Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Abide with Me begins to play, and I sit rigid, my hands clasped in my lap. Grief rolls through me in strange, unpredictable waves. It isn’t the devastating tidal surge you see in films. It’s quieter and much more confusing.
I’m grieving, not just for Joseph, but for a version of myself that never existed. The girl who had a father to tuck her in at night. The girl who might have visited her father every summer. The girl who had the pleasure of knowing the proud and wonderful man Eleanor had so vividly described. The girl who knew where her violet eyes came from.
Towards the end of the hymn, the pallbearers step forward once more to carry away the coffin. When the hymn ends, the vicar subtly moves to the side door and nods to Lydia, who stands. The pallbearers move first, followed by Lydia, and then the entire front row follows her out of the church. I wait until the row in front of me begins to move before standing up, and then I slip out with the secondary guests. Outside, the chaos from earlier intensifies.
Cameras flash relentlessly now. Microphones stretch forward. Reporters call out questions about succession, about stock prices, about the future of Manswell Technologies. It’s grotesque.
I hang back near the edge of the building.
When the pallbearers begin to carry the coffin forward, I feel something in my chest crack open at the sight of it moving past me. That’s it. That’s the finality. That the dream of one day getting to know my father is gone forever. I press my lips together to keep them from trembling.
The burial takes place in the cemetery within the grounds of the church. We follow the coffin around the building to the cemetery part of the grounds. Statues of angels are dotted around between the headstones, and the place is immaculately cared for.
The security from earlier brings up the rear, and slam the iron gates closed once the last mourner is in, leaving the reporters on the other side of the fence. Even so, the paparazzi still remain, hovering beyond the perimeter fence, their lenses glinting like giant insect eyes in the sun.
I stay well behind the main group as they approach the freshly dug grave. I am just close enough so that I can see the gathering around the grave, but not close enough to be a part of the circle.
The wind is sharp here. Prayers are said, and the coffin is lowered. Then comes the sound of dirt hitting wood as people step forward to throw handfuls of soil into the grave. The sound is softer than I expected it to be, but something about that sound undoes me. It’s so final. So mundane. Earth onto wood. Life onto death. I swallow hard, my vision blurring as tears spring up once more.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper under my breath, though I don’t know what I’m apologizing for or even who I am apologizing to.
It’s kind of foolish crying over someone I’ve never met, but I feel unaccountably sad. All said and done it is a loss. My father didn’t know me. But he wanted to. Gavin said so. He left instructions that said he wanted me here. And now I am here, standing thirty feet away from his grave like a ghost at my own father’s funeral.
The burial service is short, and the media surge forward again as the family steps away through the gates. Lydia shields her face elegantly. Sheldon looks furious. Axel steps slightly in front of them, his body angled protectively, blocking the cameras with a quiet authority. He catches sight of me again. Even at this distance, I feel his eyes on me. A flicker of something unreadable crosses his expression. Assessment? Suspicion? Irritation? All of the above? Or something else entirely?
The crowd begins to disperse. This is my moment. If I leave now, I can slip back to the car unnoticed. Back to the estate and up to my suite rather than into the wake. Back to anonymity.
I turn around, keeping my head down, weaving through the outer ring of guests. No one stops me. No cameras swing my way. If they knew who I was, the cameras would be on me. Relief blooms in my chest at the small mercy that they don’t seem to know about me. I’m almost at the edge of the cemetery when a voice cuts through the air.
“Miss Button.”
I freeze. Fuck. I turn around slowly to find Gavin striding towards me, his black coat buttoned neatly, his expression calm but firm.
“I was hoping to catch you,” he says as he reaches me.
“I was just heading back,” I reply lightly. “I didn’t want to intrude.”
“You are not intruding,” he says, the tone of his voice brooking no room for an argument. “You are Joseph’s daughter. Whether publicly acknowledged yet, or not.”