‘There’s nothing wrong with being needy,’ he said into her ear. ‘I quite like being your knight in shining armour.’

It wasn’t the word she was looking for at all. Needy, was that how he viewed her? She was horrified at the thought and wanted to argue the point, wanted to say she’d meant self-obsessed or even self-centred, but not needy. What a horrible word that was. But as he continued to hold her in the warmth of his arms as the chilly breeze swirled around them, she decided it didn’t matter.

It wasn’t until much later – when Flynn was breathing heavily beside her and she was lying, eyes wide-open, a slight smile of sexual satisfaction curving her lips, her brain in a post-coital torpor – that a tiny voice worked its way into her ear. He hadn’t mentioned either going home or staying with her longer.

She sat up a little to look at him. He was sleeping prone, his face turned towards her, one arm curved under his head, the other hanging over the side of the bed. The curtains weren’t closed properly and light leaked through from the street lights outside, casting an eerie glow over his almost too-perfect features.

Too perfect. The words rattled in her brain and dampened the sense of euphoria she’d been wallowing in for the last hour. It was so perfect it scared her.

She flopped back and rested her hand across her eyes to shut out the light. What were the odds of the ideal relationship coming when her life was in such a turmoil? The gods, she decided, were having a laugh at her expense.

Sleep wasn’t coming. She slipped from the bed, pulled on a robe, and tiptoed down the stairs. The curtains were still shut in the sitting room, but before Jodie switched on the light, she checked there was no gap for anyone to peer through. A safety measure, she told herself. She wasn’t getting paranoid because Victor knew where she lived, because he’d left her a totally inappropriate gift… no, not a gift. A reminder.

That last came out of the blue, blindsiding her and making her drop heavily onto the sofa, a hand over her mouth to soften the gasp of fear. Was that what those sweet blue baby shoes were supposed to do? To remind her of the future they had planned together, the two of them and their baby, a future that had been yanked from under their feet when her mother had noticed her swelling belly.

She’d never spoken to Victor again; never been allowed to, and when the child was gone, when it was all over and she was in a different place, a different school, it was put into her past and locked down.