To stop the bubble of guilt that was pushing against the cork inside her and threatening to burst free, she told herself that while she didn’t deserve to be given such a beautiful ring, her daughter was the reason she wore it. So surely that made it okay?

She was now twenty-eight weeks pregnant and Rick couldn’t wait for the big day when she would give birth.

‘I’ll be right there with you every second of it,’ he repeatedly assured her whenever she admitted to feeling nervous.

She knew it was something she had to face, but the thought of labour utterly terrified her. She wasn’t good with pain. She was such a pathetic wimp.

Martha, on the other hand, wouldn’t be scared. She’d probably yell and scream and boss everyone about and swear the roof off, but she wouldn’t be frightened.

Wishing she could be more like her sister, Willow drank the rest of her illicit coffee and with a few more minutes to go before her breaktime was up, she checked her mobile for emails. For one in particular.

She and Ellis’s stepson Lucas had recently struck up an email exchange. Curious about him, she had tracked Lucas down on Facebook and messaged him, not sure how he might react. Would he think she had been stalking him?

Thankfully he’d been only too pleased to hear from her and almost daily now they were in touch. His emails were refreshingly humorous and were a happy distraction for her. He was clearly very fond of his stepfather and had nothing but good things to say about Ellis. When Mum and Ellis had announced that they weren’t marrying after all, that being permanently engaged suited them much better, Lucas had asked Willow if she knew why there had been a change of plan. She wrote back saying that from what her mother had told them, she just didn’t fancy dealing with the palaver of organising a wedding and the difficulties it generated.

‘I can relate to that,’ Lucas replied to her. ‘And who needs marriage these days anyway?’

Rick did. Ideally, he wanted them to marry before the baby was born, but realistically he knew that it would be better to wait until they had more time to plan the wedding. ‘One thing at a time,’ he’d said. ‘Baby first, then we’ll marry.’

He was so full of confidence and optimism about the future, something Willow didn’t feel. She wished she did, she truly did. Increasingly she felt her old self, and her confidence, trickling away from her.

Disappointed that there wasn’t an email from Lucas in her mailbox, she took her empty coffee mug through to the kitchen, washed it up, then returned to her desk. Where, surprise, surprise Kyle was hovering with a pointed look on his face. Slave driver, she thought. Even though she was still regularly hitting her targets, and even though he knew she was pregnant and would be leaving soon, he was hellbent on extracting his pound of flesh from her.