts because fantasizing about a woman’s son while sitting with her in an upscale restaurant felt like bad form.
“I didn’t plan to make you cry when I called you,” Helene confessed sunnily. “Just happened. But I love that you’re a companionable crier. No one wants to cry alone.”
No. No one did. But that was some people’s lot in life and if they didn’t change the subject, there were going to be a lot more tears. The raw place inside was growing a lot bigger the longer she sat here. This wonderful woman had just said she’d be happy having a mother-daughter relationship with Roz for as long as Roz was married to Hendrix. Like that was an invitation Roz got every day and it was no big thing.
It was. And Roz wanted to cling to it, hold it and wrap her arms around it. But like everything—everything—in her life, Helene would be gone one day soon. Too soon. Any day was too soon because Roz had just realized that she craved whatever relationship this woman would grant her. Helene could be a...mentor of sorts. A friend. A stand-in mother.
It was overwhelming to contemplate. Overwhelmingly sad to think about having that and then giving it up.
But how could Roz refuse? She didn’t want to refuse.
Helene was helping her blow away the scandal if nothing else and Roz owed the woman respect and allegiance for that alone.
The rest was all a huge bonus.
Five
Hendrix picked Roz up at the door of her loft for their date because he wanted to and he could. Also? What better way to prove he had all the skill necessary to resist pushing his way inside and having his way with her than not to do it?
But when he knocked on the door, she swung it wide to give him an eyeful of soft, gorgeous skin on display. Being that edible should be a crime. Her cleavage should be framed and hung on the wall of the Louvre.
“What happened to your pants?” he growled hoarsely.
Roz glanced down at the river of bare legs flowing from the hem of the blouse-like thing she had on. “What pants? This is a dress.”