He was so happy to have secured a table at the restaurant he took me to, blissfully unaware that it was exactly the same location as my very first date with Peter. Oh, the irony.

I went home with him that night and made sure he had the best sex of his life, ensuring that he got so caught up in the moment that he didn’t stop to think about protection. By the morning I knew I had snared him and that I wouldn’t be going back to my own dingy little flat anytime soon.

Chapter Nineteen

As long as it was just the two of us, when Ben seemed happy to be bossed around by me, things were fine. The only problems arose when other people entered our bubble. He always changed slightly in the company of others and quite often, we would have an almighty row about it afterwards.

To begin with, he seemed to want us to spend lots of time with his sister, or his friends, or worse, his mum and dad. I had no desire for Peter to see me while I was pregnant, as I felt fat and unattractive; although I knew that Ben’s ex, Charlotte, wasn’t in my league looks-wise, she was quite slim and I didn’t want any unfavourable comparisons made about our figures.

So I made it clear I preferred it when it was just the two of us and, although it took a while, he seemed to get the hint, at least where his annoying, little-miss-perfect sister was concerned. The crunch point came when he said he wanted to call in and see her on her birthday, as we drove home from a restaurant one evening.

I was tired and fed up and she was the last person I wanted to see. She was so bloody boring and I had heard plenty of gushing about her from Peter, who had always seemed to idolize her. He must have told me twenty times that she went to Oxford and was hugely intelligent and successful. I always took it as a slight on me, who never quite made it to university and pretty much flunked my A Levels. Not that I told him that. I would make vague references to ‘uni’ and always changed the subject if he asked too many questions about my background. Luckily, he was quite self-obsessed which meant he never really enquired.

So when, despite me telling him that I didn’t want to visit her, Ben carried on driving towards Emma’s little terraced house in Fulham and insisted we would only be there ‘about five minutes’, I lost my temper. ‘No!’ I screamed, making him jump visibly in the confines of the car. ‘I don’t feel well and I want to go home!’

Ben sighed heavily.

‘And don’t damn well sigh like that either! How dare you make me feel like I’m in the wrong because I’m pregnant and I just need to get to bed.’

‘Sweetheart …’ he began, reaching over to put his hand on my knee.