He Saved Her Child, Abandoned Ours novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Key

On Monday morning I went back to the penthouse alone.

I needed Tilly's medicine, her school shoes and the blue blanket she slept with when she was ill.

I also needed to stand in that foyer in daylight and see it for what it was.

The night concierge had gone off shift.

The day concierge, a grey-haired man with a very straight back, stood up as I came through the lobby.

"Mrs Ashworth. Good morning. Is the little one all right?"

"She's with her great-grandmother. Thank you for asking."

"Mrs Ashworth," he said, "I should tell you that you have a visitor upstairs."

I stopped walking.

"Who?"

"Miss Sedley," he said. "She came in twenty minutes ago. She has a key."

I rode the lift up with my coat buttoned to the neck.

The apartment door stood open.

The foyer smelled of tuberose.

Cressida was in my daughter's bedroom, kneeling on the rug, folding small pink vests into a suitcase.

She had put on gloves.

She saw me in the doorway and rose at once, with her hand to her chest.

"Rhiannon. Oh, thank God. I thought I'd be gone before you came."

"What are you doing?"

"Rafe rang me from the car on Friday, he was in such a state. He asked me to pack her things so you wouldn't have to come back here." She held up a rabbit-print pyjama top. "I thought, the poor girl, she shouldn't have to walk through all this. I haven't touched anything but Tilly's drawers. I swear."

It was so kind that it took me a moment to breathe.

"Who gave you a key?" I said.

"Rafe. For emergencies." Her eyes filled. "He's had it for years. Since Posy was a baby and I used to..."

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