It changes every time.’
She nodded. Walked over to him. ‘Will you play it again?’
‘No.’ She couldn’t lure him in like that. If the music insisted on betraying him, then he’d stick to other people’s compositions. ‘I mean...I need to think about it a bit more.’
She nodded and he beckoned her over. This time she sat down next to him on the piano stool as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
‘Would you like something else?’
‘If you want.’ She smiled. ‘Whatever you want.’
‘Your turn to choose.’
She grinned. ‘What was it you were playing the other night?’ She hummed a few chords, her voice clear and tuneful.
‘You’ve got a good ear. Most people don’t get that bit right.’ He reproduced the chords she’d sung and she smiled, singing along with the music.
He’d played this song thousands of times before. Kathy had liked this one, too, but it had never felt like this. Never as if he was caressing someone with the music. Never so head-swimmingly erotic.
He hadn’t thought about Kathy in years. If asked, he would have said that he’d forgotten her, but it seemed that she’d just lain dormant in his memory, waiting to emerge and reprimand him for having ignored the lesson she’d taught him.
‘What’s the matter?’
Charlotte was closer now, and Edward realised that he’d stopped playing.
He shrugged. ‘This song reminds me of...someone I used to know.’
‘Should I be sorry?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It was a long time ago. When I was at university.’
‘Which time?’
‘The second. Kathy was a medical student.’
She nodded. ‘First love?’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’
It had been more like a first friendship, really. Kathy had been quiet, studious, so like him that everyone had reckoned they were made for each other and it was just a matter of time before they got married.
When she’d left him, citing a lack of emotional commitment on Edward’s part as her reason, it had been proof positive to all their friends that Edward was the cold fish they’d always marked him down as being.
She nodded. ‘My first love was Isaac’s father. That didn’t work out too well.’
‘But you loved him once...’ The words almost choked Edward.
‘You know they say that love is blind?’ She looked up at him and he nodded. ‘Well, I don’t think so. I think that real love sees everything.’
‘Do you think you can really ever see everything about someone?’
‘I don’t know. In the absence of any substantive evidence either way, I’ll have to say that it’s just a theory. But they say that true love lasts, and I don’t love him now.’ Her mouth twisted, as if the joke was really on her.
Something inside him raged in bitter triumph. The impulse to tear Charlotte’s ex limb from limb de-escalated to wanting to give him a more minor, if acutely painful, set of injuries. If she didn’t care about him any more then Edward could live with that.
‘You can’t regret all of it. Isaac...’
‘Isaac’s the best thing that ever happened to me.’ She laid a finger on his shoulder, as if alerting him to something. ‘Good things do come from bad.’
‘If you make them.’
Charlotte had that ability. As for himself... Nothing good or bad had come from his time with Kathy. Just a lingering doubt about whether he really could ever commit to anyone. After everything that had happened today that doubt suddenly seemed to matter a great deal.
She was looking steadily at him. That silent interrogation which he found so difficult to withstand. Why didn’t she just ask?
‘How long were you and Kathy together?’
‘Three years.’
She nodded. Seemed to be about to ask more, and then didn’t. That was as well, really. The nagging feeling of failure whenever Kathy’s name was mentioned made him uncomfortable.
‘So we’re two of a kind, then.’ She gave a little sigh.
‘What makes you say that?’ Charlotte was warm, bubbly—everyone knew without even thinking about it that there was nothing she didn’t know about emotional commitment.
‘Both still waiting for the right one to come along.’
It felt as if the right one was sitting next to him. But that must be another mistake, because Charlotte clearly didn’t think so.
‘No. I’m not waiting.’ Edward told himself, with less conviction than normal, that he had everything he needed. His work, his books. The textured, multicoloured, harmonic flow of the world around him, perfect in all its intricacies.
‘Better watch out, then.’
He was aware that her gaze was on him.
‘Why?’
‘That’s when things sneak up on you from behind. When you least expect them.’
He turned to tell her that she was wrong—one smooth movement which began with a shake of his head, and ended with her lips. She gave a little start of surprise and then... Then she kissed him back.
Soft...slow.
Edward was taking it gently, giving her every opportunity to draw back from him, but that was the very last thing that Charlotte wanted to do. When he brushed his fingers against her neck, his thumb caressing her jaw, she felt her breath quicken.
He was all for the moment. Each touch was special and not to be rushed. Every breath was one they wouldn’t take again, unique and remarkable. His fingertips found hers, touching, sensing, and then wrapping around her hand, drawing it upwards. Holding her gaze, he brushed his lips against the back of her fingers.
There was more. Simmering beneath the surface. Waiting. He took the pace up a notch, just one, his hand on the nape of her neck, pulling her in for another kiss. This time there was an edge to it, a promise of so much more if she could only stand this long, slow preamble.
He didn’t call out her name. Made no profession of desire, or love, or even friendship. He didn’t need to. It was all there in his kiss, the heat banking and flaring until she felt herself begin to tremble.
They broke apart. Charlotte’s heart was thudding in her chest, her lungs pulling in air.
‘Does that make any difference?’
