‘Maia, it’s okay, cry if you want. I understand,’ he said softly.

‘It’s just that . . . I haven’t ever told anyone this,’ I admitted, feeling my heart palpitating in my chest. ‘And I’m so ashamed . . . so ashamed . . .’

The tears began to fall, even though I’d done my best to stop them. Floriano came to sit next to me on the sofa and took me into his arms. He stroked my hair as I babbled incoherently about how I should have been stronger and kept the child, whatever it took. And how not a single day had gone by since they took my baby away from me a few minutes after I’d given birth to him that I hadn’t relived that terrible moment.

‘They never even let me see his face . . .’ I moaned. ‘They said it was for the best.’

Floriano offered no sympathy or platitudes, until the last shred of despair left me like the final whistle of air from a popped balloon and my entire body sagged in exhaustion. I lay there silently against his chest, wondering what on earth had possessed me to tell him my terrible secret.

Floriano remained silent. Eventually, I asked in desperation, ‘Are you shocked?’

‘No, of course not. Why would I be?’

‘Why wouldn’t you be?’

‘Because,’ he sighed sadly, ‘you did what you thought was right at the time, under the circumstances you faced. And there’s no crime in that.’

‘Perhaps murderers also think what they did was right,’ I countered morosely.

‘Maia, you were very young and very frightened, and I presume the father was not around to make an honest woman of you? Or to even support you?’

‘God no,’ I said with a shudder as I remembered my last conversation with Zed at the end of that summer term. ‘To him, we were no more than a fling. He was leaving university and about to begin his future. He told me he felt long-distance relationships rarely worked and that it had been fun, but it was best if it ended there. While we were still friends,’ I added with a grim chuckle.

‘And you never told him you were pregnant?’

‘I didn’t realise I was for sure until I arrived home and Marina took one look at me and carted me off to the doctor’s. By that time, I was too far gone to do anything but have it. I was so naive, so stupid,’ I berated myself. ‘And so in love that I was prepared to do anything he wanted me to.’

‘Which I presume meant not spoiling his enjoyment of you with contraception?’

‘Yes.’ I hid my blushes in his shirt. ‘But I should have – could have – protected myself more carefully. I wasn’t a child, after all, but I suppose I just didn’t believe it would happen to me.’

‘Many inexperienced young women don’t, Maia. Especially in the first flush of love. Did you speak to your father about it?’ he asked. ‘It sounds as though the two of you were very close.’