Chapter 30 Charlie
CHARLIE
Tess opens the front door and smiles. “I didn’t think you’d come,” she says.
“Neither did I,” says Charlie, his jaw tensing as he looks around the quiet street, before stepping over the threshold.
“Do you want a tea or coffee?” she asks as she walks down the hall.
“No,” he says sharply.
“Look, I’m sorry about Freya and the weekend. I know what I did was wrong, but I honestly never meant any harm by it. She seemed to need a friend.”
Charlie resists asking how good a friend she’d been, imagining the pair of them swapping stories and sharing secrets.
“I’m not here to discuss my wife.”
Tess eyes him warily. “What else is there to discuss?”
“You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“Look, you started this,” says Tess, coming toward him. “If you didn’t want to play, you shouldn’t have called it on.”
She’s dangerously close and Charlie feels like he’s walked into some kind of trap. “I don’t even know why I came,” he says, feeling an oppressive need to get out. He turns to the door.
“We both know why you’re here,” says Tess, grabbing hold of his arm.
He shakes her off, biting down on his lip to stop him from doing what every nerve ending in his body is telling him to do.
“You said you had something to show me,” he snaps, his impatience getting the better of him.
She considers him for a moment, as if asking herself if she should push him any further. He lets out a sigh of relief when she decides to move away.
Watching her scroll through her phone is akin to watching a torturer select a pain-inflicting device. He knows it’s going to hurt—he just doesn’t know how much. Though when she turns the screen toward him and slides each image across, even he couldn’t have imagined how deep the cut would go.