Chapter 20
Lucas letme believe he was Franklin the whole time and then had the audacity to think that I would ever betray him like that. Briefly, I thought maybe this thing between us could be salvaged. He knew that I wasn’t working with Franklin, but it didn’t matter what I did. I’d never earn his trust.
I stormed from the front door all the way to the closet and began gathering my clothes in my arms. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I wasn’t staying here. I didn’t have to live with him to be married to him.
Almost as quickly as I reached the closet, he was next to me. “What are you doing?”
“Bird watching. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you’re taking your clothes from the closet, and I don’t know why.”
“Why? WHY? Because I’m not staying here anymore. Not with you.”
He snatched my clothes from me. “Oh yes, you are. We’re married. You’re my responsibility now, and I take that seriously.”
I lifted on my toes and screamed, “Fine!” I stomped to the guest bedroom.
He was hot on my heels. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Away from you,” I shot over my shoulder. “Leave me alone.”
Before I could reach the guest room, Lucas had me by my upper arm, wrenching me back and flush against him. “I’m not leaving you alone.”
I tried to break free. “Yes, you are. I won’t ever have your trust. It will never matter what I do. I’m Claire Benoit, Franklin Benoit’s daughter. Tainted. Impure! Isn’t that the word?”
“As if you trust me. You lied about Franklin being at the restaurant. I asked you, and you didn’t say a word. I told you no lies, and what did you do? Lie. Every time I try to learn anything about you, you freeze me out. I don’t know if you’re trustworthy, pure, or anything else.”
“Leave me alone,” I repeated the words slowly.
He set his jaw. “No.” It came out between his bared teeth.
I was raked out down the middle, held together by a thread, and it had just snapped. “I’m not supposed to lie. I’m not supposed to speak unkindly of Franklin. I’m supposed to call him Daddy in public. Appearances, you know. You must keep up appearances, Claire. Don’t you know that, Claire? Be perfect, Claire.”
Lucas’s mouth was open, and he stared at me with wide eyes, watching my train derail. I didn’t care anymore. I would crash and burn in full view.
“Here I am, Lucas. Here I am. You want me to tell you the truth? Fine.” I spat. “Franklin called my mom a whore. A whore because she was with someone and didn’t realize she was pregnant with me. She didn’t cheat, but I’m not Claire Benoit. I’m Claire Santos. A short, pasty, cheap imitation of my Brazilian beauty queen mom. My eyes are too close set. My nose isn’t perky enough. I’m short. Ugly. Almost twenty-one years of assessment of never measuring up. Not even once.”
“Claire…”
“Stop. I’m not pure. He said he told you. Right?” My vision was so blurry I couldn’t even make out an outline of his face.
“Told me what?”
“I don’t know what’s funnier. That I’m unraveling, or that you’re standing there like you don’t know.” I yanked so hard to get out of his grip that I tumbled and had to use the wall to stay upright.
“I don’t.”
“Liar! You’re the liar! He wanted to hurt me like mom hurt him, so he let someone rape me at that club when I was twelve.” I felt like my soul was being wrenched from my body, and I was watching this from a distance. “Twelve. What’s…” I choked. “What’s worse is that it was Marco Moretti who did it. I didn’t know until that night at the wedding. I knew that voice. That disgusting, cigarette-laced, vile voice. He panted in my ear while he told me things I wish I could wipe from my memory.”
I couldn’t hold myself up. My back hit the wall, and I slid down. I’d never, never voiced this. In all the time since it happened, it’d been locked in that little box of darkness, tucked away. My own nightmarish Pandora’s box.
“Claire.” His voice was close, but I couldn’t see anything. I could barely register that he was calling my name.
“Are you happy?” I wrapped my arms around my knees and put my head between them as I was overtaken by a tidal wave of unspent emotions.
The next thing I knew, he had me encased in his arms, pressed hard against his body, kissing the top of my head. He wasn’t making a sound. I was being rocked back and forth as I wept the ugliest cry I’d ever had.
It was like I had been a walking, festering wound since that night, and now, the bandage was pulled off, and all the infection was spreading everywhere. I felt small and insignificant and worthless.
Claire 3.0 was a fraud. I wasn’t even sure I was Claire 2.0.
At some point,I guess I cried myself to sleep. I didn’t know how long ago that happened, but I could tell it was dark outside. Lucas was on the floor with his eyes closed, his chin resting on his shoulder with me in his arms. I remembered him holding me, but I guess I expected him to eventually put down the insane woman he married.
His arms tightened around me as I shifted. I didn’t know how he did that like it was some sort of manly instinct. Despite our issues, I really liked that. It made it feel like he wanted me all the time.
My head throbbed. That little nap hadn’t made a dent in how exhausted I was. I was sore, too. Stiff and achy. If I was sore, I could only imagine how much worse it was for him since he was the one who had been on the hard floor for who knows how long.
“Lucas?”
He made a soft noise, rolled his head, and now he was somewhat facing me.
After everything, he pulled me onto his lap, wrapped his arms around me, and let me cry once again. As upset as I was, now watching him sleep, all I could think was that we were both equally flawed.
I brushed the back of my hand across his cheek and stretched my fingers into his hair. He inhaled deeply. His eyes opened, and we were staring at each other.
“You—”
He sat up and drew me to his chest, kissing the top of my head. “I didn’t mean I thought you’d told Franklin about us. I thought that maybe in all those photos there was evidence that he suspected it was my family hitting his businesses.”
The whole statement poured out of Lucas so quickly that it took me a second to catch up. Once it did, it made complete sense.
“Look, I know this trust thing goes both ways, I do, but?—”
“We haven’t exactly been the poster children of truth?” My voice was soft.
Pulling back, his lips stretched into a wry grin. “You could say that.”
I locked eyes with him, hoping he could see the sincerity and truth in them. “Lucas, I’m not working for Franklin, with Franklin, or anything else. I don’t want anything to do with him. I know talk is cheap, but that’s the truth.”
“I know. I’ve struggled to think that you were from the very beginning. Then Thea?—”
“Thea?” I asked and sat up.
“She said you weren’t either. Even after the restaurant. I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me, though.”
I took a breath. “That’s the night I found out my mom knew what he did to me. He said you…that you must be really good at getting into a girl’s pants and that you’d followed me to the charity, but I already knew that. Then he said he knew you’d held me in your car…and…”
“You had no reason to trust me.”
“It’s like he’d listened in on our conversation, but you were being sweet to me. Anyone watching us would have seen that, and it wouldn’t have been difficult to guess what you were saying. I think he made a flippant comment, hoping to hit home, and it landed.”
His eyes roamed over my face as he tilted his head while his fingers brushed along my temple. “Franklin Benoit is the most repulsive man I’ve ever known. You understand I’m going to kill him, right? From this point forward, we’re honest with each other, and I’m telling you that’s what will happen.”
I didn’t know how I felt about that. Franklin dead by my husband’s hands. “Wouldn’t it be better if he went to prison?”
Shaking his head, he replied, “No. That’s not how my world works. He had a hand in Gianna and my dad dying. His head isn’t just for you. I made a promise to my mom that her baby would have justice, and I’m going to give it to her.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
My breath hitched as our eyes met. A raw vulnerability, something entirely new, was reflected in his eyes.
“Claire, you need to understand I’m not a good man. I have plenty of blood on my hands. I’ve hurt people. Good and bad and I’d be lying if I said it’ll never happen again. Being married to me means being married to a life that will never be pretty.”
Maybe he wasn’t a good man in the past, and maybe he wasn’t a saint now. Perhaps he resided firmly in a gray area. He was stopping people like Marco and Franklin. He wasn’t Superman, but I was perfectly okay with Batman.
“I know.” I set my forehead against his. “I pledged ‘til death do us part. I made that vow knowing what I was signing up for.” I slid my cheek against his as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “You’re mine.”