In London, I wanted to meet his friends. He told me he wanted me all to himself, only for him. He’d meet me on the Friday evening, at the gallery, when everyone had left. Sex with Matthew was impatient, urgent, sometimes on the floor, surrounded by the artworks, my weekend bag flung in a corner. Sex with Matthew was passionate, with no half measures, with biting, groans of pleasure and post-coital bliss. Sex with Matthew was intoxicating, I developed a taste for the glass of champagne we drank naked after orgasming, savouring the earthquake amid the priceless contemporary debris. I’d never felt that way about anyone before. He’d never felt that way about anyone before. He did his utmost to preserve the extraordinary nature of our affair. Sometimes, we went to what he called his ‘little pad’, a tiny apartment in Notting Hill that was nothing special, around the corner from the gallery. But, in London, as in Paris, Matthew liked to take me to incredible hotels, fabulous settings for our love – that was the exact expression he used. Better still, I sometimes had the surprise of finding in my letterbox a proper handwritten invitation, with a plane ticket to Barcelona, Dublin, Venice or Lisbon. The old-fashioned charm of pure, simple romanticism. Of the successful – not to mention rich – man who showers his soulmate with kindness. I kept telling him it was madness. He invariably replied that money was for making the people you loved happy – otherwise, what was the point of it?

I wanted to believe that this was life with Matthew.

In reality, it was everything but life.

In the twenty-third month of our relationship, I became pregnant. It wasn’t planned. I went to see my doctor, describing my symptoms. I felt tired all the time, I vomited sometimes, my energy level dropped in the middle of the day. Had I been having periods? My periods were irregular, I hadn’t had one for a while, but that wasn’t unusual. I didn’t see the connection. It hadn’t even occurred to me. When the pregnancy test showed two blue lines, I cried my eyes out. I didn’t want this child, not now, not like this. My life was all mapped out. I was planning to have a child when I was around thirty, not before. Before was too soon. My career at Hégémonie was my priority, and Matthew and I still had so much more we wanted to do. Matthew didn’t want children, he’d been very clear about that. I’d always told myself I’d manage to convince him, when the time was ripe. Certainly not now.