My smile fades. ‘It’s not her fault. She’s a product of her time. It’s not Philip’s either—not really. He grew up in my shadow; our father always sided with me...doted on me. I was his last connection to my mother and... Well, Philip’s mother also struggled with the same inferiority. She was never good enough either. But that was made worse by her nature.’
‘Her nature?’
‘She’s always out for what she can get—Clara too.’
‘Clara?’
‘Philip’s wife.’ I grimace as I say it. I can’t help it. Her callous, money-grabbing ways are so obvious to everyone but Philip. ‘I think he’d grant her anything to keep her happy, to keep her love, if you can call it that.’
‘And you really excuse Philip’s behaviour because of them?’
I shrug. I know it’s hard for him to accept—for anyone to accept, really—but we grew up together. I saw my brother’s suffering first-hand and I see his continued suffering now.
He meets my eye briefly. ‘So what will you tell them when they ask where you’ve been tonight?’
‘Same as this morning. I stayed at a friend’s... And I’ll tell them that every night this week if you’ll have me.’
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN COCO SAID every night, I didn’t believe her. I took it as some sort of ploy to get the conversation off Philip and onto us.
But it’s now Thursday, five days since the charity ball, and it’s the seventh night we’ve spent together in a row.
I trail my hands along her bare side as she curls into me and presses a kiss to my chest.
‘I think you know my every sweet spot,’ she murmurs sleepily, and my lips find her hair, breathing in her familiar scent as I kiss the ruffled mass.
‘I should hope so.’
It’s one thirty in the morning. She’ll be up again in five hours. Just like she has been every weekday morning, so that she can get back home, hit the gym and visit her grandmother before she starts another rammed day.
She d
oesn’t rest unless she’s sleeping—a fact I’ve ribbed her about—but she simply shrugs it off.
‘Now, sleep,’ I say, stretching out my free arm to tap off the bedside lamp.
She’s gone in seconds. There’s a telltale twitch to her body, a steady rhythm to her breathing. I’m not, though. The longer this goes on for, the bigger my lie—no, my omission—gets.
I tell myself I’m looking after her, putting her best interests first. But the more I care, the more I know my reasoning is twisted. Because, yes, I’m doing this for her, but I can’t deny how much it works for me too. How much I’m enjoying our time together. No matter how borrowed that time is.
And I know it is. Philip is getting twitchier by the day. There’s only so long I can keep stringing him along. But I’m getting closer to understanding him. I have enough information to understand the poor state of his finances now, and to know that his wife’s spending habits are exacerbating the situation.
I know the family business is struggling too, and that he’s under pressure to resign. It appears that Philip has a loose tongue, and the information his golf buddies have been privy to over the years has benefitted them greatly—his company not so much.
How he didn’t see the pattern, I don’t know, but it’s enough to see that pressure to resign becoming an insistence. And Philip won’t want that. To be forced out of the company his father left to him would be the ultimate humiliation. And it’s the kind of ammunition I need to ensure he stays the hell away from Coco.
And the guy doesn’t need her money, surely. Yes, it doesn’t come cheap managing the estate he stands to inherit with his title, but there’s the Lauren money too. The private wealth, investments, property, including the London residence in which they spend the majority of their time alongside their ailing grandmother. That house alone is worth a fortune even by today’s standards. But it truly begs the question: Why sink so low as to go after his sister’s money anyway? If that truly is his aim as Coco seems to surmise.
Maybe there’s more to it than just money? Resentment, perhaps? By her own admission she was always her father’s favoured child, and her parents’ marriage was happy, full of love. The same can’t be said for the household Philip was raised in.
Or maybe a guy like Philip can never have enough money.
I’d certainly seen enough of that in my time. Clive was a prime example.
But what did it matter at the end of the day? I’m almost ready to turn the tables on Philip. To fight dirt with dirt and get him off Coco’s case.
Then I can tackle the truth of what this is between us and whether we have a chance—because it’s getting harder by the day to imagine life without her in it.