Claire: The Forced Virgin Of The Billionaire
Chapter 156

A hundred-minute drive to San Jose and only a few basic amenities within a short walk. A place where we’d be anonymous, where I could get a minute to breathe and think about what was next for me. For us.

There was more than just me to worry about here. She was everything to me. Protecting her was my priority. She was also my weakness.

Anyone who wanted to hurt me might do it by hurting her. No f*****g way. The very notion made my b***d begin to boil. I had to be safe so I could make her safe.

I was getting us fake identities so we could be completely off-grid for a bit.

We were not officially on the lam, but I had a bug-out bag accessible for us and the rest of the clan if things went wrong, if Uncle’s enemies wanted to move in or if Uncle’s friends figured out the truth and decided to take me to task for it.

***

We were back in our cab and on our way to the hotel.

“What’s the surprise?” Claire asked.

“Huh?” I asked absently.

“Why are we going back to the hotel?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Couldn’t stand it. That fuckin’ tourist wouldn’t shut his trap, wouldn’t stop starin’ at your t**s. Wanted to rip his fuckin’ head off.”

She hard-blinked.

“H-he was not…”

“He fuckin’ was.”

“Azriel…” She rolled her eyes.

“No. I don’t wanna fuckin’ hear it. Had enough of this public bullshit. Calling about our new place. See if it’s ready. We’ll head there tonight if it is. And don’t roll your f*****g eyes at me again.”

I glared out the window. She played with the fringe of the swimsuit coverup she wore.

It wasn’t until we stopped back at our resort that I looked at her face. She was visibly sulking. Well, too f*****g bad.

***

The Costa Rica place wasn’t gonna be ready early. They were having it painted in anticipation of our arrival. I’d rented it for a month, not knowing what our long-term plans were, also telling the owner we may be there a few months, and to charge me whatever she felt was fair given I didn’t want her making any future bookings until I told her we were leaving.

I was paying a mint for it, so she’d clearly had it in her head to make it so we’d wanna stay longer.

She went on about upgrading it with fresh paint and some additional finishes to make it nice for us and was apologetic that it’d take a few more days. I let it go.

Not her fault my schedule had changed.

She tried to recommend a bed and breakfast not too far and said she’d hurry the workmen up, but I declined.

So, a few more days in Aruba, sticking to the original schedule, unless I wanted to add a different spot or take our time getting there, staying somewhere else first.

I found Claire in bed, still sulking. She was staring at the television, some chick flick on.

I climbed in. “Looks like a few more days here,” I said. “Unless we wanna take a cruise or head somewhere else.”

She gave me a snotty look and her eyes moved back to the television.

“Got a problem?” I inquired.

Her mouth tightened in annoyance.

“Claire?”

She rolled her eyes.

Claire’s POV

He was on his side, propped on his elbow, staring at me.

I kept my eyes on the TV. He didn’t take a hint.

The vacation was supposed to be good for us and he was acting like he hated every minute of it. I knew he couldn’t force himself to have fun and I also knew he was pretending the past few days for me.

I could see it in his eyes, the tension, the annoyance, the fact that he was putting up with touristy things for me and doing a shitty job of it, because I knew he hated it.

He wasn’t even trying to fake it until he made it. Not that I wanted him to be fake. I wanted him to be okay.

And that he wasn’t made me feel guilty for even being here. What could I do? I was in a zero-win situation.

“You wanna not ignore me?” he demanded.

My eyes met his. “That guy wasn’t flirting with me. He was mostly talking about his wife and kids, about their city and stuff we should do if we ever got there. In fact, he mentioned he sells life insurance three times. He probably just wanted to sell us some.”

His eyes rolled ceiling wards. “If I were talking to some chick about you, my eyes would not be on her t**s. And if that fucker and I were anywhere else, I’d have knocked his teeth out for staring at you like that.

It’s only because his kids were there that I didn’t make him choke on his own molars. He should fuckin’ up his own life insurance, leave money for his wife to buy a new pair of t**s when I put him in the ground.”

“Possessive much?” I snapped.

His brows shot up as he looked at me like I was an i***t.

I moistened my lips. “I’m just not loving the idea of spending the next few days bored sitting around in our room. I figured we could get out and have some fun. Try to get our minds off all the crap, and—”

“Oh right. I’ll just snap my fingers,” he offered and then he snapped them and blinked at his own fingers in fake-astonishment. “s**t, yeah… shoulda done this days ago. Now I’m great. Just fuckin’ peachy.”

My expression dropped. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.”

“Ah. You think?”

This was pointless. He was angry and not the kind of angry I wanted to mess with.

Yeah, it’d help him release it, but I wasn’t in the mood to push his buttons and get my a*s reddened. For a change.

“I’m sorry, Azriel. I’m going for a bath. To clear my head and my bad attitude. When I come out, I’ll be better. Promise.”

I got up and went to the bathroom, like a dog with a tail between its legs.

Five minutes into my soak, he was in the bathroom with me. I’d been reclined. I sat up as he dropped his cream linen shirt, then his khakis, and climbed in, getting behind me and pulling me back so I was now reclined on him.

His face was gentle, though. I hadn’t provoked the beast.

He gathered the length of my hair and pulled it over to one shoulder. I leaned over and kissed his forearm and then I burst into big, fat tears.

He spun me so that I was straddling him and put his hand to my jaw. “I love you, baby girl.”

I nodded, mid ugly-cry.

“Don’t cry, baby. We’re gonna be okay.”

I nodded some more and put my hands to his jaw, put my lips to his. “I love you. I’m going to try to be less selfish. I’m sorry.”

His eyes filled with pain. “You’re not being selfish. I brought you here and I can’t expect you to lay by the pool while I’m stuck in my misery and not wanna go out and see the island. I let you pick the spot, least I can do is let you see it.”

“In a snowsuit,” I added.

His shoulders jiggled with silent laughter. “Next vacation… Alaska.

I put my arms around him and squeezed, letting out a giggle.

We stayed like that for a minute, and then I started to trace my name on his chest with my fingertip.

“I’m tryin’,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

I swallowed and looked into his eyes. “I know.”

We stared at one another for a long time.

I put my lips to his jaw and then my mouth to his ear. “I’m sorry, honey. I wish I could just snap my fingers and take your pain away. I know I can’t. I know it’s not that simple. I keep just hoping and it’s just not realistic. I’ll try to be more patient,” I said, then climbed off.

“Where you goin’?” He grabbed my hand.

“Wash your back?” I offered.

He smiled.

I climbed behind him and filled the sponge with bodywash to scrub his back.

“That feels nice,” he told me, reaching back to rub my leg.

I rinsed his back off and put my arms around him from behind, my cheek against his back. “Take me to bed and make love to me, Azriel?”

“I can do that.”

He pulled the plug and we got out.

***

Slow and sweet vanilla missionary-position love was made (though he made me come twice) and then he was breathing deep and even. Our blinds were wide open so I lay there and looked at him in the moonlight.

Guilt worked its way through me. I was done being a spoiled brat, like this holiday was for me.

It was supposed to be a break, but he was the one that lost his uncle. He was the one living with the guilt. My dad was sort of lost to me, his actions angering me. But, he was breathing.

Incarcerated, but breathing.

Azriel’s uncle wasn’t.

Both, my father and his uncle had wronged us, but at least I hadn’t had to kill mine to save myself.

Azriel’s uncle had pointed a gun at us. I could still feel the steel pressed against my temple sometimes. He’d taken me with malicious intent.

He’d also put his mouth on me in front of a lot of people and I knew Azriel worried that people believed he’d murdered his uncle because Tom died that same day.

One or both of us could’ve died if Azriel hadn’t done what he did. But yet, he had to live with himself after that, had to feel all that pain and still be strong.

I could cry in bed for a week if I got down. It was something I’d done, more than once.

But, he had to be a man. He had responsibilities that weighed on him. People expected things of him.

It wasn’t fair. I had to be his solace, not a source of more stress.

***

We approached Tom’s funeral with sadness, of course. Azriel had lost his uncle and his siblings had, too.

Lisa lost her husband and the loss of James, Tessa’s husband, was still fresh and raw.

The family was all in pain, coping with more than one tragedy. So much loss.

The moment we were all in the room at the funeral home where the coffin was briefly opened was a moment I’d never ever forget.

That moment, in that room with all of us felt like there were no secrets. None.

Seeing the man there, looking like he always did, in a suit, perfectly groomed, with one difference. His salt and pepper hair was combed differently in an attempt to partially hide the damage the bullet did to his forehead. The efforts failed. Likely why his casket had been closed.

I couldn’t be sure, but it was as if, in that moment, everyone in the room knew who put that bullet there.

No words were spoken. I don’t even think anyone breathed. I couldn’t tear my eyes off Tom’s body until a split second before the funeral director came back in.

My eyes skimmed the faces of them all and in a split second I read something from each of them.

Tessa. Anger.

Luciana. Confusion.

Dario. Disappointment.

Lisa. Panic.

That’s what I read from each of them other than Azriel.

Azriel stared at the face of his Uncle with something stone-cold.

They held a small ceremony with just us around Tom’s grave site and the pain was a living and breathing thing for all the Clarke siblings. It was so quiet, every one of them in their own heads.

Lisa stood there, so beautiful and so pale, just staring at the coffin.

Tessa looked like she wanted to scream the whole time. It was very unsettling.

I was feeling things, too, and not just because of feeling bad for Azriel. I was also at the very cemetery my mom was laid to rest at.

I didn’t go to the mausoleum, despite knowing my mom’s urn was there. I didn’t like that she and Tom Clarke had their remains resting in the same cemetery at all, but didn’t say anything.

What good would it do to speak of it?

Tom was buried next to one of his wives Lisa had never known about, which had to hurt for her. Didn’t it?

There were more places available in the Clarke family plot. Would she be buried there in sixty or seventy years? Or, would she marry again? She was so young.

We then had a Celebration of Life dinner in Tom’s honor with his friends and business associates.

People traveled in from around the country as well as from overseas for the funeral and had all been at the banquet hall while we attended the interment.

It wasn’t easy on Azriel or on Dario. There were many business associates from around the world who had come. Azriel, me, Dare, and the girls all stood in a receiving line and greeted hundreds of people.

At the funeral, Azriel and Dario both delivered eulogies about their uncle. Azriel toiled over his.

I saw him struggling.

He refused to let me read it, tearing up the paper he was writing it on when I offered, stating he didn’t need to write it down after all.

“You could skip it?”

He shook his head. “Absolutely not. It’s expected. I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

He did just fine at the service. He spoke about his uncle’s business savvy, about how his father and his father’s best friend, his uncle built a very successful business from scratch, with nothing but a few dollars between them.

About how much loyalty and time with loved ones was important to him.

Azriel talked about how much Tom would have enjoyed attending the celebration, due to the turn out and the amount of food that his loved ones had cooked for the meal. His favorites. Azriel listed off several of them and told side-stories of family arguments over who made the best lasagna, the best tiramisu.

And then he actually joked that his fiancée made them best, teasing that he’d start a family feud at a funeral.

It earned some chuckles.

Azriel said his Uncle would want a celebration and that was why the banquet would have tables groaning with his favorite foods and drinks. He thanked everyone for coming and turned the podium over to Dario.

The turnout was such that it seemed like Tom Clarke was a respected business man and family man who would be missed.

I made four of the lemon Bundt cakes, even, feeling weird about it, but getting encouraged to do it by Lisa, who had said that Tom had enjoyed it and that the night I’d first made it for their dinner party, she’d found him in the kitchen, sitting in the dark eating a piece at two in the morning.

She said it with a smile on her face, though and it’d made shivers trill up my back, thinking about my mom making it for him back in their day.

Lisa thought it was a simple act of enjoyment, but I knew in my gut that it wasn’t that.

It was Tom having a moment, remembering a woman he’d tormented, thinking about tormenting my father, likely, about the Clarke-style justice of having me matched with his nephew against my will.

Tom Clarke had been a sadistic and evil son of a b***h deep down.

Or maybe he really loved my mom like Azriel loved me and missed her, was willing back then to do anything to have her and failed so he turned bitter.

I tried not to think of it that way, to not compare Azriel and his uncle, but it wasn’t easy and sometimes my mind went there.

Azriel talked about how Tom had helped many people, given to charities, assisted illegal immigrants in getting out from under the thumb of tyrannical debtors.

Dare’s eulogy told funny stories about his father, told about business lessons his father had taught him, and more words about the importance of family.

Rosita had gotten up and spoke of how many lives Tom had positively impacted, hers included.

She sang a beautiful Spanish song with tears in her eyes, staring at the large framed photo of Tom off to the side, with a pianist and harp player accompanying her.

Her voice was angelic, but also powerful, and gave me goosebumps.

To listen to that on top of both Azriel’s and Dario’s eulogies, you’d think the world was a gloomy place without Tom Clarke. Doting father, uncle and grandfather.