opened.
She glanced up at Henry as he closed the door behind him.
‘I’m really sorry about the stuff I said, about shoving you in a cupboard. I handled it terribly and I’m really sorry.’
She slammed the spoon down. ‘And how should you have handled it?’
He had nothing to say. Eventually he spoke. ‘We agreed that we wouldn’t tell her.’
‘We agreed that we wouldn’t tell her unless it got serious between us. Last night it got pretty fucking serious. It was one of the best nights of my life and this morning you bundled me into a wardrobe like I was a shag that you regretted.’
‘What did you want me to do? Bring you downstairs dressed only in my t-shirt? That was not the way for her to find out.’
He was angry now and she didn’t think he had any right to be.
‘No, but you could have had a sensible conversation with her.’
‘How? She was standing outside my bedroom door and you were standing there in last night’s clothes and just-fucked hair. What could I have said, “Hey Daisy, I know me and Penny have only just met but last night we slept together and it was the best sex I’ve ever had in my life.”’
Penny stared at him in shock and he moved round the table towards her. When he spoke his voice was softer. ‘Should I have told her that when I made love to you I could honestly see myself doing that every night for the rest of my life?’
She was horribly aware that she looked like a fish as her mouth moved but no words came out.
‘Come in the lounge and let’s talk.’
He waited for her and she led the way, sitting down on the sofa. He sat down next to her.
‘She’s happy here. She hasn’t been really happy for a long time. We’ve moved around a bit in recent years because of work and one reason or another. She was bullied at the last two schools. I’m not sure whether it was because she was the new girl or because sometimes she’s a bit shy. Teenagers are cruel and they just have to get a whiff of vulnerability and they attack like a pack of wolves. Having a mum who abandoned her a few weeks after her birth, well, that kind of stuff is like gold dust to a bully. Lots of kids come from single parent families but somehow it’s different that she was raised by her dad and not her mum. Your mum is supposed to be the one person that sticks by you through thick and thin. There were comments about her being an ugly baby and how no one wants her, even comments that she wasn’t mine because she’s so blonde and I’m so dark.’
Penny gasped. ‘Is that true, she might not be yours?’
Henry shrugged. ‘I don’t know and I don’t care. It didn’t occur to me at the time when she came to live with me, it was only later when she started school that a few of the other parents made snide comments about our differences. Her mum has dark hair too. But I’ve raised her ever since she was three months old; she’s mine even if she isn’t biologically.’
Penny stared at him, feeling her heart fit to burst with love for him.
‘It hurts her though, when the other children pick on that. Another layer of doubt to add to her abandonment worries. If I’m not her dad then why would I stay? It breaks my heart. I think the only saving grace through all the bullying was her relationship with Rosie, my ex. I think Daisy saw her as her only friend at the time and it really upset Daisy when I broke up with her. I tried to make it up to her by bringing Emily into our life. She was all sweetness and light to Daisy in front of me but behind my back she brought her down, stomped on her confidence, said some absolutely horrible things. She told her things I’d supposedly said about how Daisy had ruined my life and I regretted having her and that I wished Tina had had an abortion and that I didn’t think she was mine.’
‘No!’ Penny felt tears spring to her eyes. ‘How could anyone say that to a child?’
‘I don’t know. I would never even think those things, let alone say them. Jesus, every insecurity Daisy has ever had, Emily played up to every single one of them. I’m