SEVENTEEN
CLAIRE STOOD IN THE PANTRY in the house on Chestnut Street for a minute, reminding herself to breathe. Her heart squeezed so tight that if she didn’t concentrate, it didn’t feel like there was enough room for air in her chest. She couldn’t think clearly about anything. All she could do was go through the motions. Thank God she could count on her crew to keep things moving because she was in no shape to lead.
She’d left the penthouse that morning with nothing but the clothes on her back and the twenty dollars she’d taken from Luke’s wallet while he slept. She hated taking anything from him, but it was either that or hike the fourteen blocks across town to her apartment in the dark wearing her fuck me heels. She was proud, but not stupid. Wearing her walk of shame clothes, she’d had to wake up poor Mrs. Andrews to get her spare key so she could let herself in. Thank God she had an extra truck key at the apartment. There was never going to be another time in her life when she let herself be that dependent on a man again. Never.
She hadn’t even been able to get organized enough to move her crew back to the Ashton Court job. Sparks called her that morning to tell her the job had been reopened, and she’d just muttered okay and hung up. He must think she’d lost her mind.
The truth was she had, and her heart as well, and she had no idea when or if she’d get either back again. Luke had hurt her in a way she hadn’t thought possible.
She wasn’t going to lie to herself and pretend she hadn’t been curious watching the trio at the club, but she couldn’t imagine sharing him. That he could not only imagine sharing her but would set the whole thing up made her truly and finally sure the thing between them was never going to be more than physical. Every time they got close to something real he pushed her away, using her passion as a shield against his feelings.
Obviously what he and Eric did with her was some kind of well-rehearsed routine and even though she had no doubt it would have felt extraordinary, it broke her heart. If Luke was willing to share her like he had so many other women then she couldn’t be more to him than an exceptional fuck.
That would have been bad enough but what he’d done was so much worse. He used her pleasure against her, turning her passion and the intimacy they shared into a weapon to punish her. She didn’t know how she’d ever forgive that.
“Hey, boss, the guys are finishing up in the bedrooms. Do you want to move them to touch up in the dining room?” asked Mike, interrupting her thoughts.
She looked up and when her gaze met his, his eyes went wide and he took a step closer.
“Are you okay, Claire?”
She nodded, blinking furiously against the tears she refused to let fall. She wasn’t going to let Luke take that from her too. She’d worked too hard to earn her crew’s respect to lose it by crying over some emotionally damaged, arrogant, overgrown boy on her job site.
Real men knew how to love. Her father had, so had Pete and Mike. She was pretty sure that given the right woman, Eric would too. But not Luke Masters, billionaire playboy asshole. She’d recognized what he was the first time she met him. She’d just made the classic mistake of countless women before her and been fool enough to convince herself he could change. That her love would be enough to change him. It never was. It never would be.
She turned her back to Mike, pretending to look at something on the counter so he wouldn’t see how hard she was working to hold it together. They both knew it was a lie, but at least they didn’t have to face it.
“That would be good. Can you tell them?” she said when she was sure she could talk without her voice breaking.
“Sure thing,” he said, letting his hand rest on her shoulder for a moment before leaving her alone with her thoughts again.
WEARING HIS CLOTHES from the previous day, Luke drove straight from the penthouse where he and Claire spent their disastrous night to the Ashton Court job. When he turned on his phone he’d had a text from Sparks saying Matthews had been given the all clear to go ahead with construction. He didn’t want to waste a minute getting to Claire and he knew she’d be at the jobsite.
God, he’d been such a fucking animal, punishing her for his mistakes. It was the same thing his father had done to him and just because Luke’s version came with multiple orgasms, it didn’t make it any less sickening. He needed to find her, apologize and then beg her to give him another chance. He couldn’t see anything past getting Claire back.
He pulled into the lot at the jobsite sending gravel flying with his tires. There was no sign of her truck and ice flooded his veins. What if something happened to her because he was a stupid asshole? She’d left his wallet open on the dresser so he’d see she’d taken the twenty dollar bill out of the hundreds of dollars it held. He’d have given her all of it gladly. The city in the middle of the night was no place for Claire to be walking dressed like she was. What if something happened before she could catch a cab?
He burst into the construction trailer without knocking, startling Sparks who spilled his coffee in his hurry to stand. Brown liquid seeped onto the papers on the desk, but neither man made a move to stop it.
“Where are the electricians? Where is she? Claire?” he asked, fighting the urge to shake the older man. “Where’s Claire?”
“I don’t know,” said Sparks. “I thought she was with you.”
Luke’s fist crashed into the wall, denting the fake wood paneling. His whole world was spiraling out of control and he didn’t do out of control.
The construction manager flinched but he didn’t back up. Drawing himself up to his full height, he squared his shoulders and looked Luke in the eye. “What happened? Is she okay?”
In that moment Luke knew without a doubt the construction manager would willingly fight Luke if he knew how badly he’d hurt Claire, and the thought made him ashamed. More ashamed than he’d ever been in his life.
“She sounded strange when I talked to her this morning but okay,” said Sparks. “Has something happened since then?”
“You talked to her this morning?”
“I called her to let her know we’d been cleared to start up here again. When she didn’t show up, I assumed she was going to keep her crew on that house she’s flipping for one more day. That way they won’t be nipping at the framers’ heels.”
Luke was out the door before the older man finished talking. He threw the car into drive, spun out of the parking lot and sped across town as fast as he could. When he got to the house on Chestnut Street and saw her truck he let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. She was okay. They might be fucked, but Claire was okay. He parked across the street and made his way through the beehive of men going in and out of the house. Some of them gave him a second glance but no one tried to stop him until he came to Mike, hanging the pendant over the peninsula.
“Mr. Masters,” he said squaring his shoulders and not looking nearly as friendly as he had the last time they met. “What can we do for you?”
