Page 8 of Bargaining

That wasn’t news to me. I’d googled him plenty of times over the years. Of course he’d done well in life. He’d come from unfathomable wealth. All the boys at Dad’s school had. Dad had adored Cole. They’d spent hours in the box room Dad called a study making each other laugh with painfully geeky Latin puns that went over everyone else’s head.

“What is he doing here? I didn’t see him at the service,” I said.

Tiff watched me with a frown as I swigged my wine. “The school contacted alumni. A lot of Dad’s old pupils were invited to the wake.”

Right. Of course.Cole’s gaze caught mine and held. A shock of adrenaline went through me.Don’t stare. Look away.But I couldn’t tear my face away because Tiff was wrong about Cole’s eyes. They weren’t weird. They were intelligent eyes that looked straight through you and gave nothing away, mesmerizing and sultry. Impossible to escape from. I should know. I’d spent enough time gazing into them.

The memory hit me, sudden and intense.Firm lips moving against mine. The taste of spearmint gum and heat. Persuasive hands groping under my T-shirt and cupping me through my bra. The first time I’d ever felt the pulse of desire between my thighs.

Cole had been my first kiss. He’d promised me the world after an epic make-out session and it had all been lies. He’d awoken sensations I’d never experienced before and never truly felt since. Then the bastard had moved to live with his dad in the US and ghosted me. And now he was here. At my father’s funeral.

I forced my gaze away from Cole and threw back my drink. The wine was helping, even if it made me feel like a gaming consolewith a diagnostic running in the background. My connection to the world was patchy. A couple of buttons on the controller didn’t work. Everything was laggy. I couldn’t even remember how I’d got from the crematorium to the pub for the wake, but I’d stood and greeted people. I’d made small talk.

My eyes drifted back to Cole, to find him still looking at me. “I need more alcohol.”

Tiff’s frown deepened. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“Nowhere near.”

I had to get out of here. My lungs heaved for air that wouldn’t come. I weaved through somber mourners and stumbled over a barstool to get to the exit.

A hand on my arm steadied me. “Are you planning on ignoring me all evening?”

The deep masculine voice made my heart pound an erratic rhythm. He didn’t speak like anyone in this pub. He’d always sounded clipped and posh, even when he’d lived here. He took a step closer. His cologne enveloped me, spicy and masculine. Cole used to smell like a teenager—of grass and cigarette smoke—but now he smelled dangerous, like money and power.

His expression pinned me to the spot. His lips, his cheeks, his nose, everything coming back to me in a rush, like an old, beloved song on the radio. I still knew the lyrics, but the melody was off-key. This was my Cole, but not really. An aloof edge lay under the commanding presence. He had a polished veneer and a cold, hard look that was new and unsettling. Maybe I was off-key to him, too, after all these years. Shadows under the eyes. Jaded. A vaguely familiar stranger. Heat stole through me. Too much wine on an empty stomach. The room was spinning.

“I’m not ignoring anyone.” The words were polite and automatic. “Thank you for coming. Excuse me. I need some air.”

I plowed through the back door of the pub. A chilly wind blasted me and made me brutally aware of how tipsy I was. The wine had gone straight to my head. Birds trilled too loudly in the hedgerows. The door swung open and Cole joined me outside. The Fox and Hounds was a small mock-Tudor building with a white facade and oak beams. On Friday nights, most of the village turned out to drink beer and watch their kids playing in the pub garden. This pub had been Dad’s preferred spot for tutoring the older boys. He’d only ever invited his favorite student to the house. Cole was the son that Dad had always wanted. We’d always joked he loved Cole more than us.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

If you were that sorry, you would have known. You would have been here with us. “It was expected. He was ill for a long time.”

Cole stared out at the tree line. The fading sun cast its rays over the grass in streaks and turned the sky mauve. Silence fell. An unbearable awkwardness. The old me would have filled this quiet with conversation, but I couldn’t. A strange pressure had been building behind my eyes that made my head ache. It was unreasonable to be expected to make polite conversation, and too weird to be back with Cole, here of all places.

I would have quizzed him on his life, but I had nothing inside. I couldn’t talk to anyone, least of all a ghost from my past. Also, I didn’t care about Cole Thorner. He’d never replied to my messages. He’d left this village without looking back. I’d cried over him for months. He hadn’t given me any closure. I’d had to find my own way to move on.

Time to find Tiff and sober up.

“Thank you for coming. Dad would have been touched to see so many of his old pupils here.” I turned to go back inside.

“Everything looks the same around here.”

His words stopped me at the door. We’d spent our summers riding bikes around the woods together, playing tennis, and wrestling. Ecclesdale was probably still charming and twee to him. Cole had moved on. Everyone had. Apart from me. I hadn’t even made it through a term at art school before Dad got sick. Still, no regrets. I might have been bitter at the world right now, but never at Dad. If I had to live my life a thousand times over, I’d always make the choice to be at Dad’s side when he needed me. Nothing mattered more.

Easy for Cole to waltz back in and look down his nose at us. “A lot has changed, actually. The post office has become an off-license. We’ve got a retail park with a Starbucks. They sell chicory in the Londis now. Big things are happening around here. I always wondered what happened to you. I considered alien abduction the most likely possibility, but then I hear you’re some fancy CEO in London?”

He adjusted his cuff links. The gold glinted in the dying sun. “I’m doing OK. No aliens.”

No apologies for not keeping in touch. For ghosting me because he’d moved on to bigger and better things. I’d loved him in that intense, all-encompassing teenage way, and I’d been so easy for him to leave behind. Now that I was older, I had more of an understanding. We’d been young. We were from different worlds. He’d got what he wanted from me and apparently it was enough. I hadn’t mattered enough to him. It had cut deep. I’d been discarded since by other crappy men, but Cole had set the precedent for abandonment.

“According to Wikipedia, you’re filthy rich now.”

A smirk played on his full lips. “According to Wikipedia, I’m also an arsehole.”

Sounds about right.“What’s it like being a filthy-rich arsehole?”