LITMIR.BIZ

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what I’m afraid of, Lena thought.

      Ryan McNally sat in the front pew, and felt small and insignificant inside the magnificent cathedral. But it was fitting that his father be memorialized here. He’d been bigger than life, too. Until his wife’s death had brought him to his knees.

      When his mother died, Ryan thought, the best part of his father had died with her. He’d loved her so much that losing her had all but demolished him. Ryan had been eleven, and even then he’d known he would never let that happen to him.

      He was seated near several of his father’s closest friends—old men, all of them—and Bahru, who had added a black sash to his red robes today, and who looked as if he’d been crying. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, his cheeks even more hollow than usual.

      Seeing the old guru like that almost made Ryan rethink his twenty-year belief that the man was nothing but a con. But only until he reminded himself that Bahru had spent a lot of time around actors, prior to latching on to a broken and grieving widower. He’d probably learned a few tricks of the trade, like tears on demand.

      Ryan had to give the eulogy. He’d spent a lot of time on it, yet when the priest nodded at him to come up, he found his knees were locked and he couldn’t quite force himself to move.

      Bahru put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “I promise you, it’s all right.”

      He didn’t like or trust the man, even resented him—and yeah, that was mostly because Bahru had been closer to his father than Ryan had been himself. Not Bahru’s fault, though. “Of course it is.”

      “Would it help to focus your mind elsewhere?”

      “Not much could accomplish that today, Bahru.”

      Bahru met his eyes. “Magdalena is here.”

      He could have sucker punched him in the gut, Ryan thought, and it wouldn’t have distracted him more. Lena had come. He hadn’t thought she would. He’d figured she would send flowers, maybe call, but he hadn’t expected her to come.

      He rose easily, moving up to the front, taking his place at the podium and scanning the magnificent cathedral from a brand new angle. The stained glass, the architecture, the statues—the place was more beautiful than a museum, and it touched him. Beautiful things always did, especially art and architecture.

      The sacred place was filled to capacity. No press—they’d been asked to remain outside, where the hearse was waiting and the black stretch limos were lined up around the block.

      That thought drew his gaze to the fabric-draped coffin that held his father’s remains. And suddenly his throat closed up so tightly that he didn’t think he would be able to force a word through. His father was inside that box. His father. Lifeless. So hard to believe. He was suddenly awash in regret that his old man’s time had run out. He supposed he had always expected they would make things right between the two of them again before it came to this. And now… now he was just gone. Hell.

      Someone cleared their throat, and he lifted his head and looked out over the somber crowd, taking in the men in their black suits, the black dresses and even hats on the older women. White tissues flashed like flags here and there. Sniffles and clearing throats echoed from one direction and then another. People he knew, people he didn’t want to know. A few genuine tears, more phony ones. But even with all of that, his eyes found hers without trying. He looked up and right into them. They were wet, and her tears were genuine. She was genuine. Had been all along, but he’d ruined it. Somehow. She was in a pew toward the back, probably hoping to make a quick exit without running into him. But she was staring right at him, and he got lost in her eyes for a second as their gazes locked. He felt her sympathy, her caring, and wondered yet again why the hell she’d left him. Certainly not because he hadn’t been ready to offer her forever after only six weeks. She wasn’t that unreasonable. She wasn’t unreasonable at all.

      Or hadn’t been—until that day.

      She gave him a sad half smile and a “go ahead, you can do this” nod. He realized that he could, and began. He read his speech with very little emotion, talked about his father’s generous contributions to various causes over the years, the people he’d helped, the jobs he’d created. And then he stopped and shook his head, looked up from his notes and blinked back the first tears he’d shed since he’d heard the news.

      “You know, I’ve always believed that most of my father died twenty years ago when his beloved wife, my beautiful mother, was taken from us by a drunk driver. He gave up everything after that. His businesses, his friends… his son. I don’t blame him. Her death destroyed him. And ever since she left us, my father has been on a spiritual quest, traveling the world with Bahru by his side, trying to find the answer to one question. Why?”

      He closed his eyes momentarily to compose himself, then nodded and went on. “I’m not a religious man. But I don’t think it ends like this. I would like to think my father is finally getting the answer to that question. And I don’t think we should be sad about that. Because I want to believe he’s getting it straight from my mother.”

      He looked at the coffin, pressing his lips together hard to try to stop their trembling. “Yeah. That’s what I want to believe.”

      He stepped down as numerous heads nodded in agreement. And then he sat again, and just tried to block it all out and hold himself together. He felt an emotional storm brewing, and he damn well didn’t intend to let it break out in public.

      So he thought about Lena instead. She wouldn’t really leave without seeing him. Would she? What was he going to say to her when he saw her again? After all this time, would she finally tell him why she’d left? It had been—almost seven months now.

      Seven months without a word. She owed him an explanation.

      He couldn’t imagine what it would be, though he’d tried a thousand times. He’d seen it all play out in his mind, had invented lines for her, none of which had ever made any sense. He couldn’t think of a thing that would explain her walking away when they’d been so damn good together. But right now there were a lot of speakers waiting to say a few words about Ernst McNally, most of them hoping to find the ones that would ingratiate themselves with his heir. He had time to kill, and listening to all that insincerity would only make him angry, and he didn’t want to be angry when he saw her again. So instead he forced himself to relax in the pew and thought back to the night he’d first set eyes on her.

      “Who is that?” Ryan asked softly, staring past the beautifully dressed elite filling the Waldorf Astoria ballroom, all of them there to honor his father as Now Magazine’s Man of the Year, to the woman who stood chatting with his dad and Bahru. Even among the wealthy, his father stood out. He had a charisma that lifted him head and shoulders above the others. His steel-gray hair was still thick and wavy, his beard just long enough to qualify as “dignified-eccentric” without crossing the border into “aging hippie.” And Bahru was always easy to spot, with his endless graying dreads, leathery skin and his red-and-white robes.

      But she was different. She stood out for an entirely different set of reasons, some of which, he sensed, went beyond her appearance. She was beautiful, yes. Piles of dark red hair spiraling and twisting like satin ribbons. A perfect porcelain face. But there were plenty of beautiful women in the room that night. Actresses, models, women who made their living by their beauty. He’d banged many of them.

      But this one… this one called to him somehow. Once he spotted her, he couldn’t look anywhere else. “God, what is she doing with the old man?”

      Paul, his best and pretty much only real friend, lifted his brows. “You’re asking me as if I’d know. I’m the outsider here, remember? I’m still not sure why you dragged me to this shindig, pal.”

      “No, I’m the outsider. And I dragged you here because I had to come, and I didn’t want to do it alone. Remember, though, not a word about our potential venture to anyone.”

      “Don’t

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