I jumped up so quickly I stumbled. A young couple at the next table turned to stare at me. I saw them glance quickly at our glasses to see what I’d been drinking. I picked up my bag and pushed past him. “Leave me alone,” I hissed in his ear. “I don’t want to see you again.”

He stood up, too, and followed me out of the pub. “When you’ve calmed down, you’ll know I’m right. In any case, I haven’t said what I wanted to say.”

I opened my car door and quickly climbed in.

Tom held the door so that I couldn’t shut it. I started up the engine and shouted, “Let go of the door!”

A couple of men who were about to go into the pub stopped and stared at us.

Tom lowered his voice. “I was going to say that if you want to see the child all the time, there’s an easy way around that.”

My first thought was that he wanted money. Mostly I felt disgust, but quite honestly the rest of me just thought: How much will it cost me to get rid of you and when do you want it? “What? What are you talking about?”

“We could live together. You, me, and the baby.”

CHAPTER 50

Ruby

I found it impossible to sleep. My heart was racing as I thought of the silver car. Had it really been following me? Had I just panicked and imagined it? My mind kept going back to the feeling I’d had that someone was watching me. I couldn’t help feeling it was something to do with the calls I’d had. Was the driver one of those men? He couldn’t have recognized me. That photo wasn’t even of me. But I hadn’t found the site until days after I started to get the calls. Had there been other photos of me that were put up and taken down without my knowledge? Or were there some on another site, too?