seemed to bleed into her whole life. It was captivating—tantalising, even—but it was a language that he didn’t know how to speak. However much she tried not to disrupt his life, however well-behaved Isaac was, the two of them had the power to turn his well-ordered existence upside down.
Archie roused himself, stretched, and joined him on a restless errand to the kitchen, which had no particular purpose other than his need to go somewhere. Edward poured himself a glass of wine from the bottle they’d opened at dinner, leaving Archie to pounce on his food bowl as if he hadn’t eaten in years, and wandered back into the sitting room. The book that he’d abandoned in favour of going to talk to Charlotte still lay on the sofa, and he picked it up, flipping it open. This, at least, he knew how to handle.
CHARLOTTE KNEW THAT Edward would be here somewhere. She hated that she needed to see him so badly, but she had nowhere else to go. She slipped through the reception area, avoiding the last stragglers on their way out of the clinic at 200 Harley Street, and ran up the stairs.
Edward’s office door was closed and locked, but she could see his jacket, slung over the back of his chair. There was only one other place that he could be.
She left her coat and bag on one of the chairs in the closed-up nurses’ station and took the stairs down to the basement. The gym was in darkness, but she could see lights shining through the glass doors which led to the pool.
Suddenly her courage failed her. She’d already accepted too much from Edward. Already allowed herself to get too involved with his life. He was quiet and kind, creative and a little quirky. But then her husband had been quiet and kind, too. She’d thought that she could see hidden depths in him, where actually there had just been an angry void that he’d sought to fill with the thrill he got from risking everything on the cards.
Charlotte turned. She knew that Edward was here, and that at this time in the evening he was probably alone. Walking away was the best thing to do. The only thing to do.
She’d go upstairs to fetch her coat. Then come back down again, using the back stairs, so that no one would see her.
‘What are you doing here?’
She’d been so lost in her own emotions she hadn’t even seen that there was anyone on the stairs below her. Instinctively she turned to run upstairs, but it was too late. Edward had seen her.
It had been him in the swimming pool. His dark hair was still wet, slicked back from his face, and his white shirt was open at the neck. Not sure what to say or do, Charlotte focussed on the logo splashed across the gym bag that was slung over his shoulder.
‘Charlotte...?’ He was standing two steps below her now, and they were face to face. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ Everything. ‘I just forgot something and popped back...’
The whole difficulty of dealing with Edward was that excuses were practically impossible to get away with—unless, of course, you had the time to construct a well-thought-out, fully featured alibi.
He raised one eyebrow in disbelief and shooed her up the stairs.
‘Come to my office.’ His keys were in his hand already, and he strode past the deserted nurses’ station and unlocked the door, motioning her in. He slung his bag on the floor, in the corner, and sat down in his high-backed leather chair.
‘I feel as if I’m being hauled up in front of the beak.’ Small talk was the one thing that she was better at than Edward. Her only chance.
His brow clouded, but then he refused to take the bait. ‘Why don’t you sit down, then?’
‘Do I need to?’
‘You don’t need to do anything. It’s an invitation.’
He leaned back in his chair, propping one foot on the desk, and Charlotte slumped down into one of the visitors’ chairs.
‘So...what is it, then?’ One last try at putting the ball in his court. Making Edward talk first.
‘I...um...’
He seemed suddenly hesitant. Maybe she was going to get her way after all. They could go home, she’d make dinner, and then on the excuse of an early night she could go and cry into her pillow. That was the thing she should have done in the first place—not come running to Edward every time something went wrong.
He tried again. ‘There seems to be something wrong. I was wondering how the meeting with my father went...’ He backtracked slightly. ‘Not in detail. I wouldn’t presume to interfere with a confidential exchange between lawyer and client...’
There was no such thing as a simple question in Edward’s vocabulary; there was always some accompanying detail. The way his mind worked made Charlotte smile, however bad things were. ‘No. I’m sure you wouldn’t.’
‘It’s just a broad brush enquiry. About whether you’re happy as a result of...whatever it was that was said.’
‘Your father was very kind.’
Straight spikes of hair had begun to fall across his forehead, and when he smiled it looked almost rakish.
‘Good. And apart from being kind...?’
‘He’s offered to represent me, and I’ve accepted. I gave him some details on the phone yesterday, and he’s already got an investigator to follow up on them. He’s thought of everything.’
Edward nodded. ‘I imagine he has. There’s no need to worry.’
Her heart was almost tearing itself apart with panic. ‘No. I’m sure there isn’t.’
He got to his feet, unhooking his jacket from the back of his chair. ‘I guess I should call your bluff and just take you home, then.’
‘Peter applied for a loan in Isaac’s name. One of those quickie ones you can get on the internet.’ Charlotte couldn’t help it. She’d blurted out what she’d come to say—what she knew that Edward couldn’t mend, but somehow wanted him to know.
He slumped back down into his chair, shock on his face. ‘Did he get it?’
‘No, thank goodness. And your father’s going to do all he can to protect Isaac from that happening again.’ Charlotte could feel her shoulders beginning to droop, but the effort of keeping her spine straight was finally too much to do anything about it.
‘And what about the phone bill that you were being chased for?’
‘He’s putting pressure on the phone company to leave me alone. It seems that there’s a bit of a mix-up with names and I might be facing a few more where that one came from.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘A mix-up? How could that have involved you?’
She’d faced a pair of blue eyes and a sharp legal mind once already this afternoon. Edward’s were as kind as his father’s, but somehow much more challenging. The truth had been easier the first time around.
‘When Peter and I were living together...’
