‘What’s the matter?’ He reached her, hunkered down, and held a hand against her face. ‘Did you fall? Are you hurt?’

‘How old are you, Flynn?’

‘How old am I?’ He took his hand away and got to his feet. ‘Seriously, you’re sitting on the bathroom floor wondering how old I am? What difference does it make?’

Her stomach flip-flopped. ‘You lied.’

It wouldn’t have been a problem if he had been the only one who had lied.

No, the problem was that so had she.

Flynn sat on the floor beside her, reached across and grabbed her hand, keeping it in his as she tried to pull away. ‘That day in the café, you looked so sweet. I think I fell in love with you that minute. There was something about you that appealed to me. And when we talked, it was so easy. And you were willing to lose it for the sake of a few years, I knew you were, so I added a few on.’

‘Four,’ she said, feeling the earth crack beneath her. ‘You added four years on to make you twenty-eight.’

‘My mother used to call them social lies, they’re never meant to harm anyone.’ He leaned forward to look at her. ‘There’s no harm done: so you’re ten years older than me, not six, does it really matter?’

‘Fourteen,’ she said, and the crack under her grew wider. ‘I’m fourteen years older than you because, yes, I was conscious of the age difference so I dropped a few years. I didn’t think it would matter… I really didn’t think it would.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, reaching for her other hand. ‘Six, ten, fourteen years between us. So what? I don’t care. I love you, I’ve never felt like this about anyone before.’

Jodie pulled her hands away and struggled to her feet, brushing him away when he tried to help. ‘You don’t understand, Flynn.’ He didn’t, because she’d lied to him from the very beginning. And now it looked as if she was going to pay.

She heard him sigh and follow her down the stairs. She’d have liked a drink, she’d have liked to get steaming drunk and not sober up for a long, long time. But she couldn’t. She was pregnant. A cry escaped, startling her and Flynn who was a step behind.

‘For goodness’ sake, Jodie, what’s going on?’

‘You weren’t the only one who was lying about who you were,’ she said, her voice tight and barely above a whisper. ‘Your impersonation was more obvious and oddly, more honest, than mine.’ She saw his puzzled look. ‘I lied to you. About the child I had.’

Flynn sat on the seat opposite and stretched a hand across the table. ‘It doesn’t matter.’