She started at the impatient tone to Rick’s question the other side of the door and the forcefulness of the handle being jiggled. Thank goodness she’d locked herself in.

‘Nearly done,’ she said. No sooner were the words out than her stomach roiled and a gagging reflex had her leaping from the edge of the bath to bend over the loo again.

There was no disguising the awful retching sound she was making and once she’d stopped, there was Rick’s voice again. ‘Are you okay, Willow?’

‘I think I must have picked up some sort of bug,’ she murmured, when she reluctantly unlocked the door.

‘What kind of bug?’ he asked, staring at her. He had a strange unreadable way of looking at her sometimes, which in her current state thoroughly unnerved her.

She shrugged. ‘The kind that makes you throw up,’ she said, trying to sound as though it was no big deal.

The strength of his gaze intensified, then it moved to take in the inside of the bathroom as though she were hiding something in there. ‘Are you sure about that?’

Don’t tell him, she told herself. Don’t tell him, don’t tell him, don’t tell him!

‘I’m pregnant,’ she blurted out. And then she burst into tears. Not just a pretty little wobble of a tearful weep, but a full-blown shoulder-heaving snorting wail of a sob.

With surprisingly gentle hands, he led her to his bedroom – she hadn’t yet been able to think of it as theirs – and sat her down on the bed. Despite her wailing, she noticed he had already made it, the duvet perfectly smooth, the pillows invitingly plumped and neatly placed. She felt guilty sitting on the bed and messing it up.

Crouching in front of her in his work suit, he dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. She then pulled one from the box he’d put on the bed next to her and blew her nose, while he reached for the wastepaper basket for her to put the used tissues in.

‘Why are you so upset?’ he asked, his voice so laden with concern it made her want to start crying all over again.

‘Because I’m not ready to be a mother,’ she said. She blinked and looked away. ‘Maybe I never will be. And … and I was frightened what you might say.’

‘Frightened?’ he repeated, his hands now placed on her knees. ‘Why?’

She turned to look at him. ‘Because it’s an accident; it’s not something we’d planned, and it’s much too soon. We don’t know if we’re going to stay together, I mean we’ve only—’

‘Hush,’ he said firmly. ‘You mustn’t get yourself all worked up, it won’t be good for the baby.’

But now the cat was out of the bag, she felt horribly worked up and wanted to scream and shout at the unfairness of it all. Why did bad things keep happening to her? She’d give anything to jump up from the bed and run. To run and run all the way to … To where precisely? Anywhere! Just somewhere she could hide and make this mess go away. ‘But I don’t know what to do,’ she said in a choked voice.