as it rolled over, luxuriating in his touch.
‘Do you want to stroke him?’
Edward was letting Isaac approach the creature in his own time, and Charlotte smiled as Isaac slowly reached out.
‘He’s growling.’ Isaac snatched his hand away.
‘No, that’s purring. It means he likes you.’ Edward drew back a little, letting Isaac stroke Archie.
‘Be gentle with him, sweetie. Remember that he’s much smaller than you are.’ Charlotte stayed at her post by the door, still not sure whether to accept the quiet welcome of this place.
‘Would Isaac like to watch some TV? While we talk?’
‘Oh. Yes, he might do. Thank you.’ Charlotte took the remote that Edward proffered and found a channel that Isaac liked, turning the sound down to a quiet murmur.
Edward set a low coffee table in front of the screen, put Isaac’s frothed milk onto it and opened a cupboard, drawing out the molecule modelling kit.
Charlotte grinned. ‘You’re going to let him play with your toys?’
‘If I share, then maybe he’ll let me have a go with his ray gun. Will he be all right here?’
‘He’ll be fine. Look, he’s already made a new friend.’ Charlotte nodded towards Isaac, who was talking confidingly to Archie, stroking him carefully.
‘Good. Well, we can talk through here.’
There was a door at the far end of the room, by the piano, and Edward disappeared through it, leaving Charlotte to get Isaac out of his jacket and settle him in front of the television.
She took one last look at Isaac, and then took a deep breath. Time to face Edward now. Now that keeping up appearances was no longer an option it was going to have to be the truth. She just hoped that he would understand.
He was sitting at a table in the large kitchen, studying the coffee in front of him as if there was some solution in there. She could tell him the answer to that. She’d tried it enough times herself. She mustered a smile, and sat down opposite him.
‘So who’s Archie named after? Archimedes?’ She pulled her own coffee towards her and peeled off the plastic lid. It was smooth and strong and the caffeine hit her straight between the eyes.
He looked up, suddenly aware of her presence. ‘Yes, actually. Although it’s a mispronunciation, of course. Am I that predictable?’
‘No. I thought of the most unlikely thing I could and suggested that—’ She broke off as he smiled at her. That smile did all kinds of things to her, none of which were going to be of much help at the moment.
‘So.’ His gaze dropped to his cup again. ‘You’re in trouble, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. I am.’ She should have realised that Edward would cut straight to the point. He wasn’t much for small talk. Charlotte hadn’t anticipated how much of a relief it would be. ‘It isn’t what you think.’
He looked up at her. Those deep blue eyes were almost irresistible. ‘I’m not thinking anything.’
‘You’re always thinking something, aren’t you?’
A trace of a grin tugged at his lips. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’
Suddenly she wanted to defend herself from all the implications of what Edward had seen and from whatever conclusions that agile, razor-sharp mind of his was working its way towards. ‘The debts aren’t mine, Edward.’
‘I know. It was your husband they were looking for …’
‘He’ll be my ex-husband soon. Very soon, if everything goes as planned.’
Maybe she should have been a little less vehement about that. Said it a little more as if it was a matter of fact rather than an avowal of innocence. Edward seemed far more at home with facts than emotions.
‘Have you asserted your separation financially?’
‘Yes. There are no more joint accounts and credit cards. The house and the mortgage are in my name.’
‘Then you have nothing to worry about. As long as you’ve applied for a Deed of Separation, and you’re not jointly liable for any of his debts …’
‘How do you know all this?’ The question had occurred to Charlotte on her doorstep, but she’d pushed it to the back of her mind.
‘I have a degree in Law.’
‘As well as being a surgeon?’
‘I … um … I was advised to wait until I was eighteen to go to medical school. I was at a loose end.’
‘So …’ The gossip was correct, then. ‘You are a genius?’
‘They called it “gifted” when I was a kid. Now it’s called High Learning Potential.’
The twitch of his lips told Charlotte that they were just labels, which Edward didn’t set much store by.
‘I don’t need to be a genius to know that there’s more to your situation than what you’ve told me.’
There was a lot more. Charlotte grinned at him almost automatically, the way she did whenever anyone offered anything that sounded a bit too much like sympathy. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah, really. And you’re not going to convince me otherwise with that smile, either. Even if it is a very nice one.’
Stop now. One thing at a time. Having Edward as a concerned friend was already turning her universe upside down. It was a bit too soon for compliments.
‘You’re right, that’s not all. My husband had … I think it’s probably fair to say has … a gambling addiction.’
‘And that’s why you left him?’
‘I wasn’t that smart. I didn’t know about it until the bailiffs started calling. The first one was the day after Isaac’s second birthday.’ She sighed. She didn’t need to go into details; he was getting the gist. ‘I started out by paying his debts. He promised me that he’d stopped, and I believed him.’
‘But he lied?’ He was blunt, but there was no brutality there. Just the truth.
‘Yes, he just kept on racking up the debts. Internet gaming sites, card games … He maxed out our credit cards and I dipped into the money I’d inherited from my parents just to keep a roof over our heads.’ Charlotte gulped in a breath of air. This time she was going to do things better. She had to for Isaac’s sake.
‘But you couldn’t hold it together.’ Another flat, emotionless statement of the inevitable facts.
‘I did for a while. Then he left. That was eighteen months ago. I sold the house, paid off all the debts, and managed to scrape enough together for a deposit on a smaller house. Made a new start for Isaac and me.’
Edward
