‘Sounds like quite a childhood.’
‘Worked for me,’ she murmured, although it hadn’t exactly provided her with an altogether firm grip on reality. Not when there were so many ancient and different realities to choose from. Where had she seen his face before? A glossy magazine ad for something sumptuously male and decadently expensive? A magazine article? ‘World’s Sexiest Scientists’, perhaps? Oh, hell. New Scientist.
Charlotte sped back in time to a hospital waiting room, and an old waiting room copy of New Scientist magazine with an article on water weeds in it. There’d been a picture of the weeds. A picture of this man. She’d skimmed the article while waiting for the specialist to finish with Aurora.
Gil Tyler—fictional fiancé extraordinaire—hadn’t been a figment of her imagination at all.
The parts of Gil that hadn’t been based on movie superheroes and a long dead father had been based on this man.
‘Your box is here in the hall,’ she said, stepping back and opening wide the huge slab of petrified oak that doubled as a door. ‘I taped it back up for your convenience but you’re welcome to go through it while you’re here if you want to. It’s all there.’
The good doctor stepped into the hall and eyed the box balefully.
‘Okay, let me rephrase,’ she murmured. ‘Everything they sent me is in that box, and I’m really sorry if it’s not all there.’ Charlotte’s dismay hit a new low at the thought of Greyson Tyler losing important possessions on her account. ‘Extremely sorry.’
Greyson Tyler studied her intently. Finally he put his hand to the back pocket of his trousers, stretching fabric tight across places no well-brought-up woman should be looking. Charlotte averted her gaze and watched the unfolding of the paper instead. He held it out to her. ‘I understand you have a fiancé working in PNG and that he and I share a surname.’
Charlotte took the paper from those long strong fingers and reluctantly scanned the email printed on it. The request was a simple one for a photo of the late TJ (Gil) Tyler, botanist, if there was one about. Just as Millie had explained it to her.
‘Thing is, PNG is a small place,’ he continued conversationally. ‘Especially for scientists. I know my colleagues. Your fiancé wasn’t one of them. I checked the records. No sign of him there either.’
‘It’s complicated,’ she said, queen of the understatement. ‘This email, for instance. Unfortunately, one of my work colleagues sent it on my behalf, without my knowledge, but with the very best intentions.’ Charlotte felt herself shrinking beneath that penetrating dark gaze. ‘To be fair, the information I gave her about my fiancé wasn’t quite correct.’
‘Exactly how wrong was it?’ he asked silkily.
‘You mean on a scale of one to ten with one being almost correct and ten being a whopping great lie with a momentum all its own?’
‘If you like.’ He could be droll, this man, when he wasn’t so busy being stern.
‘Ten.’
‘And the lie?’
Charlotte shoved her hands in her pockets and moved past him, back through the door so she could stand on the top step of the portico and look out over Aurora’s immaculately kept grounds. ‘My godmother was dying,’ she said, her voice surprisingly even. ‘She was the closest thing to family I’d ever had and she was worried about leaving me alone in the world. I invented a fiancé. A botanist, working in PNG. His name was Thaddeus Jeremiah Gilbert Tyler.’
‘You named your fiancé Thaddeus?’
‘It was 3 a.m. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. Yes, I named him Thaddeus.’
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Aurora lasted another month. Gil became a regular topic of conversation.’
‘Gil?’ he queried.
‘Thaddeus.’ Charlotte closed her eyes, shook her head. Felt her lips curve in memory of some of those late night conversations with Aurora. ‘You were right about the name. No one called him Thaddeus except his mother when she was annoyed with him. I called him Gil.’
‘Go on.’
‘There’s not much more to tell,’ she murmured, coming back to the present with a start and shooting Greyson an apologetic sideways glance. ‘Aurora died. Two days later I did away with Gil, only by that time someone had told my work colleagues about him so the lie continued to grow. Everyone now thinks I’m mourning both Aurora and a fiancé. My colleague Millie went in search of a photo of Gil that I could put up somewhere. To help me grieve, or maybe to help me rejoice in the time I’d spent with him. Something like that.’
‘And then?’
‘Someone in PNG sent me an office.’ Charlotte risked another glance in his direction. Greyson Tyler was staring back at her as if reluctantly, unaccountably fascinated. ‘And here you are. I’m not usually this …’ She stopped, lost for words.
‘Batty?’ he said. ‘Irresponsible?’
‘Like I said, your belongings are in the box in the hallway,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll reimburse you for the cost of your airfare and your time. I’ll make a considerable donation to your research fund. There won’t be any more confusion. I’ll be telling my boss and my colleagues the truth of the matter tomorrow. Your PNG colleagues too, if that’s what it takes. And then there’ll be no more lies.’ No more good reputation or friends either, but the devil would have his due and Charlotte only had herself to blame. ‘You’re not married, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Excellent,’ she said faintly.
He’d heard madder explanations. Not often, but it could be done. Grey vacillated between wanting to comfort the apologetic Charlotte and wanting to strangle her.
‘Excuse me for a moment,’ he muttered, and headed back inside towards the box. The tape gave way easily beneath his hands. Probably his temper showing. Clothes came first and he tossed them aside as befitting their importance. Hard copies of various research papers came next—it looked as if they were all there. He pulled out his laptop and his back-up drives. Reference books, all of them. It was all there.
‘What’s missing?’ Associate Professor Charlotte had joined him, she of the velvet voice and excessive imagination. The horror of losing work was something she appeared to understand.
‘Nothing,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve decided not to strangle you.’
‘You’re a rare and generous man,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘Humility too.’
Sexy velvet voices could be dry as dust and still make his blood stir. Who knew? ‘Let’s not get carried away.’ A warning, and not just for her. He started piling books and references back in the box. The good Charlotte retrieved his clothes and handed them to him at the end.
‘I’ve packing tape in the library,’ she said, and Grey glanced down the hallway towards the innards of the house. The library. Of course. It was the kind of house that ran to libraries, a billiards room, conservatory, tennis court, pool and gym. Family estate, he figured. Unless she’d made her fortune before embarking on a career in archaeology. Possibly as a novelist. Thaddeus. Grey snorted. Possibly not.
‘Don’t worry about the tape. You’d do better worrying about how your work colleagues are going to react when you tell them there’s no fiancé, dead or otherwise. You do realise that your personal and probably your professional integrity is going to be called into question? Assuming you had some in the first place?’
Charlotte’s