all need to have someone hug us and tell us that everything is going to be okay.’
His expression hardened. A tense silence settled between them.
Confused, Carly stared at him, slowly realising what she had said. ‘I’m sorry—that was insensitive of me. With your wife—’
He interrupted her with a quick shake of his head. ‘It’s okay.’
Carly’s gaze shifted down to Isabella, her arms suddenly aching with the desire to hold her. ‘Trust me on this, Isabella won’t want your cuddles in a few years’ time…and when she’s a teenager she won’t even want to know you. So you should enjoy it while you can.’
His gaze dropped down to consider Isabella for a moment before he asked in a low voice, ‘Were you like that with your dad when you were a teenager?’
‘My dad moved to New Zealand when I was twelve. I didn’t get the chance to…’
‘You miss him?’
Carly’s heart fell. She spoke to her dad occasionally but there was so much time and distance between them now that their relationship just consisted of the polite conversation of assuring one another that all was well in their lives, and a hollowness when she ended the call that would stay with her for hours. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Have you other family?’
There was a gentleness to his tone that stirred unexpected emotion in her—a loneliness, a longing for a family of her own that she was usually so good at burying. ‘No—my mum remarried. It was messy.’ She gave a shrug, trying to dredge up her usual acceptance of her situation but there was something about Max’s intelligent gaze that was stopping her doing so. ‘I’m not close to my mum and her new family, but I have good friends, people I trained with. We all live close to one another in London.’
‘Were you going away with them this weekend?’ He paused for a moment. ‘With a boyfriend perhaps?’
‘Six of us were heading away together…all friends.’
He nodded to her answer and shifted the arm that was resting on Isabella. ‘Thank you for agreeing to come with us this weekend. I realise it was a lot to ask of you.’
She studied him for a moment, thrown by the sincerity of his tone, the restrained pride in his expression. Maybe he was different from her stepfather, who would always somehow twist everything he did for people, whether they wanted it or not, into the fact that he was doing that person a favour. He had insisted that Carly attend boarding school and signed her up for endless residential courses during half-terms and summer holidays. He had claimed that he wanted her to be more adventurous, more ambitious, more accomplished, just like his daughters. The unspoken truth was that he hadn’t wanted Carly around.
She nodded in acknowledgement to his thanks and said, ‘Most of the parents who come to me find it difficult to talk about their child not sleeping. They think they should instinctively know how to get their child to sleep, that they are somehow failing as a parent. Which of course is not true. The parents I meet are doing their best in their individual circumstances. I try to help them see and understand that…to learn to be tender with themselves.’
Carly laughed when Max’s smooth forehead creased at her last sentence. ‘You don’t like that expression “be tender with themselves”?’ she asked.
‘I can’t see any man buying into it.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
He shifted in his seat, his expression sceptical. ‘Is this going to work?’
‘If you allow it to—if you give it the time and patience needed.’
‘You think I’m impatient?’
‘I get the feeling that you like to be on the move a lot. With children you need to slow down, to connect with them.’
He looked down at Isabella and shook his head. ‘With this firecracker I’ve no option the way she clings to me.’
There was such weariness to his voice. Understanding the positives in Isabella’s personality might help him in dealing with his daughter. ‘At least you know that Isabella will fight for what she wants—she’s determined. It will stand her in good stead in life, having that strength of character.’
For a long while he stared at her, considering what she had said. ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way… I guess you could be right. Do you want children of your own some day?’
Carly smiled at his question, while inside it felt like a soft swift pinch to her heart. She had envisioned herself and Robert having children quickly; they had even spoken about trying to have a baby soon after they married. ‘Some day hopefully I will. I love being with children. Before I set up my sleep consultancy business I was a Montessori teacher, but I have to meet the right person first.’
‘That hasn’t happened yet?’
Carly paused, a heavy weight lodging in her chest. ‘I thought it had. A few years back I was due to marry. But three weeks before the wedding my ex broke it off.’
Emotion continuing to whirl in her chest, Carly grabbed the magazine and again pretended to read it.
‘I’m sorry.’
Carly nodded but refused to look up from the magazine, hating how exposed, how humiliated she felt having told him. She flicked through the pages of the magazine, trying to understand why the publishers thought their readers would be interested in the weight gain of a soap-opera actress. Hadn’t they heard about emotional eating? Carly might have binned her wedding cake but that hadn’t stopped her from eating her own body weight in ice cream and her favourite comfort food, Brazil nuts, in the weeks that followed. It had taken her months to return to her normal weight. A weight that wasn’t particularly impressive in the first place. But Carly had long ago accepted that her body would never be lean, no matter how much she dieted or exercised.
‘Tell me about your ex—what happened?’
‘I’d prefer not to.’
‘It clearly upsets you.’
Carly raised her eyes. She knew she should change the subject. Not answer even. But there was a genuineness to his expression, as though he really wanted to understand what had happened to her that had her blurt out, ‘He told me he was still in love with his ex-girlfriend.’
Max’s eyes softened. ‘That must have been heartbreaking for you.’
Something popped in Carly’s heart. She had expected pity, perhaps even outrage from him. Just as her friends had been outraged on her behalf, calling Robert every name under the sun, telling her she needed to be positive, that there were plenty of other guys out there. Her mother meanwhile had fretted over what people would think while her stepfather had simply asked why she could never get things right in life. Nobody had got just how sad it all had been. Until now. Carly’s throat closed over; she felt undone by the understanding in his eyes. She shrugged.
‘I’m sorry you had to go through that,’ he said gently.
Carly nodded, not trusting herself to talk.
Max considered her for a while and then, with a gentle smile, he added, ‘I bet he’s regretting it now, letting someone like you slip away.’
Carly grimaced. ‘Not really. He’s married his ex since.’
He tilted his head. ‘But I bet he’s not on the way to taste the best chocolate ice cream in the world.’
Carly laughed, something lightening in her. ‘That’s true.’
They smiled at each other for the longest while. Carly felt the heat grow on her cheeks. Max’s smile disappeared to be replaced by a tension in his expression that reflected the heavy beat of disquiet that was drumming in her heart.
She tore her gaze away, picked up her magazine.
The