I was taken aback. ‘You, of course! We didn’t split up until June.’

He laughed meanly under his breath. ‘There’s no “of course” about it. I heard you on the radio yesterday, Lottie, boasting that you were engaged. I googled this Jensen Butterworth, he works for a firm near Tower Bridge. And I googled this place. A bit weird, isn’t it, that as soon as you do the dirty on me, you get a job here and five minutes later you’re engaged and expecting?’ He placed himself between me and my front door. ‘So this is what I think: you were seeing him behind my back in London and when you realized you were pregnant you ran. Bitch.’

A surge of anger propelled me towards him.

‘It wasn’t like that. It isn’t like that,’ I yelled at him furiously, trying to wrestle the key back out of his hands. ‘I didn’t meet Jensen until I started working here. This is your baby. I left you because you scared me. Like you’re scaring me now. Please go. Leave me alone before I call the police.’

He stepped away from me and tossed the key to the ground. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Don’t call the police.’

I picked up the key, put it in the lock, turned it and, heart pounding, pushed inside, locking the door behind me.

He knocked on the door. ‘We need to talk. Open the door.’

‘What’s left to say?’ I shouted.

He can’t touch me now. I repeated it over and over in my head as I poured myself a glass of water and gulped it down.

‘I was taking steroids,’ Harvey shouted from outside. ‘The pressure to build muscle at that gym was huge. So I started taking pills. And they worked. Everyone commented on what good shape I was in. Even you.’

That was true. At least it had been at first. Then he went too far; he looked out of proportion, like a triangle.

‘But what they don’t tell you about steroids is the mood swings,’ he said. His voice had calmed down now and I could tell he was leaning against the door. ‘I’d get this red mist, this flood of anger, and my heart would speed up. The slightest thing would set me off. It was uncontrollable.’

It made sense. Our relationship had been much better before he’d started working at that gym. Not perfect, I accepted. I realized now that he had always had his own interests at heart; what I wanted had always come second. And I was worth more than that. I knew that now. It had taken Jensen’s thoughtfulness to show me that there was a different way to be loved.

I moved closer to the door. ‘And you’ve stopped taking them?’