Annalise’s mouth tightened. Like a cat with a mouse, she had clearly hoped to toy with me for longer.
‘I bought him the t-shirt you’re wearing.’
Touché. It was a good comeback.
Tasha, who was currently standing between us like a pint-size referee, was clearly growing bored.
‘Have you seen my ballet bag anywhere, Ellie?’
I looked at the smaller, infinitely nicer version of Annalise and gave her a regretful smile. ‘I haven’t, sweetheart. But I can certainly help you look for it.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ her mother cut in. ‘Why don’t you look under the bed in your room, Tash,’ she said in an entirely different voice.
My eyes went to her set of keys on the countertop. She and Rhys might not be together, but she still had a key to his home. She obviously felt entitled to come and go whenever she wanted to, and he’d certainly never bothered telling me that. It made me wonder what else I didn’t know.
‘Look, I know this is all kinds of awkward,’ I said, wishing I was wearing something that had less of me on display, and that I hadn’t decided to skip on the make-up. ‘But I really don’t want to make things uncomfortable for Tasha.’
She softened infinitesimally at that. ‘At least we’re in agreement about that, although I doubt we’ll be about much else.’
Beneath the anger, for the first time I glimpsed the hurt. She might not be back with her ex – Rhys had been truthful about that – but that didn’t mean she’d given up on hoping it would still happen. I was the fly in the ointment. A big ugly bluebottle standing semi-naked in the kitchen of the man she wanted back.
I surprised her and myself even more when I said, ‘Look, I was just about to make myself a coffee. Do you want a cup?’
It wasn’t a hard question, but she took a long time before answering it.
‘Alright.’
She took way too much pleasure in watching me try yet another two incorrect cupboards before directing me to the right ones. It was a little galling to realise that she was here often enough to know where he kept everything.
‘I take it this is something new?’ Annalise asked as I placed a cup of coffee in front of her. I wasn’t ready to talk about my fledgling relationship with Rhys with anyone, much less his last partner.
‘I think that’s probably something you should discuss with Rhys.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Annalise said darkly. ‘I will.’
We were standing on either side of the breakfast bar, neither of us comfortable enough to pull up a stool and sit down. Annalise eyed me over the rim of her coffee cup, and I wondered what Helen had told her and how that description compared to the reality.
‘You’re never going to be the most important person in his life; you know that, don’t you?’
Her words pierced my flimsy armour, and for a moment I thought she was talking about herself, before her eyes flew down the hallway.
‘Tasha will always come first,’ she said as though laying down an ace.
‘That is absolutely as it should be.’ It was good to finally gain a foothold in the confrontation, and I could see my answer had shaken her. ‘That was always a given.’
I could see her mentally trying to regroup, perhaps looking for another angle of assault, but she didn’t get the chance because at that moment the sound of a key slotting into the door lock was heard again.
‘I’m so sorry, the traffic was heavier than I expected,’ Rhys said, striding into the kitchen with the biggest smile I’d ever seen. It took less than a second to disappear when he saw I wasn’t alone.
‘Annalise. What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Daddy!’ cried Tasha, who’d run back into the kitchen proudly holding the missing ballet bag.
‘Hello, pickle,’ Rhys said, sweeping his daughter up with one arm and giving her a huge hug.
‘I left my ballet bag here and I need it for my lesson tomorrow,’ Tasha explained in a delightful lisp that I couldn’t remember noticing before. She grinned and I saw that a missing tooth was responsible.
‘And you didn’t think of calling first?’ Rhys asked, his question directed to Annalise. ‘You just decided to barge in?’