‘I’m not sure I’m ready, after all,’ she said, watching Flynn intently for his reaction. His amber-flecked eyes flickered but gave nothing away.

‘That’s okay.’ He said it softly, as though he were choosing his words carefully.

‘What?’ she probed, sensing there was more to be said. She hooked a finger under the wide collar of her blouse and gently scratched at her skin.

He smiled. ‘I had a sense you… I don’t know, you haven’t seemed yourself.’ He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘I was just getting used to the idea.’

‘Me too,’ she admitted, because she wasn’t averse to scrolling through sweet little romper suits online, or mountain-themed nursery schemes. ‘But I feel like I’ve been swept up in a fantasy of how perfect it could be, and now reality is setting in.’

He didn’t say anything but he nodded, a sad smile playing out over his sun-weathered features. Her perception of Flynn had altered this last month. He had grown from being a man whose company she enjoyed to a man she saw most days and, when she didn’t, would be checking in, making sure she was okay, offering to work longer hours at La City Pâtisserie so she could rest (which she always declined).

That was part of the problem. He had told her he was falling in love with her, that he saw a future for them together, had even hinted that they marry, if that’s what she wanted. She’d dismissed it initially – just a month before, they’d been casually sleeping together – but had begun daydreaming about Flynn in a dark slim-fit suit, a thin black tie, sunlight flitting across a wedding band as vows were exchanged. She couldn’t trust herself to know what she wanted any more, not since she was pregnant. She felt driven by a powerful concoction of hormones and this fear had begun to gestate that as her belly grew, so too would her feelings for Flynn and it would build to a heady, climactic finale when, in seven or so months’ time, she could find herself with a husband and a child, and when the hormones wore off, and the mind-and-body-wrecking lack of sleep set in, would she feel like she’d made a mistake? Because she’d never wanted a baby. She’d never been sure she wanted a husband – she got the support she needed from her friends. But since she’d made her retreat last month, and not been in touch with them, or heard from them, come to think of it, Flynn had filled their space.

When had she last heard from her friends? She frowned, looking at her Eiffel Tower tattoo. It wasn’t unusual for them to go a week or two without being in touch, before someone would drop a message into their When in Paris group (‘Please help me I’m going to die if I get one more ParentMail about head lice…!’) and a burst of chatter would ignite, but it had been over a month, she realised. The time had whizzed past in a blaze of worry and information and ‘what-next?’s.