‘It’s hard to say, but I’m hoping by the end of summer at the latest.’
I nod my head, praying that it is sooner than that. I could always ask Tim to move in before then, but I’d prefer him to have completely cut all ties with his ex before we take that big step in our relationship.
‘I can’t wait,’ I say, snuggling into him.
‘Me neither,’ he replies, although I can sense he isn’t quite as comfortable as me right now, and my paranoia is on the verge of kicking in once more until he speaks again. ‘I’m really sorry to spoil the moment, but I’m going to have to pop to the loo.’
I laugh as I sit back up and allow him to leave the sofa, glad that his discomfort was down to a trivial matter and not any reluctance to go through with our plan of co-habiting.
Watching him as he stands up and heads for the staircase, I notice that his mobile phone has fallen from his pocket and is still lying on the sofa where he was just sitting. As he heads up the stairs to go to the toilet, I think about how I might ask him to show me some of the videos and photos he has taken of Chloe at the park on his phone in all the times we have been there together. He must have some good ones because he’s spent a lot of time playing with her, and I almost felt a little bad myself at the time because I was happier to get a minute’s peace on the park bench while he ran riot with her around the playground. But then I realise I could just look at them now without waiting for him. I know his access code because I’ve seen him enter it several times when he has been sitting beside me on this sofa.
Is it bad if I look at his phone while he isn’t here? Maybe. I don’t want to do anything that might annoy him. Then again, I’m only going to look at photos of my daughter on there, not snoop through his messages. And I would say we have that level of trust now where we could look at each other’s phone without feeling like we had anything to hide. I know I would have no problem if he looked at mine.
I pick it up off the sofa and enter the access code, deciding that I’ll just have a quick look before he comes back down.
The first thing that pops up on the screen is some article about a rugby match, so I navigate out of that and click on the app that stores photos. I instantly see all the little tabs that show his recent pictures, although many of them are of cars and various mechanical parts from his day job at the garage, so there’s little of interest for me there. But then I see the most recent one of Chloe and smile. She’s at the park, beaming as she sits on one of the swings, waving to the camera. It’s a great photo, and I’ll have to get Tim to send it to me.
On the lookout for any other good ones, I find plenty more of Chloe at various places around the playground. On the slide. On the seesaw. Lying on the grass being silly. They’re all very sweet and innocent. But then I see a photo of a young girl that I don’t recognise, although she does have a similar look to my daughter.
This one hasn’t been taken on a playground. Instead, it’s in a bedroom. The girl is sitting on the bed and looking at the camera, but she isn’t smiling like Chloe was.
I frown as I keep scrolling through the photos and realise that there are even more of this little girl than there are of Chloe. That’s when I figure out that this must be Tim’s ex’s daughter.
I recall him saying that her name was Bethany, and the more I look at photos of her, the more I see that her resemblance to Chloe is quite uncanny. As well as being of a similar age, they have the same hair colour and length. The only real difference between them is that while Chloe is always smiling in the pictures, Bethany is not.
I’m starting to wonder why Tim has kept so many photos of his ex’s child, because while I understand that they were close, it does seem weird that he would hold onto them now that he no longer sees her. It’s not as if he is her father. Sure, he might have bonded with her, but he could have always just kept one and deleted the rest. But it’s not the number of photos that is troubling me.
It’s the fact that the child in them looks so sad.
I wish that was as bad as it got. But unfortunately, I keep scrolling until I come across photos that are even worse than that. That’s when I realise that Tim isn’t interested in me at all.
He’s here because of my daughter.
Dropping the phone, I feel my skin crawling as I react in horror at the type of man I have allowed into my home. He’s not just some handsome guy who I was lucky to meet in the supermarket.
He is a paedophile who targeted me when he saw me shopping with Chloe.
My disgust quickly makes way for a wave of anger that sees me get up off the sofa, my fists clenched and my blood boiling, ready for him to come back down here so I can kick him out. All I can think of is thank God that I have never left him alone with her, although the fact that I would undoubtedly have done so in the
