Page 1 of Bargaining

Chapter 1

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 distancesbetween 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. “Interestingandperfect. 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.”