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“A company isn’t what she needed. She needed her father,” Miranda pointed out, surprisingly standing up for Summer.
Though maybe it was more that she was taking Nate’s side, Summer thought cynically.
“She’s done quite well without him.” Jessica always lashed out when confronted with uncomfortable truths, like the fact that Summer had wanted and needed her father her whole life.
“How could you do this?” It sounded like her dad had asked that more than once and not gotten an answer that made sense. Because what her mother had done was wrong and inexcusable.
“I was eighteen. A kid. I made stupid mistakes. And I’ve paid for them.”
Summer glimpsed Natalie just inside the room, looking like she could relate to Jessica in this moment.
“She won’t speak to me.” Sadness filled her mother’s voice. “She came home to help her grandfather, but left before we could speak.”
Summer walked into the room with Cody by her side. “I left without seeing you because my anger is unrelenting and my feelings are too raw. And I wanted to be here.” At the sound of her voice, everyone in her family turned to her.
“Your life is not here.” Jessica gave her a pointed look.
Summer wasn’t a child anymore, and she’d grown past the point of capitulating to her mother. “My life is where I say it is.” She shook her head, disheartened that her mother came all this way, knowing there was a fight waiting for her. “Why would you come here like this, just to upset everyone?”
“BecauseI’mupset. My daughter won’t answer my calls. You don’t respond to any of my texts. Your grandfather calls and asks you to come home and you’re on a plane, there and gone, without ever giving me a chance to explain.”
Her dad sank his teeth into that. “Please explain to me why you didn’t tell me we had a daughter, without giving me that bullshit line that I didn’t have the means to care for her. I may not have had the financial resources you do, but I would have done what I could and certainly loved her better than you ever did. I would have given her stability and a family like she wanted.”
Her mother’s arms went rigid at her sides. “She had everything she needed.”
“Except me!” Raw pain filled those words.
Summer appreciated that he stood up for her and his rights, but it was all for naught. “I’m a grown woman now. I make thedecisions in my life. I get to decide where I am and where I want to be and with whom.”
Her dad took a breath and nodded, knowing she meant those sentiments for him, too.
She looked her mom in the eye. “I told you I was taking six weeks to be here with my family. I needed time away from you and the company and to just get to know them. I needed to figure out who I am now with all of them as a part of my life.”
Jessica held her arm out toward the foyer. “You’ve done that, but now it’s time to return to reality.”
That set Summer’s back teeth to grinding.
“Reality,” Nate scoffed. “The reality is you kept us apart for no good reason. Even worse, you did it because you were selfish. You’re a coward. You knew she’d hate you for what you did.”
“She doesn’t hate me.”
“You’re delusional, too.” Miranda rolled her eyes. “You thought you could get away with this, that Nate would never find out about her.”
“He wouldn’t have if my father hadn’t meddled.” The haughty look on her mother’s face grated.
Even worse was the pain of knowing her mother really didn’t want Summer to know the truth and be with Nate.
“Thank god he did,” Nate snapped. “At least Charles had a conscience. You don’t care who you hurt, including your own daughter.”
“That’s not true. I gave her the best of everything.”
“And yet she’s lived her whole life feeling less than and unhappy.”
Wow. Was that how her father saw her? Was that how they all saw her?
Her mother wiped that away with a wave of her hand. “You barely know her.”
“And whose fault is that?” Miranda cut in, her dad nodding.
