Not on this day, of all days.

She had armored herself as best she could: a visit to Harrods before the doctor, tea with Natalie at Fortnum & Mason's afterwards. Had she thought these distractions could cushion the news she feared, make it somehow easier?

Nor had her old friend Natalie's ready comfort changed things one jot.

She was pregnant. Full stop. Fact.

And she would have to tell Karl.

Her husband had made it quite, quite clear, before their marriage five years ago, that he did not want a second family. Twenty-five years her senior, with two unsatisfactory grown children and a troublesome ex-wife, Karl had firmly declared he'd no intention of repeating the experience.

For a moment, Dawn allowed herself the weakness of imagining he would change his mind once he heard her news, but she knew that for the fantasy it was. Karl never changed his mind, nor did he take kindly to having his wishes ignored.

The traffic light changed at last, and as she swung into Bayswater Road, she shook a cigarette from the packet in the console. She would quit, she promised herself, but not yet… not until she'd worked out a plan.

If she insisted on having this child, what could Karl do? Turn her out with nothing? The thought terrified her. She'd come a long way from her childhood in a terraced house in East Croyden, and she had no intention of going back. That Natalie had understood, at least. You have legal recourse, Natalie had said, but Dawn had shaken her head. Karl kept a very expensive lawyer on retainer, and she felt certain neither he nor his solicitor would be deterred by the small matter of her legal rights.