but he can’t keep doing this. I don’t trust him now, he can’t keep buying houses with my money.”
“Can you explain that to him?”
“I’m not sure he’ll listen. I’m trying to. He refuses to hear me.” She looked depressed about it. “We shouldn’t have gotten married. It was too fast. We didn’t know each other well enough. It was all very romantic, and now it’s anything but.”
“I thought so too, that it was too fast, but I know how Nigel is when he wants something. And he wanted you. I’m sure he still does. Maybe all you can do is tell him that if he buys another house like that, you’ll divorce him, and stick to it.” Coco nodded. There wasn’t much else she could do now except leave him. But even after the house he’d just bought in Sussex, she didn’t want to leave him. She loved him. “Your calling me this morning is fortuitous,” Leslie said to her. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.” Coco wondered if she had done something wrong or was being fired. “I’m leaving Time. It was a big decision, but I’ve wanted to start my own business for a while. I came into some money recently from an aunt, and I’m going to give it a try. I want to start a relocation business, for people moving to London who need to set up house. I’ll find them a location, stage it for them, or decorate it, and get it all set up before they arrive. I have a friend who’s been doing that in Paris, and making very good money. There’s a real need for it. Corporations move people here all the time, and others just move here for personal reasons, as you did.”
“It sounds like fun,” Coco said, thinking about the plan, but disappointed that Leslie was leaving Time. She liked working for her, and she liked her job, although she knew her internship would end sooner or later. She had already been there for ten months.
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I think you’d be great at it. Now that you’re a permanent resident here, would you consider coming to work for me? I’d love to have you.” Coco’s eyes lit up. It sounded like a good idea, and she wanted a long-term job.
“I’d love it!” She beamed at her.
“You would? Fantastic!”
“When are you starting?”
“The end of this month. I plan to open up the business at the end of July. I’m giving them four weeks’ notice tomorrow. You could give them two weeks’ notice, as an intern. I’d rather they not know that I’m stealing interns from them. And I’d pay you a proper salary. You’ll be legal doing that now, since you’re married to Nigel.”
They talked about the business for a while. It sounded exciting. Leslie was going to work out of her house at first, to keep the overhead down. She only lived ten minutes from Coco’s mews house by cab, and not too far from their new one. The offer of a job was the best news she’d had in months. The four and a half months since her wedding had been rocky, and expensive.
“What are you going to do about Nigel?” Leslie asked Coco gently before she left.
“Kill him if he buys another house.”
“Hopefully, he’ll behave now. If not, you should get out. I never realized how irresponsible he could be.”
Or how greedy, Coco thought. He wanted everything, a city house, a country estate, and God only knew what else he had in mind, and he wanted it all right now, at her expense. He knew too well that she could afford it.
Leslie hugged her before she left, Coco was excited about the job offer, and Leslie had suggested a decent wage.
Coco was in better spirits when she let herself into her house. Nigel was at the kitchen table with a ferocious hangover.
“Where were you?” he asked her.
“I went to see Leslie Thomas,” she said.
“What about?” She didn’t tell him about the job. It was none of his business.
“Something to do with work.” He nodded, which made him wince, and she went upstairs and showered and changed. When he came upstairs and lay down on the bed, she asked him a direct question. “How were you planning to pay your friend for the house in Sussex?”
“I told him you would. We’d been drinking a lot by then. I said you would pay in three installments, by wire transfer. It was