‘One in four only, which isn’t bad.’ He took her hand and stood. ‘This weekend isn’t one of them.’

‘Good.’ The light filtering from the street lights outside the window lit up his face. She couldn’t remember having seen anything more beautiful. Hand in hand, they walked slowly up the stairs, bumping against each other, reluctant to loosen their grip on one another.

Minutes later, they were between the sheets, skin to skin, and less than a minute after that they were asleep.

Jodie hadn’t pulled the curtains. Sometime later, the fat full moon worked its way through the clear night sky, its light bright enough to disturb her. Her eyelids flickered as her weary body warred with a suddenly alert brain. Something was wrong. She was trapped. Her eyes flew open, her body tensing to run, then she laughed softly and very gently moved Flynn’s heavy arm off her stomach.

She turned to look at him. This was meant to be. Hadn’t she known it from the beginning, that connection with him from the first meeting? The digital clock on her bedside table said 4.15. It was way too early to be awake, but sleep had deserted her. She thought about the unexpected events of the previous day. How fast it had turned from disaster to delight.

Her hand crept over the wiry hairs on Flynn’s chest, then she lay back and tucked her hands behind her head. Perhaps she should have told him the full story about the child she’d borne when she’d still been a child herself. She consoled herself by thinking that she hadn’t lied… not really.

The digital clock taunted her. 4.20. The room was too bright. Perhaps she’d get back to sleep if she pulled the curtains. Instead, she lay staring at the man in the moon and suddenly thought of Victor.

It must have had been he who had sent the packages… maybe he who had planted the medication.

He’d never tried to contact her in the years since his release. Perhaps if he had, she’d have spoken to him and their past could have been laid to rest. She had never wanted to see him and, until recently, she’d barely given him a thought. Her childish infatuation hadn’t outlived the pain of labour, and afterwards she was too consumed with grief for her loss – both of her baby and of her childhood – to think of him. She’d had to grow up quickly and things had never been the same again.

Jodie wasn’t a fool. She knew the reason Victor was contacting her now was something to do with his name being removed from the sex offenders register. He could come and go wherever he pleased and, for some bizarre, warped reason, he seemed to want to be where she was.