‘Why doesn’t he just leave her?’ Freya threw her arms up in the air in exasperation.

‘Because of Elodie. He adores her.’ Jo looked from Freya to Matt. ‘As you both know, having a child changes everything.’

‘It didn’t change everything for me and Freya, though, did it, Charlie?’ Matt looked at Charlotte for affirmation. ‘We’re still the same as we were before we had Bertie, aren’t we?’

Charlotte nodded. ‘You are, but then again, you’re not married to Bella.’

‘Thank God!’ Matt snapped, before looking sheepishly at Jo. ‘Sorry, Jo.’

Jo waved away his apology. ‘No, don’t apologize, Matt. It’s the truth. She is a terrifying person and I think he’s genuinely scared of her, which just breaks my heart …’ She stopped speaking abruptly and put a hand over her mouth.

Matt shook his head, a grim expression on his face. ‘It’s a bad, bad situation. So what are we going to do about it?’

They all looked at each other across the table. Eventually Charlotte spoke. ‘Well, I think maybe we need to stage some sort of intervention, don’t we? We need to see him in person to find out what’s really going on.’

‘Pah, how do we do that if he’s never on his own without her?’ Freya replied.

‘He’s not with her when she’s at work all day, is he? We just need to get to him alone, so that we can suss out if he truly is unhappy, or scared, or whatever.’ Charlotte stopped to look at the others. ‘I know none of us wants to hear this, but there’s a possibility that he’s quite happy with how things are.’

‘No.’ Jo shook her head firmly. ‘I know Ben so well and I can see it in his eyes. He’s definitely not happy.’

‘OK, so let’s figure out how we’re going to get to him, then.’ Matt glanced at Freya. ‘One of us is going to have to go and see him while she’s at work. It can’t be Freya because she’s got Bertie in tow at the moment. I would love to do it but to be honest, I’m not sure he’ll want to see me. I think he might be too embarrassed.’

‘I agree,’ Jo cut in. ‘Which leaves Charlie and me.’ She paused and looked at Charlotte. ‘I think you might be the best option, Charlie, as he seems terrified of her finding out that he’s had any contact with me.’

‘I’m not sure she’ll be wild about him seeing me, either! So it will definitely have to be a covert operation.’ Charlotte tried to analyse how she felt about the prospect of seeing Ben again. She felt desperately sorry for him, if he was in a situation that he couldn’t get out of that was making him unhappy. But a small part of her felt angry with him, too, for cutting his mother out of his life when she needed him most. She couldn’t understand why he didn’t stand up to Bella more.