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She had actually thought she’d misjudged him. Seeing the monkey, she had thought that there was a different side to Charlie, a hidden, soft-hearted side.
What a joke, she thought, glancing at her phone to check the time. If he even had a heart, which she doubted, it was probably made of stone, or—
Her thoughts screeched to an emergency stop. It was nine-thirty. Surely Archie would be awake by now. So why wasn’t he babbling to himself or calling out to her?
With panic humming in her veins, she moved swiftly to the door adjoining their rooms.
Oh, no, no, no, no...
His cot was empty. Before the information from her eyes had even reached her brain she was out through the door and running down the stairs into the kitchen.
Pain was filling her chest. She was so stupid and gullible, bringing Archie here. Had she really believed that Charlie would only want him for a visit? That he wouldn’t take this opportunity to—
‘Ms Thorn...’
Cannoning into Chen, she gripped his arms.
‘Where is he? Where’s Archie?’
But before he could answer she heard Charlie speaking to someone outside, and she moved urgently towards the sound of his voice like a gundog following the scent of a rabbit.
For a moment she was blinded by the light, and then, as her eyes began to adjust, she felt her stomach start to churn with relief and anger.
Clutching his monkey, Archie was sitting in the sunshine. To be more exact, he was sitting on Charlie’s lap, his dark eyes fixed intently on his half-brother’s face.
She felt something scrape over her skin.
It was the first time she had seen the two of them together and, gazing at their identical dark heads, she felt her limbs go light.
Even before his birth she’d known Archie had half-siblings from Lao Dan’s other relationships. But when Della had been alive it hadn’t seemed to matter that much. They’d seemed more like character
s in a film or a play than actual living people, so coming face to face with Charlie in London had been like watching an actor step through the television screen and into her living room.
Now, though, she could see that moment had been just a foreshock—a tiny seismic ripple across the landscape of her world.
The brothers turned towards her. Her breath caught in her throat as the ground lurched beneath her bare feet.
That first time in London, at the lawyers’ offices, before she had even discovered they were half-brothers, Charlie had seemed familiar. But now, side by side, the resemblance between them was not just pronounced—it was astonishing. Their features were identical. Archie’s were just smaller and still with some baby softness.
‘Do-Do.’
Archie had spotted her, and she couldn’t help feeling a childish twinge of satisfaction as his beautiful dark eyes widened and he reached out to her.
Refusing to meet Charlie’s eyes, she lifted him up, hugging him close to bury her face in his silken dark hair. He was so precious to her, so important, and she loved him so much that even though she wanted to rage at Charlie for scaring her she knew she was incapable of speaking in complete sentences just yet.
Her eyelashes fluttered as she breathed in, Archie’s baby smell calming the tremble in her body, and then, tucking him under her chin, she glared at Charlie.
‘I didn’t know where he was,’ she said stiffly.
He stared at her steadily. ‘He was with me.’
‘But I didn’t know that.’
Remembering the empty cot, she pressed Archie closer. Her skin was clammy and she could still taste the panic in her mouth, the real and potent fear that Charlie had spirited him away.
‘You can’t just take him without telling me.’
He shrugged, his handsome face expressionless. ‘You were sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you.’
