Between the Covers Read online

  “Hello, Dani.” He came over and bent to kiss her cheek, then studied her in much the same way Léo had. It was uncanny. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did, thank you. And thank you so much for coming all this way. It….” Fuck. She blinked back the tears burning her sinuses. “It means a lot.”

  “Family matters,” he said quietly, and then the heavy moment was blessedly interrupted by a doorbell.

  “That will be breakfast,” Léo said, but nobody moved. Dani blinked. Should she…?

  She heard the door opening. Ah. Of course, Terry would have gone. This having a butler thing might be cool, after all.

  Chapter Two

  Malik stood at the priest’s behest and listened to the words of the Catholic mass. It was far from the first time he’d attended a Catholic funeral—his uncle’s position in European society came with many friendships and obligations, and having been practically raised in the Artois home, Malik had been included in many of them.

  This funeral was not held in a cathedral and overseen by a bishop. The parish church held only a few hundred people, and the priest had obviously known Carol personally. But the mass itself, the hymns, and the overwhelming aura of heaviness that grief brought—those things remained the same.

  Several rows ahead, Dani stood with her parents and siblings, Ben a stalwart comfort at her side. It had been Dani’s mother who had insisted Ben sit with them, claiming that Carol had loved him as though he were one of her grandchildren, and the rest of the family had been quick to agree. Dani had clung to her best friend, and Ben had been helpless to refuse—not that Malik thought he had wanted to. He had been grieving too, ever since he’d gotten the news, and although Malik had initially thought this trip would be about providing support for Dani, it hadn’t taken him long to realize Ben desperately needed the comfort of his best friend also.

  As the priest came down from the altar to give communion, Léo rose. In his younger years, Malik had often joined the line and received a blessing, but that had stopped when his father had found out and had a conniption fit. Malik had only ever participated to keep from sitting alone in the pew, and it hadn’t been worth the drama he would have to deal with to continue doing so. Personally, he didn’t see why it mattered. Neither he nor Léo was religious in any way—it was just a part of the mass they attended out of social obligation.

  The communion hymn came to an end, and there was the quiet rustle of people shifting as the priest approached the microphone.

  “And now Carol’s grandchildren would like to say a few words,” he said softly, and Dani, her brother, and her sister all rose and moved toward the altar.

  Malik had always found the concept of eulogies to be horrible. They were either terribly sad, exposing the grief of the speaker even when happy anecdotes were shared, or they were clinical in a way that stripped humanity from the deceased and portrayed them as mere facts. This eulogy was no different—the love Carol’s grandchildren had felt for her was evident in every word, every story told, and by the time it was Dani’s turn to speak, her brother and sister had both broken down.

  “My gran was a woman who knew what she wanted. And if she didn’t know in any particular moment, she knew that it was important to find out. The advice she gave me most frequently was to determine what it was I wanted from everything in life, even if I didn’t think I cared. ‘Life, Dani, is too short to not care about things.’ As you’ve already heard, she was bluntly honest, sometimes to the point of what others considered rudeness, and that was purely because she didn’t see the point in wasting time or effort on social subterfuge—but if it brought her happiness, she would spend hours on the most trivial of things. And the thing that made her happy above all others was happiness in those she loved.

  “When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with braiding friendship bracelets, so much so that it drove my family to distraction. Gran would spend hours doing it with me. It wasn’t until I reached adulthood that I discovered that she loathed braiding of any kind.” Dani paused, biting her lip, and Malik realized she was struggling to maintain her composure. “She spent huge chunks of time doing something she absolutely hated because”—her voice caught—"because it made me happy.” She paused again and took a deep breath.

  “I asked her about it once, why she hadn’t tried to steer me toward another activity, or even just left me to do it alone—after all, it wasn’t an activity that required two people. She just smiled at me and said—” The pause this time was longer, and a tear ran down each cheek, but when her brother stepped forward, Dani held up a hand and continued, her voice choked. “She said that if she’d done that, she never would have gotten to see me be so happy, and being witness to my joy was worth anything.” She exhaled, and when she spoke again, her voice was steady. “That’s the thing I will always remember about Gran. She worked to get what she wanted, no matter what it cost her, and what she wanted more than anything was for her family to be happy. Gran, I know you know that you succeeded. Today we grieve, but when we remember you, it will be with happy thoughts. You got what you wanted, and we love you all the more for it.”

  As the congregation sniffled, the three siblings stepped down from the altar. Dani’s face, half hidden by the sweep of her dark hair, was set, but once she resumed her seat, she dropped her head, covering her face with her hands, and her shoulders shook.

  A short time later, the recessional began, and Malik automatically bowed his head in respect as the casket was carried past. He lifted his gaze in time to catch sight of Dani’s tearstained, puffy face as she followed it, an arm around her mother. For just a second, their gazes met, and in Dani’s brown eyes he saw the qualities he imagined her grandmother must have had—strength, determination, and compassion so vast it could not be measured. Today she grieved, but she would not let grief take her over.

  And damned if that didn’t stir something in him that was best left alone.

  “Funerals suck,” Dani declared, dropping onto her parents’ couch next to Ben and leaning against him. She sighed and closed her eyes, kicking off the ridiculously uncomfortable black heels she’d been wearing all day. Considering how staid and ugly they were, they shouldn’t hurt her feet anywhere near as much as they did.

  Ben dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “I know. It’s done now.”

  And it was. There had been a lovely turnout for her gran at the church, the cemetery, and the quiet wake held in the function room of a local restaurant after, but now all the mourners were gone and it was just family—her parents, siblings, Ben, Léo, and Malik.

  Even this was exhausting. She wanted to go home—well, back to the hotel. She didn’t actually want to go home, and that was freaking her out. Her home was her sanctuary but being there meant being alone. That had never bothered her before, and she wasn’t sure she really wanted to think about why it did now. But she would have to go home eventually. And on that note….

  “When do you leave?” Opening her eyes, she sat upright and looked at Ben expectantly.

  He pouted. “Sick of me already?”

  She shoved his arm. “Yes. I can’t wait to get rid of you. Seriously, how long can you stay?”

  “As long as you want us here.” He shrugged. “Léo can work from anywhere, and I called the agency before I left and told them not to line anything up until further notice.” Despite having inherited a pile of cash from a former client, Ben still liked to work as a nurse on an as-needed basis. His busy little brain needed something to stave off the boredom of being rich and idle.

  “And Malik?” she asked, watching from across the room as he spoke quietly with Léo and her dad. They all looked quite serious, but then Malik said something, that charming smile flashing, and they laughed softly.

  Ben shrugged again. “If he needs to go back, he will. But I don’t think he’s on a schedule.”

  Still studying those cut-glass cheekbones and nicely shaped mouth, she asked, “Does he do anything?”

  A dirty-sounding he-
he-he was Ben’s response, and she elbowed him in the side. “You know what I mean.”

  “Ow. Yeah, I know. I have no idea. I mean, he and Léo do a lot of stuff together, but sometimes he’s busy with other things. I never asked if he has a job, and nobody ever said.”

  Dani wrinkled her nose. “That’s not very nice, Benji. You should know those sorts of things about the people you’re close to.”

  Ben groaned, but when she glanced over at him, he was smiling. “I never thought I’d be glad to hear you call me Benji,” he said, and she shrugged. She hadn’t felt much like teasing him the last few days, but the funeral, as difficult as it had been, had given her some closure.

  “Listen”—Ben straightened and turned more fully toward her—“I want you to think about something.”

  “I’m always thinking,” she quipped automatically, then blinked. It felt kind of weird to joke, but also weird that it wasn’t more weird. Her gran was gone, and it had left a gaping hole in her chest—shouldn’t it feel wrong to crack jokes?

  Ben flicked the side of her face with his forefinger. “Stop overthinking,” he admonished. “I can almost hear the wheels in your brain turning. Let me say this right now: it is not a bad thing for you to feel happy. It doesn’t take away from your love for Gran Carol and your grief over losing her if you’re not miserable for every second of every day. And she would be furious with you if she thought you didn’t want to be happy just because she’s gone. Got it?” The stern expression on his face made her heart melt. Ben was such a dork most of the time that she sometimes forgot how very good he was at looking after people.

  She snuggled up to him and rested her head on his shoulder. “Got it. It does feel a little weird not to be sad every second, but I knew that kind of constant grief wouldn’t last forever. I just have to get used to it all, I guess.”

  Ben ruffled her hair. “Good. And while you’re sorting through your emotions and taking ownership of them”—she snorted—“I want you to think about coming back to Monaco with us.”

  Dani shot upright so fast that her skull cracked against Ben’s chin. Their resulting howls brought her mum, brother, and sister racing out of the kitchen and had Léo crossing the room in two long strides.

  “What is wrong with you?” Ben moaned, working his jaw as Léo leaned over to inspect it.

  “Me?” she gasped, rubbing her head. “I’m not the one dropping bombshells!”

  “What bombshell?” her brother asked curiously.

  “Do either of you need ice?” her mum offered.

  Dani and Ben assured everyone that they were fine, and the group mostly dispersed, with Léo and Malik joining them—Léo on the couch next to Ben, and Malik in the armchair kitty-corner to Dani.

  “I can’t believe you were that surprised,” Ben grumbled, leaning against Léo.

  Dani huffed. “How could I not be surprised? One minute we’re talking about grief, and the next you’re saying you want me to pick up and jet around the world!”

  “Ben said ‘jet around the world’?” Malik asked skeptically, but Dani was too busy glaring at her bestie to reply.

  Ben glared right back at her. “I did not say ‘jet around the world,’ nor did I mean that. I just suggested that you think about coming home with us, where you can spend time decompressing and working through your grief away from all the sources of stress in your life. How is that a bad thing?”

  “This is fun,” Malik said, presumably to Léo. Dani was locked in a stare down and couldn’t check. “Do you think they’ll start calling each other names next?”

  “I can’t just drop everything in my life and swan off to Monaco,” she declared.

  “Why not?” Ben challenged.

  “We need popcorn,” Malik said.

  “Shut up, Malik.” Léo’s voice trembled with barely restrained… laughter?

  “Because! My family needs me. I have a job that I can’t just take time off from. I have a mortgage and… and… I have friends who would miss me!” The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she regretted them. Ben’s face changed, hurt written all over his expression. Even Malik was silent.

  “You have friends who’d miss you more than I have these past couple years?” The words were a challenge, but his tone was pure misery. Dani sighed.

  “No. Nobody would miss me as much as you have, or as much as I’ve missed you.” It was the truth. Ben was such an essential, interwoven part of her life that she could not conceive of him not being in it. While she would never want to deny him the happiness and love he’d found with Léo, the years since he’d moved to Monaco had been so hard—even though they were in touch every day.

  Ben sighed. “Look. I know why you didn’t come on the odyssey with me. You didn’t want to leave Gran Carol. I get it, and I would never have pressured you to do otherwise. I didn’t pressure you, not anytime in these past two years, not even when Gran Carol ca—” He snapped his mouth shut and looked guilty.

  Dani made a face. “She called you and asked you to invite me, didn’t she?” It wasn’t really a surprise. Her gran had often said that Dani deserved a break, that she should go on holiday to visit Ben—she’d once even offered to pay the airfare if Dani couldn’t afford it.

  “Yeah,” Ben admitted sheepishly. “And I thought about it. Not thought about inviting you, because I’d already done that, and anyway, since when would you ever need an invitation to come and see me, right? But she asked me to fake an emergency of some kind so you’d come—say that Léo and I were fighting, or something like that. Because that’s how much she loved you and wanted you to have a holiday. And because I love you too, I actually thought about it, but in the end, I stupidly decided to respect your wishes.”

  “This is like that soap opera Lucien’s ex used to be in,” Malik marveled, and this time Dani couldn’t hold in her snort of laughter.

  “Lucien has an ex who was in a soap opera?” Ben asked, distracted, and Malik nodded.

  “She wasn’t in it for long, though. After the third time in a month that the plot contradicted itself, she quit.”

  “That’s so… weird.” Ben and Dani exchanged glances and burst into laughter, and for a moment, Dani completely forgot that she was sad. Then the grief closed in again, and she had to remind herself that it was okay to laugh—and that Gran would have loved knowing that someone she (kind of) knew had dated a soap opera actress who quit because the soap opera was too soap opera-ish.

  She sighed as she flopped back against the couch and turned her head to study her bestie. “Thank you for not faking an emergency so I would come to visit. And thank you for caring so much that you actually considered it.”

  Ben smiled, but his eyes were sad. “I would do anything for you. I really, really want to get you away from here and give you some time to relax. Please?”

  What was she doing? Why the hell shouldn’t she go stay with Ben in Monaco for a few weeks? She had tons of leave time accrued at work. “Not right now.” She held up a hand when Ben began to protest. “Later this year, okay? I can’t just take off from work without warning, and the more notice I give them, the more time I can take off. So in September, maybe October, I’ll come and spend a month. How’s that sound?”

  Ben hug-tackled her.

  “Aww,” Malik said. “Is this a group hug?”

  Friends, new and old, were worth their weight in gold.

  Chapter Three

  Malik got up to fetch another bottle of wine from the beautifully stocked wine fridge in the kitchen. He’d been quite surprised to find such a good selection—but then, he and Léo had stayed in this hotel before, years ago, and the best hotels tried to cater to their VIP guests’ tastes.

  He grabbed the bottle, hesitated, and then picked up a second one also. They’d already finished two, but Dani and Ben showed no signs of slowing down. This was actually the part of death that he coped best with—the drowning of emotion while the brain struggled to process. He’d helped many a friend wade through the initial
post-funeral haze, whether it be with the assistance of alcohol or just the comfort of companionship. In this case, it was both. Dani had been stalwart for most of the past few days, crying only when they’d arrived and those few tears at the funeral, but since they’d opened the first bottle of wine, she’d allowed herself to break down more than once.

  Sometimes, the security of a small group of friends and the lowering of inhibitions did more to ease grief and provide closure than any ceremony could.

  Rejoining the group, he picked up the corkscrew and efficiently opened one of the bottles.

  “It always makes me so jealous when you and Léo do that,” Ben declared, watching him from where he lay sprawled on the plush carpet, Dani’s head resting on his stomach. “Every time I try to use a corkscrew, it either doesn’t screw or I end up with bits of cork in the wine.”

  Malik tried not to laugh.

  “Malik and I have been watching the very best sommeliers open wine since we were young,” Léo offered, as though that made any difference. It seemed to placate Ben, though, who held out his wineglass demandingly, nudging Dani to sit up.

  She propped herself against the coffee table and watched blankly while he filled her glass again. “Thank you,” she said in an exhausted voice.

  “De rien,” he murmured—and her head snapped up so sharply that he nearly dropped the wine in surprise.

  “Talk French to me!” she demanded, her voice much stronger. Malik shot Léo a questioning look, but just got a shrug in return.

  “Pourquoi est-ce que je parle français?” he asked, and she grinned.

  “Oh, that’s easy! Um… parce que j'ai besoin de pratiquer?”

  Her accent was terrible, and the way she made it seem like a question showed how unsure of her ability she was, but she had the words right and he couldn’t help but smile.

  “You’ve learned French!” Ben accused, and she laughed, but cut herself off sharply when the sound rang out. An odd kind of shock played over her face, and Malik rushed to distract her.