Page 108 of Bargaining

“Keep,” I said.

He smiled. “I remember Tiff’s Christmas cakes. I’ve never had better.”

“I’m sure she’ll give you the recipe.”

“Great. I’ll have to give it to Marco.”

He put the tin in the box to go into storage and glanced at the clock. “I’m going to take these boxes before the charity shop closes.” He gestured to the fridge. “Make sure you eat one of Marco’s meals. There are a couple of risottos.”

The first thing Cole had done when he arrived was unload a host of Tupperware boxes from a cooler bag into the fridge.

“Thanks.”

He scanned the kitchen and dusted his hands together. “We’ve made a great start.”

I dumped my brush into a jar of turpentine. “You’re tidying up. I’m just making a mess.”

His eyes landed on the outline of the Colosseum that I’d added to the mural. “It’s not a mess. It’s important.”

“It is.” I couldn’t quite articulate why, but I knew it was. I needed to do it. Warmth radiated in my chest. It felt so much less overwhelming when I didn’t have to be in this house alone. He loaded his powerful arms full of boxes, and I tried not to gawk. Cole always looked gorgeous in his smart suits, but his handyman getup was like a fantasy made real. Part of me wanted to ask him to stay for dinner, but I bit the words back. That was too familiar. Maybe one day we could do that in a friendly way. But not at themoment. The feelings were too raw. I had to treat this like a professional cleanup operation.

He hitched an eyebrow. “Same time again tomorrow?”

“You really don’t have to do this.”

“I know.” His voice was gentle. “But I want to. Goodbye, Charlotte. Have a good night.”

Chapter 50

Charlotte

We worked methodically, dusty room by dusty room, finding a routine. Cole arrived at 8 a.m. sharp every morning, and he cleared out the mess, while I covered the walls in paint. On the third day, Cole broke apart the furniture that wasn’t in a fit state to donate. Despite the pain lodged in my chest, there was a spark of satisfaction in creating order from chaos. And in among the tearful moments were pockets of joy, like when I found my old school photos and reports to laugh at.

On the fifth day, Cole found me on the floor of Dad’s study, sobbing. He brought me a cup of tea and sat next to me until I’d recovered enough to keep going. After a week, when the company had come to take away the stair lift, we were ready to strip the wallpaper on the landing. Cole steamed, and I worked with my scraper, chipping away the most stubborn bits of faded paper to reveal the blank wall underneath.

Sometimes I felt like this house was crying, but today, among the light and clouds of hot steam, it felt like it was breathing. The steamer hissed as Cole ran it up the wall, soaking the paper. He shot me a casual glance. “I had a meeting with a therapist.”

I looked at him in astonishment. “What?”

“It’s online. I have this critical voice in my head sometimes. It’s my father’s voice. The therapist said I have to imagine it like a parrot, and when it pipes up, I tell it to shut up. I enjoy that part. Very satisfying.” A faint smile crossed his face. “I’ll keep going. I have a lot of stuff to unpack about my time in New York. But I want to do it.”

It was unbelievable to think of Cole opening up to anyone, but it could only be a good thing. “I’m glad you’re doing some work on that. Well done.”

He nodded. “I ripped up the contract. When the divorce goes through, you’re entitled to half of everything. It shouldn’t be too long now.”

My paint scraper fell out of my hand. I sucked in a gasp of air. The dank smell of wet wallpaper filled my nose.

“You can’t do that.”

Clouds of steam billowed from the device as he worked. “It’s your legal entitlement as my wife.”

His voice was matter-of-fact, as though we were talking about divvying up loose change he’d found down the sofa and not a multi-billion-pound empire.

“You’re not serious. I don’t want it. I don’t want a penny from you. It’s not been earned. It doesn’t belong to me.”

“Take it up with the lawyers. Give it away if you don’t want it. It’s yours.” He peeled a strip of wallpaper away in one long piece. A satisfied smile lit his lips. “Don’t you just love it when that happens? You got the whole piece in one go?”

I stared at him, dumbstruck. The lawyers could say whatever they wanted. There was no way I’d take that money. I’d point-blank refuse. I couldn’t help my laugh. “You’re crazy.”