“I’m so sorry for you loss.” Claire moved out of his reach and for the space of a few heartbeats, Luke and the older woman simply looked at each other. There wasn’t anything else to say. “If there is anything I can do to help you, please let me know,” he said, trying to mitigate the awkwardness. Fuck, the lawyers were going to string him up by his balls. It didn’t matter. He paid them an obscene amount of money to work for him, not the other way around.
“Thank you,” Maria said.
He nodded and hurried to catch up with Claire before he made things worse. She, her father and his nurse had found seats about halfway back. The last few parishioners found their seats as the priest made his entrance, and they were off to the races. With Claire to his left, he stood, knelt and sat at all the appropriate places and tried pushing aside the memories of all the times he’d done the same thing with his father after his mother left.
His parents married when his mother was barely more than a teenager. Luke had vague memories of the gorgeous woman who smelled like Chanel and cigarettes, but when he remembered her face, he wasn’t sure if it was an actual memory of her or one of the dozens of photographs his father kept around the house.
His father had been crazy in love with his mother, emphasis on the crazy. Luke knew from the photographs that she was gorgeous with dark hair and lashes and a full Cupid’s bow mouth. Her beauty attracted a lot of attention, and apparently his mother was never one to shy away from the spotlight. She stayed with his dad until she got pregnant, but afterwards she blamed his father and him for ruining her body and her looks.
She couldn’t stand being tied down, and the last thing she wanted was to be a working man’s wife. A richer man came along and offered her everything she wanted, but he didn’t want to raise another man’s brat. So Luke’s mother ran off, and Luke got stuck with a father who blamed him for losing the love of his life. He wasn’t more than four or five when it happened. The only reason he knew about his parents’ relationship was because his father used to tell him how he’d cost him anything that mattered and ruined his fucking life every time he drank which was every night and every time he came after him with his belt which was almost as often.
The last time he’d seen his father, he’d slammed Luke against the wall by his throat. It was hard enough to rattle the empty beer bottles littering the filthy kitchen counter, but the old man had underestimated how strong his son was, and he’d hurt him one too fucking many times. Luke knocked him on his ass and left. But he’d already learned every single day of his life exactly what loving someone could cost you. He had no intention of repeating his father’s mistake.
His father drank himself to death before Luke bought his first property. By the time Luke made his first million, his mother was on husband number four, and she reached out to him. Apparently once he had money, he became another man who was worth her time. His staff fielded her attempts to contact him and eventually she gave up. The last he heard she was living in Europe somewhere with some kind of third tier royalty.
Claire nudged him, forcing him back to the present in time to see the faithful lining up for communion. She’d bumped him hard enough for him to know it wasn’t the first time she’d tried to get his attention while he’d been wandering down fucking memory lane.
“Do you want to take communion?” she asked, moving her knees to the side to let him out of the pew.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered, his lips against the delicate shell of her ear. “The last time I was in a state of grace I had my cock buried inside your sweet cunt. I think I’ll sit this one out.”
She sucked in a breath, and he knew he’d been deliberately crude. He also knew by the way her pretty pale skin flushed that she was remembering, too. He had every intention of reminding her later.
He made it through the rest of communion, the commendation and the incensing and then it was time to send Pete on his way. As Pete’s sons and friends carried the casket out of the church, Luke shoved the memories of any family he had into a box and threw away the key. By the time the widow made her way down the aisle he’d managed to fill the pinprick holes in the wall around his heart with ice.
Becky took Mr. English by the arm and started to lead him out of the pew to follow the other mourners. He stumbled, and Claire reached for his arm to steady him. The old man spun around with none of the love in his eyes he had earlier for his daughter.
“Don’t touch me,” he snapped.
Claire took a step back like she’d been slapped, and Luke put a steadying hand on her back.
“Don’t worry, honey,” said the nurse, giving Claire a look filled with pity. “I’ve got it.”
Claire hung back a few steps while the woman led her father away.
“Do you want to go with them?” Luke asked, hooking her arm under his.
“He won’t want me to. It’ll be easier on Becky if I stay away. I guess it was too much to expect him to stay with me – right here in the present – all day, but God I’d hoped.”
“Sweetheart.” He didn’t have anything else to say. The disease that was stealing her father was a fucking waste, the same as the accident which took Pete. It seemed all too often the bad stuff never happened to bad people.
Leading Claire down the aisle behind the grieving family and the father who didn’t know her made Luke all too aware of exactly how much pain love could cause. Even between people who wanted the best for each other. He wasn’t an expert, but to him the old “it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” line seemed like a load of bullshit.
He’d focus on giving Claire as much pleasure as he could and taking some for himself. Loving someone gave them too much power to cause pain, even if they never intended to. He’d built an empire on calculated risks and it was an unacceptable risk. He’d keep things physical and save the falling in love bit for people who didn’t know any better.
