Page 103 of Bargaining

“Thank you. Was there anything else?”

She glanced back at the offices, as though desperate to escape me.

“There is one thing. Do you believe a person can change, Olive?”

She swallowed and swiped her hands down her pencil skirt. This poor woman looked unnerved by me. This was the legacy I’d built for myself. It wouldn’t do.

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t suppose I’m paying you enough to answer questions like that.”

“No. It’s fine.” She took a step forward and straightened her shoulders. Dave shuffled with her, holding the umbrella over her head. “Yes. I believe people can change, but they must want to, and they must do the work.”

“What work?”

“It depends how you want to change? I had a fear of driving a few years ago, and I went to therapy. It helped a lot.”

“I’m not the type to go to therapy.”

She fiddled with a chain around her neck. “Maybe you’d surprise yourself.”

They say what doesn’t kill you strengthens you. I used to believe that, but it was a lie. Sometimes, things just diminished us. They broke our hearts. Made us weak. Cracked us open. Sometimes life molded us into men slumped on benches with coffee stains on soaked shirts and staff tiptoeing around us like we were unexploded bombs. But maybe this was the point you had to get to. Raw. Repentant. Lost. What if I wasn’t broken? What if I was just a mound of wet clay, ready to be reshaped? Why couldn’t I change? Didn’t I get to make that choice?

One thing was for damn sure, I wouldn’t give up. I had to find a way in. A way to show Charlotte that I could be the man she deserved. Obviously, flowers and diamonds wouldn’t cut it. Charlotte had never cared for those things. I needed some advice. Someone who knew Charlotte. “One last thing. Could you set up a round of golf with my brother?”

“Which brother?”

The one who, for some unfathomable reason, Charlotte seemed to like. “Reuben.”

“No one else could join us?” Reuben held his tongue between his teeth as he lined up his shot with an excessive amount of wiggling.

“Lucas couldn’t get childcare, and Theo’s got some new bodyguard gig.”

Reuben looked up from the ball. “I didn’t think he did private security anymore?”

“He doesn’t. It’s a favor for a friend.”

Hard to decide what was more surprising about that situation. The idea that Theo would do anyone a favor, or that he had a friend who would dare ask for one. Reuben struck his ball and it flew off down the fairway.

I lined up my shot. “I’m glad it’s just the two of us. I wanted to talk to you about something. Have you seen Charlotte at all since Rome?”

Reuben kept his gaze on the flag in the distance. “We’ve texted. I haven’t seen her.”

“How is she?”

“She says she’s OK. I think she’s very sad. I’ve been trying to get her to go out of the house, but she doesn’t want to do anything.” He shot me a worried glance. “As friends, obviously. Just friends. I think that’s what she needs the most right now.”

Friends.My heart hurt. That was the worst part of all of this. I missed my best friend.

“Lucas told me you all had a sweepstake about how long my marriage would last. You were the only one who thought we’d go the distance. Why did you think that?”

He lifted his neon baseball cap and arranged his floppy hair. “That’s an easy one. I see the way you look at each other. You’re meant to be together.”

“You think so?”

He gave an earnest nod. “I know so. You’re soulmates. It’s obvious.”

Opening up to Reuben was weird, but I needed someone to hear me. Sure, he was annoyingly cheerful, and his nose was too straight, but he wasn’t the villain I’d thought he was.

“She’s adamant that it’s over. I can’t keep trying to fix it because it’s making it worse. She doesn’t want any of the gifts I send. Charlotte is a kind and decent person, the best kind of person, andI hurt her because my focus has been all wrong. I wanted her to know that I’m ready to change. But it’s too late. She wants me to leave her alone, and I’m trying to respect that, but the worst part is that she’s alone. I don’t want her to feel alone. She needs friends around her.”