came to ask if you wanted pine or oak for the replacement shelves.”
“I, um . . .” Scarlet tries and fails to summon any interest in the subject. “Whatever you think’s best.”
“All right then,” Walt says, turning to walk back into the kitchen.
“Shouldn’t you be supervising him?” Eli says. “He might suddenly decide to paint the shelves bright orange or lime green.”
“He’s not a painter,” Scarlet says absently. “He’s not even a carpenter. He’s just doing me a favour. He’s . . . nice.”
Eli’s smile deepens. “Unlike me?”
“Absolutely.” If Walt was fire, Scarlet thinks, he’d be a spluttering candle. Ezekiel Wolfe is an inferno. “Did you bring the papers?”
“Of course. I’d brought them to Fitzbillies, but then you callously abandoned me after that rather spectacular kiss. So now I keep them with me at all times.” Eli taps his jacket pocket. “To catch you whenever you’re ready to see sense.”
“Mocking the target—is this some sort of reverse psychology strategy?” Scarlet asks. “Or are you actually trying to talk yourself out of a sale?”
“Neither, I’m just having a little fun.” Eli pulls out a chair to sit at the cluttered table. “Okay, let’s start again.”
Scarlet waits before sitting and taking the papers from him. For several studious minutes, she scans them, attempting to look as if she knows what she’s doing.
“You only need to read one,” he says. “They’re duplicates.”
“I know that,” Scarlet snaps. “Now shush.”
Eli sits back in his chair, looking like a mischievous child. His large eyes seem even bigger, his lips moist, his smile wide, his two rows of perfectly straight white teeth . . . Scarlet pulls her eyes from his face and forces herself to focus on the page.
When she’s finally finished, she looks up. “All right.” She folds her arms. “How about adding another five thousand to your offer?”
“I’m afraid I’m not authorized to do that,” Eli says. “I’d have to go back to my bosses and run it past them.”
Scarlet regards him. “Oh, I’m sure you’ve been given a little wiggle room.”
“You’re a sly one, aren’t you?” Eli gives her a coy smile, then plucks a fountain pen from his pocket, adjusts the figure—in purple ink, on both documents—and signs the alterations.
Scarlet takes a deep breath. “The pen.”
“Don’t you want to get your solicitor to look those over first?”
“Give me the pen.”
Their fingers touch, igniting a single spark.
“What was that?”
“Static,” Scarlet says, focusing on the papers. Then she stops, pen poised, and looks up. “Ten thousand.”
“Sorry?”
“I think you’ve been authorized to increase the offer by ten thousand.”
Eli says nothing.
“Am I right?”
Still he says nothing. But she can tell, from the surprise in his eyes, that he is.
“Excellent,” she says. “Do that, and we’ve definitely got a deal.”
She slides the papers and pen back across the table. He takes them.
“You drive a hard bargain, Miss Thorne,” Eli says, grinning a wolfish grin.
7:45 p.m.—Goldie
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
We’re standing behind the restaurant bar in the hotel. He’s crouched beside the fridges, doing the stock count. I’m standing on a stool, half-heartedly dusting the bottles of Bollinger lining the glass shelves above.
“It’s not,” I say.
Leo stops counting and looks up. “Have you ever wanted something you couldn’t have?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. A million things, I suppose. But, right now, when I feel I’ve got everything I could possibly want, it’s hard to pinpoint anything. “Anyway, I’m a thief extraordinaire,” I say in a stage whisper. “Whatever I want, I take.”
Leo laughs, but it’s not his usual laugh. It’s heavier, weighed down by his thoughts, whatever they are.
“Even you aren’t that good a thief,” he says. “No one is.”
We fall into silence.
“I was thinking about what you said the other day,” I say.
He waits.
“About me saying ‘I don’t know’ a lot.”
Leo nods.
“Well, I feel like I . . . maybe I used to know. When I was a little kid.” I search for words, trying to find my meaning. Leo waits. “Before things happened that I didn’t know could happen. Things that . . .”
“It’s the reason you flinched when I first touched you,” he suggests.
I nod once.
He doesn’t ask me anything more, only reaches for my hand and holds it gently between his palms.
11:47 p.m.—Liyana
She’s done it. Liyana has been brave, has faced life head-on. She’s filled out fifteen more job applications, stopped stalling Kumiko with texts and finally called to arrange a meeting tomorrow. She’s also seeing Mazmo on Saturday night. So, twelve hours to prepare a winning argument for her girlfriend and four days to prepare an