‘Hi.’
‘How have you been?’
Freezing, actually. But spring could be like that. Maybe she ought to have turned the heating on.
‘Fine.’
‘Why are you sitting in the dark?’ He stalked over to a lamp in the corner and switched it on.
‘I didn’t realise it was so late,’ she said, blinking at the sudden light.
‘How’s Josh?’
‘He’s fine. He’s asleep.’ Finally. ‘He started crawling yesterday.’
‘Did he? I’m sorry I missed that.’
‘He’s fast,’ she said, attempting a weak smile. ‘I envy his energy.’
Finn sat down on the ottoman, leaning forwards and resting his elbows on his knees, and peered at her, his eyes narrowing slightly. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You look tired.’
‘Josh has another tooth coming through. It’s been keeping us both up at night.’
‘Where’s Mrs Gardiner?’
‘I gave her a couple of days off.’
His dark brows snapped together. ‘Why?’
‘It was her granddaughter’s birthday. She lives in Wales. Mrs G was keen to go.’ And she’d been keen to have her go because even conversation had started being hard work.
‘When is she back?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘I’ll give her a call later.’
‘How were your meetings?’
‘Fine,’ he said, his gaze locking with hers and not letting it go. ‘But I don’t want to talk about my meetings.’
Of course he didn’t. He didn’t want to talk to her about anything. Why would he?
‘I want to talk about us.’
Oh, the irony. ‘There is no us,’ she said, her chest nevertheless squeezing.
He went very still, something she couldn’t even begin to identify flickering in the depths of his eyes. ‘Do you mean that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you clearly don’t trust me.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘What?’
‘You don’t trust me.’