Chapter 4 Charlotte
Charlotte
Sympathetic eyes followed me as I moved through a host of familiar faces at the wake.
Every inch of this pub was full of Dad. It was as bad as the house.
I swiped clammy hands down the black shift dress my sister had lent me.
It fell a little short above the knee and pulled too tight up top for a funeral.
I didn’t own any decent dresses. No point.
Caring for Dad hadn’t left room for wearing frocks.
Tiff held out her arms when she saw me approach. “You doing OK?”
I nodded and dived straight into it before I could chicken out again. “We need to talk about the house.”
She glanced around at the sea of mourners. “Jesus, Lottie? Now? Really?”
“I’d do anything to keep it, Tiff. Anything.”
She stiffened. The words soured my mouth.
Now wasn’t the time, but she’d already contacted the estate agent and things were snowballing.
We’d had this conversation a million times.
Even before Dad had died. When his health had gone downhill, we’d had to have these conversations.
This had been coming for a long time. It wasn’t a shock.
It wasn’t fair to bring it up now of all days, but I couldn’t do what was being asked of me.
I couldn’t just pack up Dad’s house and move on.
She sighed. “Come on, Lottie. Don’t. Not today. You know we have to do it.”
I did know. I couldn’t afford to buy Tiff out, and the money from Dad’s house was our inheritance.
We had to sell and split everything. Tiff had kids.
She needed the cash. It was a family home.
Dad had wanted it to be a family home. There was no point holding on to a house we couldn’t afford to keep up.
I could barely cover the bills, let alone pay to do all the work it needed.
Then there was the small issue that I didn’t have anywhere else to live.
She eyed the glass of wine in my hand and frowned. “Now’s not the time.”
It never is. “Just give me some time. We don’t have to put it up for sale straight away. Let me figure something out—”
“Not now, Lottie.” Her lips thinned and she smoothed the sleeves of her black jacket. “I can’t do this with you now.”
My stomach sank. It wasn’t worth begging, her eyes had already drifted. She blew out a breath and peered across the busy pub lounge.
“Have you seen who’s here? Cole Thorner.”
Impossible. Heat flashed through me. The room tilted. Somehow, I managed a word. “Where?”
She inclined her head to the side, trying to be discreet and failing miserably. I let my gaze travel over the tall man in a well-fitted suit engaged in somber conversation at the bar. Oh. My. God. It’s him.
Tiff watched Cole with a thoughtful expression, as though it was completely normal to see him here. “I always thought he walked that line between beautiful and terrifying. It’s those eyes. Such a weird shade of blue.” She swung back to me. “Weren’t you obsessed with him?”
Yes. Hopelessly, embarrassingly besotted. I scoffed. “Obsessed? Nope.”
Tiff kept her voice to a whisper. “I heard he’s some big shot down south now. He made a fortune in property or hedge funds or whatever rich people do in London.”
That wasn’t news to me. I’d googled him plenty of times over the years.
Of course he’d done well in life. He’d come from unfathomable wealth.
All the boys at Dad’s school had. Dad had adored Cole.
They’d spent hours in the box room Dad called a study making each other laugh with painfully geeky Latin puns that went over everyone else’s head.
“What is he doing here? I didn’t see him at the service,” I said.
Tiff watched me with a frown as I swigged my wine. “The school contacted alumni. A lot of Dad’s old pupils were invited to the wake.”
Right. Of course. Cole’s gaze caught mine and held.
A shock of adrenaline went through me. Don’t stare.
Look away. But I couldn’t tear my face away because Tiff was wrong about Cole’s eyes.
They weren’t weird. They were intelligent eyes that looked straight through you and gave nothing away, mesmerizing and sultry.
Impossible to escape from. I should know. I’d spent enough time gazing into them.
The memory hit me, sudden and intense. Firm lips moving against mine. The taste of spearmint gum and heat. Persuasive hands groping under my T-shirt and cupping me through my bra. The first time I’d ever felt the pulse of desire between my thighs.
Cole had been my first kiss. He’d promised me the world after an epic make-out session and it had all been lies.
He’d awoken sensations I’d never experienced before and never truly felt since.
Then the bastard had moved to live with his dad in the US and ghosted me.
And now he was here. At my father’s funeral.
I forced my gaze away from Cole and threw back my drink.
The wine was helping, even if it made me feel like a gaming console with a diagnostic running in the background.
My connection to the world was patchy. A couple of buttons on the controller didn’t work.
Everything was laggy. I couldn’t even remember how I’d got from the crematorium to the pub for the wake, but I’d stood and greeted people. I’d made small talk.
My eyes drifted back to Cole, to find him still looking at me. “I need more alcohol.”
Tiff’s frown deepened. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
“Nowhere near.”
I had to get out of here. My lungs heaved for air that wouldn’t come. I weaved through somber mourners and stumbled over a barstool to get to the exit.
A hand on my arm steadied me. “Are you planning on ignoring me all evening?”
The deep masculine voice made my heart pound an erratic rhythm.
He didn’t speak like anyone in this pub.
He’d always sounded clipped and posh, even when he’d lived here.
He took a step closer. His cologne enveloped me, spicy and masculine.
Cole used to smell like a teenager—of grass and cigarette smoke—but now he smelled dangerous, like money and power.
His expression pinned me to the spot. His lips, his cheeks, his nose, everything coming back to me in a rush, like an old, beloved song on the radio.
I still knew the lyrics, but the melody was off-key.
This was my Cole, but not really. An aloof edge lay under the commanding presence.
He had a polished veneer and a cold, hard look that was new and unsettling.
Maybe I was off-key to him, too, after all these years.
Shadows under the eyes. Jaded. A vaguely familiar stranger.
Heat stole through me. Too much wine on an empty stomach. The room was spinning.
“I’m not ignoring anyone.” The words were polite and automatic. “Thank you for coming. Excuse me. I need some air.”
I plowed through the back door of the pub.
A chilly wind blasted me and made me brutally aware of how tipsy I was.
The wine had gone straight to my head. Birds trilled too loudly in the hedgerows.
The door swung open and Cole joined me outside.
The Fox and Hounds was a small mock-Tudor building with a white facade and oak beams. On Friday nights, most of the village turned out to drink beer and watch their kids playing in the pub garden.
This pub had been Dad’s preferred spot for tutoring the older boys.
He’d only ever invited his favorite student to the house.
Cole was the son that Dad had always wanted.
We’d always joked he loved Cole more than us.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
If you were that sorry, you would have known. You would have been here with us. “It was expected. He was ill for a long time.”
Cole stared out at the tree line. The fading sun cast its rays over the grass in streaks and turned the sky mauve.
Silence fell. An unbearable awkwardness.
The old me would have filled this quiet with conversation, but I couldn’t.
A strange pressure had been building behind my eyes that made my head ache.
It was unreasonable to be expected to make polite conversation, and too weird to be back with Cole, here of all places.
I would have quizzed him on his life, but I had nothing inside.
I couldn’t talk to anyone, least of all a ghost from my past. Also, I didn’t care about Cole Thorner.
He’d never replied to my messages. He’d left this village without looking back.
I’d cried over him for months. He hadn’t given me any closure. I’d had to find my own way to move on.
Time to find Tiff and sober up.
“Thank you for coming. Dad would have been touched to see so many of his old pupils here.” I turned to go back inside.
“Everything looks the same around here.”
His words stopped me at the door. We’d spent our summers riding bikes around the woods together, playing tennis, and wrestling.
Ecclesdale was probably still charming and twee to him.
Cole had moved on. Everyone had. Apart from me.
I hadn’t even made it through a term at art school before Dad got sick.
Still, no regrets. I might have been bitter at the world right now, but never at Dad.
If I had to live my life a thousand times over, I’d always make the choice to be at Dad’s side when he needed me. Nothing mattered more.
Easy for Cole to waltz back in and look down his nose at us.
“A lot has changed, actually. The post office has become an off-license. We’ve got a retail park with a Starbucks.
They sell chicory in the Londis now. Big things are happening around here.
I always wondered what happened to you. I considered alien abduction the most likely possibility, but then I hear you’re some fancy CEO in London? ”
He adjusted his cuff links. The gold glinted in the dying sun. “I’m doing OK. No aliens.”