Page 75 of Clever Little Thing

Pete frowns. “She showed up when I was alone at home. I thought she’d done that on purpose.”

“She came to collect her cheque,” I say.

“Go on,” says Phil.

“She’d been kind of giving me the eye,” Pete says. “I’d picked up on a vibe from her. When she showed up, I thought I knew the reason.”

“There was no way she would ever have looked at you flirtatiously,” I say. But I remember the expression on her face when she recounted their first kiss. Maybe she did look at him. But that didn’t entitle him to do whatever he wanted to her.

“How did it happen?” At least he can’t accuse her of dressing suggestively.

Pete sits up a little straighter, glad to get a chance to tell the truth, or, rather, his truth. “I said something about her eyes, some throwaway comment, and she really glowed. I’d never seen her smile. She actually did look kind of pretty and I said so. A harmless compliment.”

“You’re married,” I say. “You were her employer.”

“I regret the circumstances,” Pete says.

“So why did you do it?”

Pete looks at his hands. “I thought it would be a confidence boost, a nice thing for her.”

“Being raped would be a confidence boost?”

Pete shakes his head furiously. “No! God, no. This is insane. I kissed her and she kissed me back. She wanted me. Not once did she say no or stop.”

“She never had a boyfriend. Did you know that?” I ask. “She had no experience, no idea how to say no.”

Pete shakes his head. “She wanted to kiss me. She was totally into it. And—the rest. She was a little passive, it’s true, but I thoughtshe wanted it that way. She wanted to have me make it all happen. I was there, you weren’t. I’m not going to let you twist the truth.”

“This is not my truth, this is Blanka’s,” I say.

“Look, maybe she thought it meant more than it did, and then afterwards, when I made it clear it was a one-off, she was upset, and she rewrote the whole incident in her diary. But I know it was consensual, because she never once said the wordno.”

“If you knew her, if you paid any attention to her, you would know that she would never have the confidence to say that word.”

Pete rubs his temples. “I am truly sorry that after the fact, she came to view it as a bad experience. But I’m not a mind reader. She didn’t say no, she went along with it, so I could only assume she liked it.”

“But why—why her? You could have other women. For all I know, you were already with Kia then.”

“Look, I was a little buzzed, OK? It was the day after the—the birthday party. I was feeling low. I had a couple of whiskeys; then Blanka showed up. The opportunity was there.”

I am sickened. This makes her sound like an open bag of cheese-and-onion crisps.

“That was inappropriate,” Phil says. He swipes his brow with the back of his hand. He’s sweating. “More than inappropriate.”

I turn to Pete. “You’re not fit to take care of children. I want full custody. Furthermore, I don’t want to see you again, and I don’t want you to see the girls.”

“You are not taking my children away. I will fight this tooth and nail.”

Phil holds up a hand. He looks clammy. “I think we should take a fifteen-minute break here. Get some fresh air.”

“We’re fine,” says Pete, and then he changes tack. “Look, I’m sorry I fell for Kia, I can only apologize.”

“When you preface ‘I apologize’ with the phrase ‘all I can do is,’ you negate the apology.”

“I love you, Charlotte. Those other women—I’m really just trying to findyouagain. You used to sparkle.”

“I thought all the cheating was because you ‘need an outlet,’ ” I say. “Wasn’t that what you said at the hospital?”

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