Chapter 6 Cole Present Day #2
She pressed her fingers against her temples, rubbing in circles as though soothing a headache. “Let me get this straight. You want to pay me to be your fake wife?”
“Correct.”
She braced her hands on the window ledge. A bitter smile thinned her lips. “It’s been twelve years. No messages. No phone calls. No emails. Nothing. Not a peep from you. Then you turn up at my father’s funeral with all this nonsense?”
“I had my reasons for leaving.”
She folded her arms tight across her chest. “And did you have your reasons for ignoring my emails? For never returning my calls?”
Yes. A sour taste rose in my mouth. Roy had begged me to cut off contact.
He’d also begged me not to tell her. Now wasn’t the time.
Maybe there would never be a time to betray a promise made to a dead man.
It didn’t mean I still couldn’t convince her to marry me.
Any good negotiation relied on both parties recognizing the merits of the deal.
This deal had value whether she hated me or not.
Her disparaging gaze roved over me. “You moved on and forgot about me. You didn’t want to do long distance, and you didn’t have the balls to tell me and put me out of my misery. I’m a big girl now, Cole. All grown up. I can take it. Just tell the truth.”
“Let me lay out the terms. This isn’t just about me. Be my wife and I can give you anything.”
She picked up a framed photo of Roy posing with a tennis racket in his hand and stared at it blankly. “No. Not anything.”
OK, anything besides resurrection. Money couldn’t fix grief, but it was still easier to be sad in a hammock in the Maldives. She let out a long sigh. Why was she here alone? Her sister should have been with her, or anyone, for that matter.
“Have you eaten this evening?”
Her absent gaze fixed on the chipped window frame.
She wasn’t listening. I moved out of the living room to the dim kitchen.
A clean detergent smell hit my nose, but the room was in as much disarray as the living room.
Books piled high in teetering piles. Pots and pans spilled out of boxes everywhere.
The laminated cards with instructions taped to the cupboards and appliances stopped me in my tracks.
Shut the fridge. Turn the kettle off. Switch off the oven.
Someone at the wake had told me that Roy had suffered with dementia.
I hadn’t really processed that at the time.
Now, it hit me square in the face. Charlotte had been in this house looking after him.
Hard to imagine what that had been like.
I weaved through the clutter and surveyed the sparse contents of the fridge and cupboards.
There was enough to make a sandwich, but not much else.
“What are you doing?” Charlotte’s voice drifted from the doorway.
I took off my jacket, hung it on the back of a chair, and rolled up my shirtsleeves. “Making you something to eat.”
Her eyebrows rose with alarm. “You don’t have to do that.”
I flicked on the kettle. “What about sleep? Have you been getting any sleep?”
“I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me. This is none of your concern.”
I found a tin of tuna and a handful of wilted lettuce for the sandwich. The salad was pathetic without cucumber, but Charlotte had always hated it anyway. She wrapped her arms around herself and watched me butter the bread.
“Come back with me to London. I have staff. People who can take care of you.”
Her eyes widened. “Take care of me? I don’t need that.”
I found a plate and presented her with the food. Then I made us each a cup of tea and planted a steaming mug in front of her. It wasn’t much, but it would get her through tonight.
“I can get you out of this village.”
She stared at the sandwich as though it was an unidentifiable object recovered from an alien spaceship. Maybe it was bad. I had a chef. I hadn’t made a sandwich in years.
“Did you hear me?” I repeated gently. “I can get you out of here.”
Her red-rimmed eyes darted to mine. “Who said I want to leave Ecclesdale?”
“You did. You said you had nothing to go on your Wikipedia page. I’ve got hotels everywhere. Paris. Tokyo. Dubai. A private jet. I can give you the world, if that’s what you want.”
She chewed the skin around her thumbnail. That meant she was processing. Good. I’d let her. A little space and then a well-timed nudge. That’s how I’d get this deal over the line.
“I don’t belong in London. I belong here.” She pressed her palms to her eyes. “I can’t deal with this today. This is madness.”
Her eyes met mine, and they glimmered with tears.
My heart contracted. I had this strange compulsion that if I could just pull her into my arms, I could kiss her hard enough to take the pain away.
It wasn’t possible. Life fucked us all in a multitude of ways, over and over.
I couldn’t take away the pain in Charlotte’s eyes, but I could ease her burden.
“I’m offering you a lifeline.”
Charlotte smoothed a hand over her face. “And do you think we’d be happy in our fake marriage? Are we going to have fake sex? And fake children? Send them to fake school?”
“We can iron out the details.”
A bitter laugh escaped her. “Why can’t you find a wife the normal way? Look at you. You’re a big shot in your suit and tie. I’m sure you’re not short of offers.”
Because a real wife would tie me down. Because the business of destroying my father was a full-time job.
But even I could see it was time to have a woman on my arm.
I needed one on my terms, who I could pick up as and when I wanted for corporate events and put back down again without fuss.
No mindless dates. No gold diggers. No drama.
Charlotte needed a way out of this village and the opportunity to live a good life once she’d risen from the fog of grief. What better way forward for both of us?
I pushed the mug toward her. “Drink your tea and eat your sandwich. I can order food in if you don’t want it.”
“I’m not hungry.” She shook her head and pointed to the door. “I’ve heard enough. Please, it’s time for you to go.”
“Come back to London with me.”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “No way. Please. I have a splitting headache. You need to leave. I mean it. I want you out.”
I pulled out my phone. “I’m ordering pizza.”
She scrubbed both hands over her face. Her voice was a slow and lethal whisper. “You’re not listening to me. I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to look at you for another minute. You’re not welcome here. Please just leave me alone. Why are you not getting this?”
I never walked away from a deal, but she looked ready to punch me in the face or collapse and weep.
Maybe both. As much as it pained me to walk out of here, we’d have to pick this up another time.
I pulled out a business card and put it on the kitchen table.
“Call me when you’re ready to talk. Anytime.
Day or night. You still have six months.
The offer remains open until April 14th. ”
Her eyes flickered with surprise and darted to mine. “You remember my birthday?”
Yes. Once, I’d known everything there was to know about Charlotte Ackroyd. I took a step closer, close enough to see the tears glistening on her cheek. She’d been my first love. My fucking obsession.
My fingers itched to swipe the stray tear from her freckled cheek, but I held myself in check. “We were friends, weren’t we?”
She opened the front door. Cold night air blasted us. Her face was pale. She probably wouldn’t eat that bloody sandwich. I’d order the pizza when I got back in the car. She didn’t have to eat it if she didn’t want to. Better to have the option.
“You must eat. Keep your energy up.” I stepped outside. “Take your time to think about the proposal. Call me whenever.”
She stared past the wrecked car on the drive at nothing. Memories of my mother flooded my brain. When she’d been in the grip of depression, she’d been like this. Far away. Wounded. Absent.
“It will get easier. Just take one day at a time.” Platitudes, but she wasn’t interested in anything else I could offer. “Call me if you want. Any time.”
“Call you?” She eyed me with a mix of confusion and despair, as though waking from a bad dream to something worse. “You think you can ghost me for twelve years and then turn up here like nothing happened?”
No. I’m under no illusions about that. “I’m here now. I can be here if you want to talk or if you need anything. Anything at all. I want to help you, Charlotte.”
She chuffed out a faint humorless laugh. “You can help me by leaving me alone. Goodbye, Cole. Have a pleasant life.”