“Why is Doe with her mother and not you?” I ask, noticing his step falter when I break the silence.
“Because children belong with their mothers.”
I don’t believe that. I don’t believe he believes that. He said it himself—he’s impulsive. He’s the first man to admit to being dangerous, and it must go some way to explain why he’s the every-other-weekend father I know he despises being.
“Is there more to it than that?”
“Of course. Here.” He stops us and turns to open a door, gesturing for me to enter first. “Sit opposite the desk.”
Crossing the room, I take a seat where Cooper instructed and wait for him to join me. When he sits opposite me, he places two bottles of water between us and hands me an apple.
“I shouldn’t have made you skip breakfast,” he breathes, his tone full of remorse. “I’ll make sure we have a big lunch.”
“I’m fine, really,” I lie, taking a greedy bite of the apple. “I rarely eat breakfast at home.”
“This is your home,” he growls, looking away from me to flip up the lid of his laptop. “And you will eat breakfast here.”
“Is it because you can’t make sure she eats breakfast?” I ask, my mouth watering as I swallow the apple down. “Doe?”
“Yes.”
“Because you don’t know if your wife feeds her?”
“Ex-wife,” is all he says.
Cooper’s office comes to life with a few clicks from him. Screens light up around the room, some showing news channels from various countries, others on empty pools; some on homes, in garages and home pools.
“What is all this?”
“It’s my job.”
“You said you build shit.”
He shrugs. “I do. I build profiles.”
“On…?”
“Swimmers.”
The floor beneath me disappears, even as I sit on the plush desk chair. My stomach sinks, my heart swells, and realisation makes me gasp.
“You’re a spy.”
Cooper laughs, throwing his head back and gripping the top of his towel so he doesn’t lose it. At this moment in time, even Cooper naked couldn’t make me warm to him and fight off the surging betrayal washing over me again and again when I realise what he does for a living.
“I’m not a spy.”
“What else would you call a man who spies on competition?” I snap. “Just because you don’t wear a suit and have a licence to kill, it doesn’t mean you’re not a spy.”
“Take a fucking chill pill and shut up,” he barks, reaching for a remote and flicking it behind him to change the channel on one of the screens.
A workshop flicks onto the screen and I’m drawn to the sparks flying, the men in boiler suits working from blueprints laid out on stainless steel worktops, and conveyer belts of what look like pieces of scrap metal.
“I don’t have parents,” he confesses, momentarily distracting me from the work on the screen and the anger in my heart. “My father was killed in a case of mistaken identity, and my mother killed herself soon after…” he bows his head, grumbling something to himself. He’s rehearsing his next words before he says them. “Because she couldn’t cope with me.”
“What do you mean?” I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Cooper.”
“I spent a lot of time moving from home to home. I had to move across states because no foster families wanted a fucked up kid coming to stay.”
“Cooper…”
“I met a kid called Chase. He was an absolute fucking idiot, but he was the only friend I ever had. After me and how I turned out, my parents didn’t have another kid. Didn’t want to risk having any like me. I’ve always been glad. Even after they died, I was glad I was alone.”
“Why?”
“I’m getting to that.” He smirks, but it’s faint. It’s weak and exposes more vulnerability. Something in the way his eyes glass over and a sense of selflessness finds him, has me leaning closer and wanting to comfort him from his own mind. “I always wanted a sibling. Someone else who went through the same shit as me, just so I didn’t have to face it alone. But…if there was another like me, someone who shared my blood…well-” He drags a hand through his hair. “-I’m just glad there wasn’t anyone else going through it.”
“What happened in the homes, Coop?”
He shrugs. “The same shit you read about in the papers. Some families fed me, some didn’t. Some families ignored me, and some thought I was a punching bag that earned them a bit of extra cash. Some hated me, and some liked me a little too much. But ultimately, it was just lonely. Whenever I went to a new home, I knew it wouldn’t be long until I was being fed an excuse for why I couldn’t stay. Why I wasn’t allowed a family.”
“What did Chase do?”
“He built robots. He taught me how to build them when I did a stretch in Oregon. I was only there for a few weeks, but it was long enough to know the mechanics behind robotics. I didn’t go to school much, but I was good with physics.”
“Scientific mind.”
He nods. “Sure. It’s the way I’m wired; I need to know how things work, why they work, and how to break them.”
I know now, looking past him, that Cooper builds more than profiles. The workshop on the screen behind him is his.
“When I moved from Oregon to Idaho—they just stuck me in the next place on the map—I found swimming. The school I went to had a pool and I spent every minute I could in there. I lived in a shitty little walk-up and shared a room with four other foster kids while the adults got high and drank the care money away. So I didn’t stay very often…I don’t know if they even noticed when I wasn’t there. They always called me Claire.” He laughs, and I smile. Even the pain of his childhood has fond memories. It isn’t lost on me that being called Claire by the people who were in charge of your welfare should not be a happy memory. Cooper made what he could out of his time in care. “I wouldn’t have cared if it were at least a fucking boy’s name. I was sixteen by this point…definitely not a chick.”
“Aww, but you make such a good Claire.”
“That’s what I kept telling Chase when we met up at the weekends. I used to slip into the luggage holdall of busses and ride back to Oregon. Both homes were close to state lines—they really just shoved me in the next available bed.”
“You didn’t get caught?”
“Sure. Several times. But I just walked the rest of the way if they kicked me off the bus.”
“So you had a friend in Chase.”
“I did. He introduced me to my swimming coach. You know your coach has a half-brother?”
I nod. “You trained with Brad.”
“Yeah, and I met Rob a few times when I came to the UK to train. I got pretty good. Most kids train from the age of five. I was eleven years behind but I caught up, starting swimming for the town, then the county, then eventually the state.”
“And then the country.”
“Yeah.” He sighs, the reminder of his time at the top keeping the pain of his past close by. “Brad knew I didn’t have the grades for college. The only option for me not to end up a dirty junkie or small-time criminal was to swim and to own the fucking pool.”
“How does any of this lead to you being a spy, Cooper? How does it lead to you knowing what you think you do about me?”
“Our timelines are pretty much synched, caterpillar.” I want to call him out on that, but the reminder that Cooper lacks the control to not kill me at any given time keeps me subdued, my anger concealed. Shitty childhood or not, Cooper has a conscience. “I knew Rob was fucking one of his students. I found out it was you not long before the 2012 games.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“I know. Baby, you’d been swimming with him since you were six. Consensual or not, he preyed on you, he was in a position of authority, and he abused it.”
“What did you do?”
He shrugs and looks around him. His attention is wavering. I need as much information as I can g
et before he gets bored, switches off, and lets his mind steal him from me.
“I’m not sure you want to know.”
“Don’t shut down on me now.”
He stares at me, his grey eyes darkening until I can’t see where his pupils begin. Then he dips his head, shame clouding his features before he hides it from me and changes the channel on another screen.
“No!”
I stand up and launch myself across the desk, losing my towel and forcing his from him as I send us tumbling to the floor. Cooper grunts and cries out, gripping me like a vice when he realises I touched him without warning or permission. I don’t care. Straddling him, I sit up and punch him. He growls and raises his hands to protect his face.
“You recorded me?” I smack again, colliding with forearms, and I don’t stop. “You sick son of a bitch!”
“I did it for you,” he roars, sitting up and shoving me back. He clutches my throat and holds me still. “I recorded it to use it against him. Jesus, Erin.”
“You’re sick,” I spit. “You’re fucking crazy.”
Images of Rob and me together play over in my head with the memory of what happened between us. Cooper saw it all and he’s been watching me ever since.
“Caterpillar.”
“Don’t fucking call me that,” I screech, scraping at his wrists as I fight for breath and dig my nails into him until I break skin. “I’m not a fucking caterpillar. I’ll kill you. I swear to God, I’ll kill you, Cooper.”
“I haven’t finished my story.”
He shifts beneath me, his cock hard against my naked flesh. He doesn’t loosen his hold on me as he changes position, pinning me beneath him with a menacing glare.
“He had to pay. I had to make him pay for thinking he could do that.”
“So you’ve cared about me for four years?” I choke, gargling for breath.
“No. I didn’t give a fuck about you, I just wanted to punish him for taking advantage of someone vulnerable…like someone did to me once.”
He’s evil. He’s trying to manipulate me. He’s trying to force me to make excuses for his actions by feeling sorry for him.
“Did you make it up?” I snap. “Is your story a fairytale so I’d fall for more of your bullshit?”
“Every fucking word is true,” he says, loosening his grip and allowing me to draw a fraction of oxygen into my starving lungs. “So in answer to your question, yes, I’ve been sexually assaulted. I wasn’t going to let that cunt do it to anyone else. It was only after that I realised your part in the story.”
I continue to shove him, kicking and thrashing beneath him.
“It was only when I watched the recording back to capture images where your identity was concealed that I realised how much you fucking loved it.”
“It was just sex.”
“You were fifteen.”
“2008? You’ve been watching me for twelve years, Coop?”
“Don’t call me that,” he says, reminding me why when his cock twitches against my stomach. “I’ve been watching you since 2012. I had other things to worry about after you quit swimming. Brad pointed out the little slut fucking his brother, and you caught my attention.”
“You did it!”
I punch him in the stomach, forcing him to hunch over. With him disabled, I push him off me and wriggle out from under him, scrambling around to the front of the desk to grab my towel and wrap it protectively around me.
“You’re the reason why I quit.”
“It wasn’t supposed to work that way,” he says, using the desk to help him get to his feet. “I blackmailed Rob. I showed him the pictures in the Olympic Village and told him if he didn’t quit, I’d out him as a paedophile. You weren’t the only one he was fucking, Erin.”
“He made me quit!” I tear into my hair and reach for the remote. “You made him force me to quit.”
“The plan backfired, dammit.”
I scream, expelling my lungs of every ounce of air as I launch the remote at the screen, watching it crack and flicker as the images disappear. I continue lashing out on the furniture, knowing I can’t hurt Cooper without breaking the law. I shove everything from his desk, crying out as it crashes to the floor and draws my attention back to the monster in front of me.
“I got my punishment, Erin.”
“No you didn’t.”
“It was that fucking weekend I almost died.”
I stop still, staring at him as the distance between us eats up any hopes I have of breathing freely. He’s sucked everything out of the room, leaving nothing but the aching presence of my monster in its wake. I hate him. I’ve never hated anything as much as I hate him right now, because once again he’s right. I lost my career because I fucked. Cooper almost died the night he tried to get me away from him.
“What happened, Cooper?”
“I don’t feel remorse,” he says, bowing his head to contradict what he just said. “But after my conversation with Rob, something felt off. I remember the spark in my heart, the shortness of breath, the fuzz in my head like I was going to pass out. I brushed it off and went for a swim. The French team were just finishing up, and the pool was about to close, but they let me in. I swam fifteen and a half lengths before it happened.” He takes a deep breath, his hand whispering over the left side of his ribs. “I felt it like a pop, kind of like when you burst a balloon. It was like a hurricane inside me.” I edge closer and cover his hand with mine. I remember the tsunami rushing into my lungs, while the air had rushed out of his. “I froze. It was agony, Erin. I wanted to die there and then—I couldn’t take the pain of my own body turning on me. Every breath I took was excruciating. Every time I tried to move, I was pinned to the spot. Swimming saved me but that night, it tried to kill me. I forgot how to kick, how to swipe the water to stay afloat. I just panicked and began to drown. The air escaping mixed with the water going in. I didn’t know how to fix myself. I didn’t know how to survive. I didn’t know how to escape the punishment.” Removing my hand, he places it by my side. “Someone from the French team saw me. I remember being pulled from the water before the world went black. I don’t remember anything for a week after that.”
“Then I guess we both lost.” I sigh, a single tear falling without permission. “You ruined me, Cooper. It was already over, in the past, and you brought it back to ruin my future.”
“Karma, caterpillar.” I growl at his ridiculous pet name. “I’ve paid for my condition my entire life and it didn’t stop after ruining your career.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve been obsessed with you since I was sixteen years old. I’ve fixated on you, on everything I could find about you because I couldn’t get enough. I crashed when I saw the article in the newspaper announcing your contract breach and quick retirement. After so many years, and blowing my chance to meet you and do things…properly, the night I did what I did, I thought I’d never see you again. I couldn’t never see you again. I just-” He drags his hands through his hair, standing in front of me painfully erect, devastated, and ashamed of both. “I walked out on Doe once I could breathe again.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Everything!” He sighs, bending to pick his towel up and wrap it around him. “It has everything to do with you.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The only way I could be with Kate was to imagine you. The only way I’ve been able to be with any woman—ever—was to imagine it was you. I replaced her pills with mine, so she wasn’t protected. I tricked her into pregnancy because it was the only way I could stay here, close to you. I knew if I stayed with her, after you disappeared, I’d hurt her. I knew once I did, Doe would be taken from me forever. I knew my life was over because I’d ruined yours.”
“That’s why you took me.”
“That’s why I took you. I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t give a fuck about love, because I know you’ll never love me. I know I will suffer for the rest of my life
for what I wanted to do to you, but it was the only way.”
“You could have approached me.”
“And said what?” he snaps, beginning to gather his things off the floor and place them back on the desk. I want to help him, only to swipe them off again when he’s placed them back in exactly the same place they were before. “‘Hi, Erin. I’m fucking crazy, I pop pills like Tic-Tacs just to keep me in line, but come and stay with me so I don’t kill someone.’?”
“We could have been friends.”
“I can’t have friends.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“There’s nothing right with me.”
“Why can’t you have custody of Doe?”
“Because I have a certificate of insanity that means I’m more of an unfit parent than her fucking mother.”
“Is she a drug addict because you left her?”
He shakes his head. “She was a coke-head when I met her. I just didn’t care.”
“And Doe?”
“She’s my fucking life. You both are. She should be yours.”
I take a step towards him, my heart swelling until my ribs feel like they’ll burst when I notice him trying to perfect his desk. He wraps his towel around him again, and then rewraps it. He’s panicking. Whatever is happening in his mind, he can’t cope with it. He’s crouching on the floor when I reach him, gathering his papers and rearranging them in the right order. I get to my knees next to him and place my hand over his on the pile.
Butterfly Page 15