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Colton tears his gaze away and walks down to sit with his sisters who haven’t stopped staring my way. “Oh, shit,” Milo mutters as the priest steps up to the podium. “Those girls are going to make your life a living hell.”
“Good luck to them,” I scoff. “It already is. There’s not much worse they could do to me that their brother hasn’t already tried.”
Milo rolls his eyes. “For the most part, Colton’s kinda been the good guy.”
“Yeah … kinda.”
The priest clears his throat. “Friends, I humbly invite you to take your seats so that we may get today’s service underway.”
People start shuffling around and after a few moments, bodies begin dropping into the pews. The room becomes silent and just as I turn back to face the front, a body slides in beside me.
I glance up to give the newcomer a welcome smile but the smile never comes as my jaw falls to the floor. “What the hell are you doing here?” I whisper-yell to Nic as my eyes drop to the suit that dons his strong body.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Nic in a suit, but I can’t even wrap my head around it because I’m still in shock to find the grinning asshole sitting beside me. “What?” he chuckles under his breath. “You think I was about to let you sit through another funeral so close after your father’s death without me? Hell no, babe.”
His hand slips into mine and he gives it a tight squeeze and for once, I welcome it like I welcome my next breath. I didn’t realize how damn much I was needing this but here he is, and I’ve never been so grateful. “Have I ever told you how amazing you are?” I question. He grins wide and I find my gaze dropping to his suit once again. “Do I even want to know where you got a Valentino suit?”
His grin widens and as he goes to respond, the priest’s voice rings clear over the church. “Good morning and welcome to the celebration of Charles Edward Carrington, who was regretfully taken from this world late on Satur–”
BANG!
All eyes shoot to the entrance of the church as the doors violently barge open. Colton and his sister are on their feet while Nic’s hand instantly goes to the gun at his back. I dive to restrain him, knowing he’s a shoot first and think later kind of guy and I’ll be damned if Nic shot up some bastard at this funeral by accident. We’ll never live it down.
A woman appears in the doorway and strides through as though she’s a model on the Victoria Secret runway. Gasps start sounding throughout the church and before I know it, Milo is leaning into me and murmuring into my ear. “Holy fuck balls. That’s Laurelle Carrington.”
“Who?” I whisper, watching the woman as she waltzes through the church, covered head to toe in black diamonds that cover her floor-length gown. Her heels are ten inches tall while her glasses rival those of the twins.
“It’s Colton’s mom. Charles’ ex-wife.”
My eyes bug out of my head as I take her in. “No shit,” I breathe, shooting my eyes to the front of the church to take in Colton who’s gawking at his mother like he’s seeing a ghost.
She continues down the aisle and the way that she strides makes it look as though she is about to walk into a party. She makes her way right up to the golden casket with every eye in the room, silently watching her. She leans on the edge of the casket and looks down at her ex-husband. “About time someone killed you, you rotten bastard,” she says, her voice traveling far and wide through the silent church.
Colton clears his throat and his mother reluctantly steps away from the casket to join her children. Together they sit and just like that, the priest gets started on his service while the rest of the congregation continues to stare in shock.
Five minutes turns to ten and soon enough, half an hour has passed and I finally start breathing easy. Nothing during this service has been anything like my father’s funeral and for that, I’m grateful. Feeling me finally starting to relax, Nic squeezes my hand and leans into my side. “The boys are chilling outside,” he says. “They wanted to be here for you too.”
A warm smile pulls at my lips and I drop my cheek to Nic’s large shoulder. “They didn’t have to do that.”
“I couldn’t keep them away.”
“You never told me where you got the suit,” I murmur, keeping my voice low.
Silent laughter bubbles through Nic and has my head gently rocking on his shoulder. “I rented it.”
Yeah, right. That’s as good as saying that he actually put a little thought into being here today. We both know that he was probably just in the area and when he thought about checking in with me, he remembered where I was. Besides, if this was a planned trip, all four boys would be sitting in this pew and I’d bet the few saved up dollars hidden in my underwear drawer that not one of them have a suit with them. “So, by renting it, what you mean is that you intimidated some poor kid out in the parking lot until he gave up the goods.”
