by Deana Birch
To further avoid discovery—and perhaps to fully witness the damage he’d done to a woman like no other—he stayed hunched down until she finally stood.
Claire kissed the top of the light stone, wiped her cheeks and walked away. There would be no understanding for Luca.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Claire
“He wants to talk to you.”
Claire dragged her eyes from the headache-inducing papers in front of her. “No, he really doesn’t.” The collar taunted her from her purse. She knew it wasn’t special. She knew she wasn’t special, but keeping it close soothed her somehow.
Julien pushed off the frame then closed the door softly behind him. “You can’t hold him accountable for his cousin’s big mouth.” He sat in the chair across from her. “It’s been a week. Don’t you think you’ve given him the silent treatment long enough?”
She tossed her pen down and pressed her thumb and middle finger into the corners of her eyes. “It’s not a silent treatment. This isn’t some proverbial standoff. Whatever you want to call the thing we had…it’s over. We both knew it was temporary from the beginning. It isn’t like this is a huge shock.” The crushing realization that he hadn’t found her worthy of showing up to talk still weighed heavily on her chest. “It’s better this way. If you don’t have anything nice to say and all that.”
In an uncharacteristic display of anger, Julien leaped to his feet and slapped his palm against her desk. “Better for who, Claire? Better for you so that you can continue to exile yourself from love and relationships because you had grade-A assholes for parents and because Liam had the audacity to get cancer and die?”
Her mouth dropped open, her eyes widened, but her reliable, consistent, rock-solid advocate continued his chastising tirade. “Better for Luca because you think based on a five-minute conversation—with his cousin, I might add, not even from talking to him—that he has his heart set on being a father to a litter of kids? Or are you somehow trying to salvage all of humanity because the kind of power couple that would result from a mixture of Claire Favre and Luca Bernardi would undoubtedly lead to world domination?”
A single tear tracked down her cheek. “Better for everyone, because love is his only hard no—and even if it wasn’t, I am physically incapable of being what he wants.”
“You. Don’t. Know. That.” Julien struck the solid surface with his fist to punctuate each word. “All you know is that you pulled that same fucking bitchy Claire card you’ve played since high school to keep everyone at arm’s length. And when you finally pulled your head out of your skinny, gorgeous ass, Luca was nowhere to be found.” He paused long enough to suck air into his lungs. “Those are the only things you know.”
She sat back against her chair, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. “I hate it when you’re right.” She didn’t say that her stomach had been tied in such tight knots for the past seven days that she had barely been able to keep food down—wondering, worrying, fearing where Luca was and what he was doing. “I fucked this up and I don’t think I can fix it.”
The steel eyes that had cut impassioned daggers through her during his outburst softened. “You are Claire Favre. You can fix anything.” He gestured toward the papers spread out in front of her. “You made Arik Hauser your bitch. He had every document you requested couriered over within a few days.”
Her jaw worked back and forth. Work—something she understood, something she could handle. She would focus on work and untangling the puzzle Arik Hauser’s account presented, answering the mounting questions that came with each new piece of information.
Then she would approach Luca—with a clear head and a trepidatious heart.
“You haven’t eaten a decent meal since the gala.”
Julien’s soft words seeped into her consciousness, pulling her back to their conversation. Her mind conjured all the images she’d been fighting against since she’d left the club for the last time—Luca cooking for her, bringing her lunch, glaring at her with blatant disapproval when she failed to follow instructions.
They were quickly followed by the more painful memories—his dark brown eyes glowing with pride at her obedience and simmering with need that matched her own, his constant affirmations during aftercare and when they were just being Luca and Claire, his ability to be aware of what she was doing and what she needed from him without suffocating her and his constant reminders that she held the ultimate power in their relationship…and over him.
Her gaze landed on the clock on her computer. “You’re right.” She stood and collected the stacks of papers then filed them neatly in her briefcase. “It’s already four. I’m just going to work on this at home.” She held up her index finger to silence Julien’s protestations. “After I stop and pick up a plethora of Chinese takeout.”
She rounded her desk and dropped a kiss on Julien’s cheek. He pulled her close for a tight embrace.
“He’s special, Claire. I know this started as a fun and sexy adventure for you, but it became so much more. You don’t love easily or lightly. Don’t let it end this way.”
“I need to get Arik Hauser handled first.” She shook her head, frowning at her friend. “I can’t lose my boyfriend and my company at the same time.”
Julien smirked. “That’s the second time you’ve called him your boyfriend.”
Claire rolled her eyes, hiking her purse strap onto one shoulder while gripping her briefcase on the opposite side. “Fucking queen.”
He affected a pseudo-innocent expression, holding his hands up, palms facing her. “All I’m saying is perhaps you need to unblock his number before you call him your boyfriend again.”
* * * *
“No. No, no, no, no.” She spoke the words to her empty living room in a voice that was barely above a whisper. She’d been looking at the piles of papers for so long that her eyes burned and the numbers swirled together. She shook her head and blinked, certain she was misreading something. But after checking three more times, everything was still the same.
That fucking snake.
She jumped to her feet, pacing the length of her living room, an avalanche of options racing through her mind. She had known from the second her partner had set the proposal before her that there was something off with Arik Hauser’s plan—and now it was clear.
It wasn’t his fucking plan. He was just a pawn for a far slimier foe. But his guilt was evident. ‘If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas.’ Isn’t that the saying? Well, Arik Hauser was infested.
Unfortunately for him, he’d landed in the path of Claire Fucking Favre. Her nostrils flared as she gathered the five most damning of all the documents and read through them once more. The clock above her fireplace ticked and the alarm on her phone rang out with one name flashing across the screen. Liam.
She would deal with this first thing Monday morning. He didn’t know who he was messing with and sure as hell didn’t realize that he was threatening the two things that mattered the most to her in this world in one fell swoop. If he did and he was trying to pull this anyway? Then he was a bigger damn fool than she’d originally thought.
Claire fumed the entire walk to the cemetery. She had numbers and worries running through her brain and she would need to check the account as soon as she got home—lock it down, make sure nothing happened to send it into the red.
Her body walked straight to the familiar headstone with little input from her brain. She spread the patchy rainbow-colored blanket on the frozen ground before sitting and wrapping the other, a more sedate one, around her shoulders. “I am not in a good mood today, Liam.”
Her gaze wandered over the etched letters she had memorized. Shortly after he’d died, Claire had begun coming here every day, sobbing her pain to the cold, unforgiving stone. Gradually she had weaned to less and less frequent visits, but Friday nights were non-negotiable. They always had been and always would be their date night, since their awkward first encounter while they had still been at univer
sity.
Until now. Until Luca. Until love.
Claire shook her head. “But it isn’t anything I can’t handle. And…it’s not why I’m here anyway.”
With a sigh, she leaned forward and brushed dust off the granite. “Liam…I’m in love.” Despite the icy air hitting her skin, warmth radiated through her. “I never thought it was possible to be in love again. I thought my heart died with you.”
Luca’s smirky smile and twinkling eyes danced in front of her vision and, despite the deep ache at everything that had gone wrong, she smiled. “That pushy, domineering Italian made me fall in love with him.” She lifted one shoulder helplessly, dislodging the blanket. “It’s different, this love I feel for him. I can’t really explain it. It isn’t better or worse, just…different.”
She picked at the brittle, dead grass. “I trust him, Liam. Implicitly. And I am going to tell him everything and hope I haven’t fucked things up so badly that he can’t forgive me.” Claire made a face. “Yes, yes, I played the bitchy blame game card again. I know… Julien already lectured me about it.”
The tears she had expected finally arrived, filling the corners of her eyes and clogging her throat. “I wanted you to know, Liam. I needed you to know because…it’s all because of you. You taught me what love looks like and how to give it.” She smiled again. “And he taught me how to trust.”
She sat for several moments in silence, allowing the fat drops to roll down her cheeks unchecked. Then she stood, collected the blanket from the ground and held it close to her chest. She bent down to brush her lips across the granite. “A part of me will love you forever, Liam. I hope you know that. But regardless of what happens with Luca, I think I won’t be coming quite as often.” She ran one hand across the width of the stone top. “You gave me the strength to fall in love again and Luca gave me the strength to move on. I don’t know what I have ever possibly done in my life to deserve two amazing men like you both, but I am forever grateful.”
Claire straightened her posture into a tall, confident pose that would have made Luca proud, and she firmed her jaw. “And now I need to go save him before that slimy snake tries to ruin him.” She narrowed her eyes into slits and settled her mouth into a thin line. “I am going to make that bastard wish he’d never messed with my fucking boyfriend.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Luca
The black-and-white closed-circuit images of the club faded in and out as Luca’s eyelids closed and bounced back open. Being out on the floor, mingling with members and guests, had proven to be overwhelming. Plus, as Gwendelyn and Max had pointed out with the subtly of elephants, he was a bit ‘testy’.
So, once again, on a Friday night when the rooms were packed and he had no inclination of partaking in the fun, he sat in the dark cool office and monitored from afar.
But falling asleep on the job would have been grounds for firing. He stood up, slapped his cheeks a few times and threaded his arms through the jacket he’d freed from the back of the chair.
“I’m going to grab a coffee. Keep an eye on camera six. The sub is gagged, and I happen to know his Dom likes it rough. It could go wrong quickly,” he said to the muscled man who flanked the door.
“You got it, boss.”
Luca buttoned his coat and smoothed it as he walked down the hall. It was still relatively early—despite the intense scene on the third floor—and the ground floor bar buzzed with chatter.
A group of women he referred to as ‘The Geneva Convention’ was in town for a monthly visit and the single Doms had crawled out of the woodwork. The ladies were all a bit older but their years brought experience, and they had a reputation as being down for more than the average sub. If a Dom wanted to flex his Master muscles or test his own limits, this was definitely the bunch with whom one should mingle.
He went over to their table, pasted a grin on his face and welcomed them to his club. Luca caught Max’s eye from behind the bar, signaled for a coffee and the liquid battery was in front of him before he’d made the rounds of kissing all their rosy and lifted cheeks.
They tag-team flirted with him, and six months prior, he would have taken three of them upstairs and publicly bound and adored every inch of their used flesh. And while he respected their jovial united spirit, it no longer suited his needs, much less his desires.
As he excused himself and reminded them to ask for him should they need anything, the novice caught his eye in the corner of the room.
Noah Paulick was hunched over the armrest of his black leather chair and was monopolizing Elias’ ear while Gwendelyn waited patiently at their feet. What Luca wouldn’t give to hear what the sleazeball must be proposing. A business deal on a Friday night. Luca grumbled as he walked out of the bar. His club was meant to be an escape.
Escape. Ha.
Then why was it harder to breathe every minute he spent inside? Even his apartment above offered no solace. She was nowhere and she was everywhere. She was under his skin and remained untouchable.
Being angry with Claire would have been easy, and it might have even been gratifying. But Luca knew in the depths of his being that something else was going on with her. Some nerve had been hit and the pang had hurt her beyond what she had been ready for.
He’d retraced his steps countless times. It had to have been something at the gala that had thrown her—beyond the stress, beyond the gawking. And yet, she had been impeccable, until his comment had been the drop of water in the pool that had drowned her.
He swiped his all-access card to the security room and the guard rose from the black-wheeled chair in front of the screens. Luca reclaimed the seat and resumed managing his club at a bearable distance.
Distance. Maybe that was what she needed. Maybe that was what he needed.
In the wee hours of the morning, with the out-of-town guests ushered into luxury cars to be dropped at their high-end hotels, Luca resolved to finally go to bed. He called the elevator—knowing that despite his fatigue, sleep would evade him—and waited.
When the doors opened, Gwendelyn’s mascara-stained cheeks and red puffy eyes looked up to him in horror.
“Are you okay?” Luca’s instinct was to touch her, but she was a claimed sub and off limits.
She closed her eyes and he pushed his hand against the door to keep it from closing.
“I’m fine.” She let out a breath. “I’m not hurt, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Where the hell was Elias? Where was his aftercare, letting his most valuable possession wander away in this state?
She took slow steps forward, caught his eyes for a brief moment, said, “I can’t,” and walked down the hall to the front entrance where the guards opened for her and she left.
* * * *
Gravel crunched under the tires of his Maserati as Luca drove down the long driveway of his family’s Italian estate. The hot fall sun beamed through the olive trees, contradicting the cool exterior air.
It was no mistake he’d searched out his nonna to console him. While Gianna had been a shoulder to lean on, Nonna could take one look at her grandson and understand his internal woes.
Before exiting the car, he tried yet another futile call to Claire. Her willpower was astonishing—and incredibly discouraging. There was no getting through the wall of her assistant at work and there had not even been a reply to his first text from over a week ago.
Anybody else and they would have at least had a conversation. Anybody else and he would have stopped trying after one unreturned call. Hell, anybody else and he probably wouldn’t have cared.
He hung up, tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and scrubbed his face after the long drive. With his eyes closed, the haunting image of Claire next to her husband’s grave reappeared in his mind, just as it had multiple times a day since he’d invaded her privacy and witnessed it. The cold dead body had more to offer her than he did.
A massive groan filled the car. His self-pity had really esca
lated to an all-time high.
Luca climbed out, grabbed his overnight bag from the trunk, swung it over his shoulder and headed into the stone-walled manor. Leaving his affairs in the foyer, he knew just where to find his nonna.
The windowed room basked in warmth and she sat at her easel, looking down her nose at the half-finished canvas in front of her. Even in her studio, every brush, tube and work-in-progress was tidy. Here, among the order that typified Nonna, he let out a long breath.
Still focused on her painting, she said, “I wasn’t expecting you. According to Gianna, you met Cinderella and took her to a ball.”
Gianna and her flapping jaws. She’d probably rented out a billboard at the other end of the village, the same one she’d threatened to post his dating profile on.
“The clock struck midnight,” he said and turned to the windows.
“And yet you remain a prince.”
He tilted his head over his shoulder to find the deep brown eyes that had saved him so many times. Luca longed to be the young boy who could curl up in her arms while she hugged him close and played with his tiny, most likely dusty, toes.
“I’m not sure about that, Nonna.”
She squinted at her art, added a final stroke of green then wiped the brush. “Are you insinuating that I’m wrong?” Her barely visible eyebrow arched, not unlike his own would have done, and he couldn’t help but smile. The gesture tapped on the door of the tension he’d been holding in for too long.
“I would never.”
His nonna crossed the room and her knobby knuckles brushed against his high cheekbone. “What have I always told you?”
“That I can make my own happiness. That death is the reason to live.”