I tried not to think about them, and to concentrate instead on good things. One very good thing was that I had reached the magic twenty-eight-weeks mark. All the books said that even if she were to be born at this stage, she had a reasonable chance of being well and healthy, though we’d have to navigate the trauma of premature delivery and the special care baby unit. I tried not to dwell on the exceptions – the babies who were not okay, despite reaching twenty-eight weeks. I clung to the statistics that were on my side and blanked out the ones that were not.

My next milestone was to get to thirty weeks, when we would disappear. That was two weeks away. We could get through that. Things had been calm since Zac’s return from Canada. In fact, he’d been so lovely the last six days that I fleetingly wondered if this new Zac was the real one, rather than the porn-making control freak I’d lived with for the last few months.

But on the seventh day, he left me in no doubt about the true Zac. I was standing at the kitchen sink peeling carrots and he was trying to pull my clothes off.

‘I don’t feel like it.’ The baby swam and rolled, as if to tell me she was in agreement.

‘You never feel like it any more. I love you, Holly.’ Was he saying this because he sensed how profoundly I had withdrawn from him? I’d tried so hard to disguise it. I’d thought my performance was Oscar winning.

I gave him my most loving, melting look. ‘Me too.’ What I secretly meant was, I love me too, but not you, and not your magazine collection or your toys and hidden cameras and micro SD cards.

‘I need you so much. You’re all I have. The two of you.’

My stomach lurched as if I were in a boat being tossed by waves. He turned me around, so my spine was against the edge of the granite counter. I tried to move my lips into the right expression, tried to make my face look warm and happy.

‘I have a surprise,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I made an appointment at the Registry Office. Six weeks from today. It’s best for her if we’re married before she’s born.’ He pressed his lips against mine, slipped a ring onto my finger, lifted my hand so we could both look at it. ‘What do you think?’

The diamond was square, with a small round stone on each side. ‘I think it’s perfect.’ I slid it up and down, because it felt tight, though it appeared that it was not.

‘Just four of us in that room. You, me, the baby, and the registrar. That’s how it should be. You agree, don’t you?’