MORE THAN HE PAID FOR

Chapter 8: Cora

Leaving Matt to rot in our former apartment, I might have strutted into Jen’s apartment like a heavyweight champ, but the euphoria didn’t last long.

“You sure you don't want me to go over there and let him out? Or…ring his mom or something?” Jen asked. “There's revenge and there's criminal activity.”

“Erm, Matt is the criminal here, not me?” I pointed out quickly.

“You’re the one with enough medical training to know better,” raising her eyebrow.

It might be my first night as her roommate but we have four years of studying, lectures, exams and stress under our belts. We’ve been each others 3am confidantes and exam buddies, and right now, she’s my guardian angel.

WIth her long black hair scooped up high into a messy bun, Jen’s brown eyes burn into me across the huge corner sofa.

A much softer, lighter brown than Ash’s. Who I should not be thinking of anyway.

“Cora-”

“He was cheating on me! Waltzing back home on our anniversary all innocent when I saw him kissing another woman!”

“Why didn't you go over and confront him when you found out then? Why the big scheme?”

There isn't a good answer to that.

Because I had my head turned by champagne and gorgeous dark eyes? I have a weakness pretending to be something I’m not? I have issues with handling rejection and love the taste of vengeance?

“I just couldn't,” I sighed before flopping further into the purple velveteen sofa.“Your apartment is the snuggliest place on earth. I feel like I'm your new pet cat.”

“Our apartment,” Jen said with a smile, throwing me a huge chunky-knitted blanket. Over wine, chips and many many chocolates I proudly announced to Jen that this was just the start of my life.

Except there was no strutting down the street in new clothes. No glow-up.

If anything, my life got worse.

I had to delete every single bit of social media and change my number. Once Matt-escaped his cave of faecal horrors he told everyone what I had done.

All our shared friends took his side.

Jen kept quiet even if her soulful eyes whispered ‘I told you so.’

He even rang up my boss, costing me my shitty side-job in a bar whilst I studied for my exams. By the end of our first week as roommates, life was looking pretty bleak. Handing me a sandwich and a sympathetic smile. “I love you girl but-”

“I know, love doesn’t pay rent,” I sighed. It’s not on Jen to prop up my miserable existence. Cold hard cash is required to stay in her cosy little nest, no matter how sweet her nature.

“They’re hiring at my place?”

I groaned. Teaching first aid to sweaty men in suits and prim little secretaries is not my idea of a medical degree well used.

“It’s not that bad. We might even get paired up together. Save the world one sweaty conference room at a time.”

“If any of them joke about needing the kiss of life on their groin am I allowed to punch them in the throat?”

“Cora…No.”

“Then I’ll have to think about it,” I smiled back, whilst already forming a different plan.

A few days later, a rainy, useless kind of day I had to pretend to Jen I was visiting family and make the fifty-mile drive back to the Hotel Belmont. Dressed in a smart black tunic dress, I felt like a secret agent ducking my way towards the cash-out desk and sliding the five chips over.

It was impossible not to feel weird. The gray-eyed, miserable cashier raised his eyes, but paid me out after half a dozen ID checks and questions. The whole time I checked around wondering if Ash won these chips on blackjack, poker or roulette. Did he have more? Was I just a treat to celebrate a lucky win?

Maybe I’m losing my mind. But out of morbid curiosity, I took the elevator up to the cocktail bar.

Strode the same path Matt did that night. I watched him cheat in this very room, surrounded by taupe soft-furnishings and expensive perfume.

It’s like performing an autopsy. Checking whats under the hood. Three years together. Countless dates, plans, conversations. s*x, snuggles and kisses.

I guess I’m checking if a functioning heart remained in my bitter little chest. But there was not a twitch of emotion. Numb.

Before they could ask me to leave I wandered over to the large, tinted windows and looked straight ahead at the other bar where I sat in orange silk. It’s a much brighter, tackier space from here. The cheaper hotel relying on fake gold and marble.

But it makes my heart leap out of my chest.

I can see it all in my head. Every moment. From the second he took his seat. To staring at me in the reflection of the glass. I want to go back there. I want to grab his shoulders and demand to know why the hell he said he wanted more, only to leave like a ghost.

When I see a well-built man with dark hair stride into the bar, I briefly hallucinate that Ash has returned, doing the same lonesome. It’s not. Of course it isn’t.

But try telling my body that.

In a heartbeat my memory switches from the bar, to the hotel room. To the kisses, the touches and teasing. How f*****g good it felt, despite all the half-truths surrounding us in that bedroom. I have to close my eyes at the memory of how it felt to take his full length so deep inside me I had to pause halfway, stroking myself in and out of him, taking a little more length each time.

My n*****s pebble and to anyone watching me I probably look like I’m about to faint.

Goddamnit.

I need to get a grip. This money is to pay off my student loans. It’s the stain of a mistake. Not some gift. Not something to burn through because I’m moping through a break-up. Once I get my exam results, I can start getting applications in for further studies, maybe some hospital placements.

Walking out of the Belmont, back into my car I quickly call Jen before I change my mind. “You still think you can get me into the corporate first-aid training?”

“Yes, absolutely! Oh we’re going to have so much fun!” Jen squealed.

“I’m pretty sure you’re lying to me,” fighting the smile that tugs at the corners of my lips. I can just imagine her in some gigantic sweater bouncing in our pink and cream coloured kitchen.

“Okay, yay we’re going to earn money and not be homeless?”

“YAY!” breaking us both into laughter.

“How is your family, good trip?”

“I’m done now, going to head home now,” I say quietly, refusing to look back at either hotel, accelerating away with fifty grand in my bank account.

I have to adapt. If Matt is going to be a distant memory, then so must Ash. There will be other handsome strangers. Some of them might even look at me twice. But not in this vile uniform.

A purple and bright green nylon nightmare of a blouse, tucked into black pants. It’s not a good look. Everytime we put it on Jen and I share a mixture of grimaces and laughs.

But this week is going to be a good one. Maybe even our last one. We both passed, it’s time to start looking seriously at our future careers. I’m leaning towards paramedic, emergency medicine. Jen wants to go into senior nursing.

Bu for this week, some risk assurance company has booked. With enough employees for the two of us to work as a pair, we couldn’t turn the money down.

I hand Jen a coffee, scanning the booking email. “We’re starting at the bottom up. Literally, ground floor Monday, CEO and directors offices Friday.”

“What’s it called again?” Jen murmurs sleepily.

“Hawthorne Risk Management,” putting the address into the sat-nav.