Billionaires with Benefits

Not being wanted by a mom must be very hard for someone to accept. It doesn’t matter how old he or she was when he or she found out the bitter truth.

“Sorry, I didn’t think it was something like that,” Samuel said as he licked his lips. He raised his hand, then patted Clara on the shoulder, hoping it would ease her grief.

When Clara slightly inched away, that’s when Samuel felt himself overdoing it. “Sorry, I just wanted to calm you down.”

Clara nodded slowly. He looked at Samuel doubtfully, then said, “Go ahead.”

“What?”

“I… don’t mind just being patted,” Clara answered with an awkward smile.

After a long silence, Clara then spoke again. “All this time, I thought that I was the beloved daughter of the Decker family. Turns out, I was just an unwanted child born because of my dad’s mistake.”

Clara couldn’t continue what she was saying because her lips were trembling, as if she couldn’t feel the weight of the story she was about to tell. Samuel was the first person she told about this matter. She didn’t expect that putting it into words would be so difficult.

.....

“I was bought from my biological mother, to be recognized as the biological child of my father’s legal wife.” This time, Clara’s tears could no longer be contained. Tears ran down her delicate cheeks, making Samuel’s heart feel sad when he saw her. “I never thought that I was so low.”

Samuel’s brows furrowed, disapproving of Clara’s words. “Why do you call yourself lowly just because of how you were born?” he asked without a smile. His eyes fell on her, narrowed.

“Is it because you were born in a poor family, for example, that you become lowly?” he asked again. “No one can choose who they are born from, right? If possible, I would choose to be born to a father and mother who are great musicians. Not a father who knows only business matters and a mother who is only good at cooking and baking.”

Hearing the word musician caught Clara’s interest. “Why musicians?” asked the woman curiously.

“I am a pianist,” answered Samuel.

“Oh, seriously?” Clara asked, suddenly enthusiastic. It felt fresh when she heard something other than medical matters and family business.

“Impossible!” said Clara suspiciously. Perhaps, Samuel was lying.

“If you don’t believe it, come with me,” said Samuel enthusiastically.

He then invited Clara to walk into a room two rooms away from the living room. When the room was opened, Clara could see how there was a grand piano standing gracefully in the corner of the room.

The body color is black. An old piano it seems. Made of oak that has been repainted several times. On the back side, there was an engraving of Samuel Montgomery’s name, indicating the owner’s name, sweetened with silver plating.

“This is my first piano. A gift from someone when I was little. My mother had no money to buy a piano. An old woman, a hotel owner where my mother worked, gifted this piano to me. Previously, this belonged to her grandson who died of leukemia,” said Samuel while stroking the old piano. His eyes looked far away as if seeing the past from behind the sturdy body of the piano. “She replaced her grandson’s nameplate with mine. She’s very kind, isn’t she?”

Clara nodded with a puffy face. Samuel’s story was truly moving. She had never experienced such a hard life.

“You see, don’t you? I was born to two parents from a rich family. However, my mother chose to leave to avoid my father until we both lived in poverty,” whispered Samuel in a flat voice like a gentle night breeze blowing outside, in tune with the soft rustle of a twig on a tree by the window. “However, if my mother had not run away, I definitely would not have met that old lady. I will never learn the piano, and I will never become the professional pianist I am now.”

Clara looked at Samuel’s grateful face. The mischievous face of the playboy that was radiating strongly there had changed into the face of a person who loved the piano and music with all his heart.

“So, that’s the reason you didn’t replace this piano until now?” Clara asked curiously. For such a large house, with all the fancy furnishings, it felt like Samuel’s piano looked out of place.

“So true!” answered Samuel firmly. “This piano is like a treasure to me. I will pass it on to my children and grandchildren,” Samuel added while gazing into the air.

Clara looked at Samuel with a straight face. She felt uncomfortable hearing the word posterity.

“As for you, is there anything valuable that you want to pass on to your children and grandchildren?” he asked.

Clara’s heart squeezed at Samuel’s question. She cleared her throat and looked away from Samuel.

“Scalpels maybe?” asked Samuel, knowing that Clara was a doctor. “Stethoscope?”

“There isn’t any. I don’t want to leave anything behind,” Clara answered quickly and curtly. Her face didn’t smile. She was upset but realized that Samuel was innocent.

To distract herself, Clara’s eyes scanned around the room. There was a glass shelf containing various international awards that Samuel has won. Unknowingly, Clara stepped closer to the shelf. Real admiration, was evident on the beautiful woman’s face. Her anger at Samuel was forgotten instantly because she was with such an extraordinary person.

“Well, it seems, I’m with someone famous,” Clara muttered with admiration. “Will I get a private and exclusive free piano performance?” Clara’s eyes rolled up, seducing Samuel to play her a song.

Samuel chuckled. “As an uninvited guest entering a stranger’s house, aren’t you asking for too much? I used to get paid to play the piano.”

Clara laughed too. “Okay, I’ll pay later! Can you play the piano for me?”

“What song do you want?” asked Samuel.

Clara looked thoughtful, her index finger patting her cheek. “Something you play for a broken-hearted person.”

Samuel’s face tightened. He then hit the piano keys. At first, he was lazy and slow, but then he continued anyway. His face was very serious. Clara, who saw it, felt that Samuel was playing the music for himself.

Sad music. Very sad and tearing. Clara’s chest seemed to be squeezed, she remembered her miserable love life. Something that she thought would belong to her entirely, turned out to betray her. She thought something perfect just for her, turned out to be an imperfection. Limping and deformed.

“Stop it!”