Page 97 of Bargaining

I couldn’t help my bitter laugh. “He’s lying. Just look at his previous purchases. Look at the Luxe in Milan or the Hotel Fernando in Granada. Look at what he did to them.”

A tense silence wrapped around us. People were looking. My heart pounded. I’d failed. My father had won. And Charlotte had left me.A divorce? Why?Was I really so fucking bad? She’d rather be broke? With me, she could travel the world, but she’d rather choose Ecclesdale?

We’d had the most amazing time together. The sex had been incredible, but that was nothing compared to how it had felt having my best friend back and just hanging out, talking, laughing, holding hands, watching her have new experiences, making her nose scrunch when she smiled. She was gone. It was a knife in my back and I was bleeding out all over this fucking lobby.

The loss of this hotel paled in significance to the panic flooding me. Charlotte didn’t want me anymore. Even five million pounds wasn’t a tempting enough proposition to endure me. Because that’s how she’d always seen this. I loved every moment in her company, and to her, I was something to beendured.

My father glared at me with disdain. He made everyone around him miserable, and I’d done the same to Charlotte. The truth was so blindingly obvious. It hit me like a punch in the gut. My voice came out a whisper.

“You destroy everything, Philip. You made me leave the only place I’ve ever felt happy. You’ve already cost me too much. I can’t do this with you anymore. You only have all this power over me because I give it to you.”

A muscle worked in his jaw, but he said nothing. There was nothing he could say anymore that mattered to me. I’d fallen in line when I was a kid, but I’d got away from him, and now I could make my own choices.Enough. This can’t go on.

Charlotte had looked so sad this morning, and I’d chosen my vendetta over her. So many times over these past two weeks, I could have been with her, but I’d pulled out my laptop instead. I’d wasted so much of our time here when we could have been together.

My eyes drifted back to the urn. To the detail in the stone that had been so lovingly crafted. Time moves on. Empires rise and fall in the blink of an eye. Life is short and precious. My father was an absolute bastard, but he was right about one thing. I should have kept my nose out of his business and paid attention to my wife. My beautiful, smart, incredible wife.

Yes, my mother had been happy here, but would she be happy to see me like this? To read my Wikipedia page? To know that I’d taken on my father’s cruelty and pettiness instead of her kindness? Whatever it took, I needed Charlotte to know that this was real. That I loved her. That this had always been real. That I should havestopped being a coward and come back for her so much sooner. I’d just never had the balls. Love wasn’t a weakness, but putting your heart at the mercy of someone else took strength. I could be strong. I had to be, because Charlotte was written on every page of my first act, and she was the rest of my story. It could be a happy story. A love story. I’d fucked this up. I had to rectify it.

I inclined my head to Gabe. “I don’t care if you don’t sell to me. I shouldn’t buy it, anyway. My shareholders are going to have me by the balls if I do. But this place is too special. You don’t like me, and I get it. I don’t like myself much at the moment, either. But do yourself a favor and sell it to anyone else but him.”

I headed for the door. My stuff was in the suite, but it didn’t matter. Someone would handle it. Everything in that room was replaceable. Charlotte wasn’t.

“Wait.” Frowning, Gabe looked up from scrolling his phone. “Are you still interested in making an offer?”

“Not right now. My wife is my priority.”

The doors slid open, and the heat and bustle of the city hit me full in the face—the crazy whine of mopeds, exhaust fumes, sightseers, history. I breathed in the chaos. It was fucking glorious.

Chapter 44

Charlotte

“You didn’t have to drop me all the way back here.”

Reuben smiled good-naturedly. “It’s no problem. I don’t get up north much. Any excuse to go for a ride in the chopper.”

It had been my first time in a helicopter and, now that I was divorcing Cole, probably my last. “Do you want to come in?”

“Thanks.”

A musty smell hit me in Dad’s hallway. Tiffany wasn’t exaggerating about things falling into disrepair.

“Any idea how to get rid of mold?” I peered at the black stains splattered all over the hallway.

Reuben shrugged. “Paint over it?”

A smile crept onto my lips. “I’m pretty sure you have to do more than that. I’m just hoping it’s not the kind that infects your brain. Although, that would explain a lot about Tiff’s behavior.”

And mine too.Marrying a man I hadn’t seen in over a decade had hardly been my finest hour.

Reuben chuckled. “Sounds like hard work.”

“Right, but most things that are worthwhile are.”

“If you say so.” Reuben looked around the small kitchen and smiled. He’d probably never set foot in a poor person’s house before.

“So cute, like a little toy kitchen.”