‘Whatever,’ she scoffed. ‘I know you’ll try and wriggle out of it. But I know that you punched both me and Hailey, and I can’t let a man who is capable of that violence near my kids.’ She wiped her mouth with her napkin, screwed it into a ball in her fist. ‘We both know you’re guilty, whatever the legal system decides and however clever your lawyer is. You were happy to see women being abused. You didn’t care. You were even willing to let a video of your daughter be posted on the internet! What sort of father does that?’

‘Hold on a minute. I didn’t know that video had been posted. If I had, I wouldn’t have—’

She held up a hand to stop him from speaking. ‘I’m going now. But this is the deal.’ She ran her tongue round her lips, took a deep breath. ‘Milly doesn’t know your business relates in any way to the video of her being posted online. It would kill her to realise the father she adores had any involvement in that. And it would hurt Sophia just as much. You know how those two feel each other’s pain. I’m not going to tell them, and there’s no reason to suspect they will find out the truth from any other source. I’m willing to keep that secret, but in return, you don’t get to be with them. You don’t go anywhere near them or Ezra.’

His face paled. His mouth hung open.

‘When they’re eighteen, it will be up to them to decide what sort of relationship they want with you, but until then, any contact will be at their request and supervised by me. I think we can do FaceTime once a week. Just so they know you haven’t deserted them because of anything they have done.’ She tapped the table with a finger to emphasise her point. ‘But you start blaming me for anything, anything at all, then contact will stop completely, and I will tell the girls every little detail of what you did. You hear me? And then you will lose them forever.’

Matt reached over the table and grabbed her hand. ‘No, love, no. Don’t be hasty. Don’t go yet.’ He gave her a plaintive look, the one that always used to make her feel guilty. ‘Let’s just discuss this, shall we?’

She shook his hand off as if it was a leech about to suck her blood, then stood and pushed her chair under the table, holding onto the back of it so he wouldn’t see her hands shaking. ‘Those are my terms. There’s no negotiation. And if the children don’t want to speak to you, then you have to respect their decision.’

‘But they’re my kids as much as yours.’