Page 75 of From Now On

He leans into her, she stretches towards him.

‘I’ve never…’ she touches his face. ‘I’ve never felt the way I have with anyone else but you.’

There are tears in her eyes, his too, because he wants to kiss her, to tell her that he feels the same but he has only today made a promise to Nina to stay single and however much he wants Pippa he just can’t be with her.

But, oh, how he longs to be.

‘I’m not ready,’ is all he can say because although he doesn’t believe she will feel any resentment towards the children if he says that they’re not ready he doesn’t want to say anything that might possibly affect her relationship with them.

They need her.

‘But I can wait, Charlie.’

‘I’m so sorry, Pippa. I love you dearly as a friend but…’ he can’t finish the lie but he’s said enough. He doesn’t want her to put her life on hold the way he has put his romantic life on hold because who knows how long it will take to earn Nina’s trust back.

Months?

Years?

It isn’t fair.

He deserves what Pippa says next, even if it breaks his heart.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Duke

‘Have you heard from Pippa?’ Charlie asks casually over dinner.

‘Yeah, she sent me a picture of her parents’ house in Scotland when she got there,’ Duke passes Charlie his mobile.

Nina peers over Charlie’s shoulder. ‘She sent me a different one.’ She doesn’t offer to show Charlie, instead stabbing at the congealing mess on her plate that Charlie has reassured them is a vegetable lasagne. Duke takes another small bite. Should lasagne be this… crunchy? Crunchy and slimy at the same time. How is that possible? Perhaps even Gordon Ramsay would be impressed, not by the meal but by Charlie defying science.

‘Hasn’t she sent you any photos, Charlie?’ Duke takes back his phone.

‘I haven’t heard from her but I expect she’ll show me herself when she gets back in a few days.’

‘She’s there for two weeks.’ Nina clatters her cutlery on her plate, giving up on her food.

‘Is there something wrong?’ Duke thinks Charlie should know how long she’s away for. What else is Pippa keeping from him? Why had she suddenly decided to visit her parents?

‘She isn’t sick is she?’ Duke reaches for Billie. Is Pippa going todietoo?

‘No, she’s fine but—’ Charlie glances out of the window, the wet streaks snaking down the panes making patterns ‘—Scotland has an amazing history you know, we should go one day. You might learn about William Wallace in History.’

‘We’re doing the Great Fire of London at the moment. Evie got into trouble because instead of answering the questions on the paper we were given she wrote “Instead of the past we should be more concerned with the future of the planet” in capital letters.’

Evie has taught him a lot about the environment; she knows more than Mum even did, but still she wouldn’t go away for two weeks without contacting him.

‘You and Pippaarestill friends?’

‘Of course.’ Charlie gives a fake parenting-book grin. Duke knows he is hiding something but that’s okay because Duke is hiding things too.

The fact he hates school.

The real reason he doesn’t play his sax anymore – he had told Charlie he’d grown out of music but it’s because whenever he tries to play loneliness crawls up his throat and blocks his breath.

That he saw Nina kissing her hand and it was the grossest thing ever.

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