Bargaining (The Thorner Brothers #1)

Chapter 1 Charlotte Twelve years previous

Charlotte

Twelve years previous

Cole perched on the edge of my bed, straight-backed, with an uneasy grimace. “What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to look less weird.” Sitting cross-legged, I propped the pillows behind me at the other end of the bed and adjusted the sketch pad on my lap.

“You told me to keep still,” he hissed through stiff lips.

“But not like I’m holding you at gunpoint. Relax your shoulders.”

He rolled his head on his neck. His biceps flexed under his Radiohead T-shirt as he stretched his arms over his head. “You don’t want me for this. Anyone else would be better.”

“Who? Dad wouldn’t be able to pose for a portrait without giving me an art history lecture, and Tiff can’t keep her mouth shut for more than five minutes. You’re exactly what I need, and you have a very interesting face.”

I held the pencil vertically in front of me.

Squeezing one eye shut, I slid my thumb up and down, gauging the distances between his features.

Not that I needed to. I already knew every detail: the intelligence shining in his light eyes, the sensual curve of his generous lips, the way his dark hair curled so deliciously at his nape.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Interesting? Is that a good thing?”

“Of course.”

Freckles dusted the bridge of his nose—remnants of his summer spent island-hopping around Greece on the family yacht. A faint purple bruise marred his right cheek.

“Is something wrong?”

I coughed to cover my embarrassment at gawking at him. “I’ve just got to get this right. If I mess up the coursework, I’ll fail art, and then I’ll never get into art college, and then I’ll never leave Ecclesdale, and I’ll never do anything with my life or go anywhere—”

“There is no timeline where you fail anything. Do you want me to move?” He tipped his chin and flashed me a glance. “Shall I turn my face this way?”

“No. Your face is perfect.”

His eyebrow lifted a fraction. “Interesting and perfect. This is the nicest you’ve ever been to me.”

Warmth crept up my neck. “I meant to say, it’s perfectly positioned. You just need to look less stiff and formal. More like a normal eighteen-year-old.” I dropped my gaze to the sketch pad, daring to commit the first strokes. “When are you going to tell me how you got that bruise on your cheek?”

He smoothed a hand over my duvet. “When do you want me to take my clothes off?”

My heart stuttered. “I’m sorry?”

“I assumed when you asked me to model for you, it would be nude,” he said, deadpan.

“Hilarious.” I pulled a face but my mouth felt suddenly dry. “You can’t distract me with talk of stripping. Dad can’t help you if you won’t give him a name.”

His expression held perfectly level. “There is no name. I walked into a door. Now you can drop it.”

Bullshit. It had to be another student at Dad’s fancy boarding school.

Cole didn’t talk about it much, but I knew he hated the dorms. Otherwise, why would he spend so much time at his history teacher’s house?

No sane person would volunteer for more Latin than was necessary, unless they were trying to get away from something.

“You need to report them. Dad’s school takes bullying seriously.”

His tone filled with bland innocence. “You want me to report the door I walked into?”

“Yes. How else is it going to learn not to punch you in the face?”

He held the challenge in my eyes for a moment before he turned his face away.

“Your dad’s got a bee in his bonnet again tonight about the Dark Ages being unfairly represented.

I don’t mind. If I don’t do this extra study, I’ll fail history, and then I’ll never get into Oxford, and I’ll never do anything with my life.

” He gave me a wry smile as he repeated my worry spiral back to me.

I rolled my eyes. “Your family is obscenely rich. You can afford to fail everything, and it doesn’t matter.”

He wrinkled his nose. “It matters to me. I want to make my own way in the world.”

Fine. I’d try again later to get it out of him. Cole was stubborn as hell. If he didn’t want to talk about a bruise or his family or whatever was going on in his life, he wouldn’t.

He craned his neck, trying to look at the drawing. “Can you make my nose look normal?”

I shielded my sketch pad from his view. “There’s nothing wrong with your nose. Once I’ve marked out the sides of your face, I’ll leave plenty of room for it.”

He snorted and settled back into stillness. “Thanks.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. All portraits need plenty of ‘nose room’.”

“It’s too late now. You’ve flat out told me you think I have a huge fucking nose.”

Laughing, I threw the nearest teddy at him. “Your words, not mine. I happen to like your very average nose.”

He caught the stuffed hedgehog smoothly and peered at it.

It was the one he’d won on the tombola at the village fete a couple of years back.

If it was anyone else, I would have felt embarrassed about still having soft toys all over the place.

Cole was the only boy I ever had in my bedroom, so at least I didn’t have to go crazy hiding all my books with half-naked men on the covers or stashing away my pencil collection.

He didn’t even seem to mind me burning my incense, which always had Tiff coughing and whining.

“Your nose can’t be too much of an issue for you, anyway. Tiff said she saw you at a party last weekend, and every girl was falling over themselves to talk to you. It must be flattering. Is there anyone you have your eye on?”

Music from the TV downstairs rumbled softly into the silence.

“Not really.” He kept his face still, but his gaze slid to mine. “What about you? Do you have your eye on anyone?”

“Me? No. You should see how immature and annoying the boys are at my school. It’s nothing like Ashcombe.”

“I thought the Ashcombe boys were a bunch of private school poshos?” His voice took on a sarcastic edge.

Guilt prickled my skin. Cole had overheard Tiff and me talking about the boys at the school where Dad taught, and now he’d never let me live it down. “I said I was sorry about that.”

“I know.” He shot me a sardonic smile. “I just enjoy watching you squirm.”

“Dating is drama. I’m focused on getting out of here. I don’t want to be tied down. All I want is to travel the world and paint. When I’m an old spinster, like thirty or something, I’ll have lots of dogs to keep me company, and hope they don’t gang up as a pack and eat me.”

I looked up to see him watching me with a frown. “You don’t think you’ll do the ‘marriage and kids’ thing one day?”

I shrugged. “I can’t see it.”

His frown deepened. “Why not? You’re too young to be this cynical.”

Not cynical, but realistic. Hard to see anyone signing up to spend the rest of their life with me when I couldn’t even find someone to kiss me on the mouth.

Better not to think about it. Unlike me, Cole had kissed plenty of people.

He’d probably been hooking up with girls all over Europe this summer.

It shouldn’t have mattered. He could kiss whoever he wanted.

“It’s Friday night, and everyone is probably out, and I’m here doing this. I don’t know if I’ll ever find anyone willing to marry me,” I said.

“It’s your choice to stay in. You could be out having fun.”

It was always the same old faces. Everyone knew everyone in Ecclesdale. Everyone was up in everyone’s business. It was suffocating. Thank God I’d be out of this village soon.

“This is my kind of fun, and you’re a fine one to talk. Studying history with my dad on a Friday night? You could be out having fun, too.”

He looked me squarely in the eye. “This is my kind of fun.”

Silence thickened between us. I added the contours of his sharp cheekbones and jawline to the sketch.

His eyes traveled over the vision board I’d taped above my dressing table.

Tiff and I had made them together. Mine was full of exotic places I’d cut from travel magazines, galleries I wanted to visit, and brightly colored Post-its with inspirational quotes that felt cringe now that Cole was studying the board so intensely.

A bride and groom sat haphazardly at the center of the collage. The bride wore a huge white dress covered in lace and crystals, fit for a royal wedding. My own bloody vision board had sold me out. Now I couldn’t deny that the squishy romantic in me wanted to be swept off my feet one day.

“I tell you what, if you get to thirty and you’re not married, then I’ll marry you,” Cole said quietly.

My shoulders tensed. “I don’t need your pity proposal. That vision board was Tiff’s idea. I did it to humor her.”

“It’s not pity. You’ll be doing me a favor. I don’t want to get eaten by a pack of dogs, either. Poor bastards might choke on my huge fucking nose.”

“There is nothing wrong with your nose. Don’t get a complex. I highly doubt you’ll be short of options.”

He moved across the bed and sat next to me. “I highly doubt you’ll be short of options, either, but we should make a pact just in case. Don’t leave me on the shelf. You’re not that cruel. If neither of us is married by the time we’re thirty, we marry each other. Deal?”

Chuckling, I shooed him away. “You’ll survive on the shelf. Go back to your spot. I’m not done.”

He offered me his hand. “We need to shake on it. I’m trying to ease your worry. You can travel the world and paint, and I’ll be at home with all the dogs, making sure they don’t turn against you and eat us.”

“Whatever. This is a lackluster proposal from you, Cole. No ring. You think I’m wearing that dress like a walking marshmallow for someone who can’t be bothered to get on one knee?”

He slipped off the bed and kneeled in front of me.

His eyes shone with an unusual earnestness.

“I mean it. I’ll be your backup. That way, you never need to settle for less than you deserve.

You’ve got a husband in the bag. You just travel and enjoy your life, knowing you’ll never end up alone if you don’t want to be. ”