Two Strangers, One Wound

He talked like every word cost him something and he wasn't going to waste a single one.

No padding. No sorry this is strange or I know it's a lot. Just clean and direct the way he had been since the moment he sat down across from me.

"I run a company called Ashford Holdings Group. Private acquisitions, investments, property. We've been building toward a deal for two years, a three hundred million acquisition, and we are this close to closing it."

He held two fingers an inch apart.

"The partner on the other side is old money and very traditional. He has one condition before he puts his name on anything. His lawyers have said it twice now in formal meetings."

"What condition," I said.

"He wants to know he is doing business with a man who has what he calls a settled life." He looked at me. "He means a wife. He has said this word out loud. Wife."

"That's insane," I said.

"It's old fashioned. But it's real and it's not going away."

"So you need a fake wife."

"I need a wife who shows up to four or five events over the next year and is convincing. Board dinners. A signing ceremony. A couple of galas." He paused. "In private we live separately. Second bedroom is yours. Your life stays your life."

"And what do I get," I said.

"Whatever Walter needs. All of it. Specialist bills, hospital costs, private room, medication, every single thing for as long as he needs it. No limit, no questions."

I sat with that.

The number the hospital had given me three weeks ago came back like it always did. The number I hadn't told Nadia because there was no point. The number that had been sitting at the back of every thought I'd had since the day the doctor said it out loud so casually, like it wasn't the kind of number that could end a person's options completely.

"You don't even know what the number is," I said.

"It doesn't matter what the number is."

I looked at him.

He said it the way he said everything. Flat and final and like he had already moved past the part where the number was a variable.

"Why me specifically. You could hire someone. An actress. A professional."

"An actress has a paycheck. You have a grandfather. You have a reason to be convincing that money alone can't manufacture."

That was brutal.

It was also the most honest thing anyone had said to me in a very long time and I found I preferred it, the brutal honest version, over anything softer would have been.

"I want everything in writing," I said. "Every term, every number, the whole thing. And I want time to read it properly before I sign anything."

"Obviously."

"And if I want out before the year is up."

"Thirty days notice. Every financial commitment to Walter holds regardless of when or why you leave."

"I need to think about this."

"You have until morning."

"That's not much time."

"No."

He didn't apologise for it. He didn't dress it up. He just said no, like time was a fact and not his fault, which it wasn't, and I found I couldn't argue with that either.

I looked at the table. My coffee had gone stone cold while he was talking. The teenager behind the counter was wiping down the machine with the expression of someone counting down the minutes until their shift ended. Outside the window Marsh Street was empty in both directions.

I thought about Walter's face when I walked into that hospital room. That smile that said you showed up, that's all I needed.

I thought about the specialist's number.

I thought about twelve months of my life versus however many months Walter had left and which one of those things I could live with trading.

"If I say yes it is because of him," I said. "Not you. Not your deal. Walter. You understand that."

"I don't need you to do it for me."

"Good."

"Good."

A beat of quiet.

"One more thing," I said.

He waited.

"You meet him. Walter. Properly, not a five minute handshake. You actually sit with him. Before the end of this week."

"Done."

"And if he asks you directly whether you're going to take care of me, you answer him honestly. Not the polished version. The real one."

He looked at me for a moment.

"Done."

I nodded.

I looked at the window. I looked at my cold coffee. I looked at this man I had known for less than two hours who had just offered me the one thing I could not get anywhere else and had not once tried to make it sound like anything other than exactly what it was.

"I'll call you in the morning," I said.

He nodded. He stood up. He left money on the table for the coffees without glancing at the bill. He said: "I'll drive you back."

"I can get a cab," I said.

"I know."

He waited by the door anyway.

I picked up my phone to put it in my bag.

The screen lit up in my hand.

Derek's name. Big and bright. Below it a preview of the message: Sloane please just pick up. I can explain everything. Please just—

I turned the screen face down against the table.

I sat there for one second with my hand pressed flat on the back of it and I thought about the bedroom and the duvet and eight months and the specific sound his laugh had made when he was completely relaxed with her.

I left the phone where it was.

I stood up.

I walked to the door.