As I stepped between his legs and wet some of the kitchen roll, his eyes met mine. The beautiful colour of them startled me, as it did every time I looked into his eyes like this. His eyes were my favourite thing about him. They made my stomach flutter and my palms sweaty. His eyes were so much like the Carson I used to know, the one who would never threaten me or make these demands of me. My heart actually hurt, and I longed to turn back the time so he could always be the person I thought he was, instead of this person who felt like he was ripping my heart out.

For a few agonising seconds, I couldn’t look away from him. My whole being longed to move closer, to settle myself on his lap and have his arms wrap around me. I wanted that closeness and intimacy which we only ever had after sex when we both caught our breaths. I wanted to press my lips against his and have his hands tangle into my hair. But I knew that intimate relationship we had was long gone.

“This might hurt a little,” I mumbled, wiping the damp paper towel over his face, clearing the blood away.

“Sasha’s beautiful.” My hand faltered, and my lungs constricted at the emotion and feeling that went into those two words. “I can’t believe I missed it all. She can talk and everything. You should have told me about her. This wasn’t fair. I’ll never be able to get that time back, Emma.” His forehead creased with a frown as his jaw tightened, so I knew he was angry with me again.

I frowned as well and continued to wipe his face. He was probably right to be angry. Me keeping this secret, although what I thought was best for him at the time, had actually taken his beautiful little girl away from him for the last two years. He’d missed out on things I hadn’t even thought he would be interested in.

“I don’t want to argue with you anymore, Carson.”

He blew out a big breath and looked away from me. “Me either.” Suddenly, he sat forward, almost making me stick the wet tissue up his nose. A groan escaped his lips as he reached for the newspaper sitting on Lucie’s table, pulling it to him before reading it aloud. ‘Poles Apart’ – the headline jumped out at me before I saw the photo of me and Carson leaving my flat yesterday. “He’s in pole position, she’s a pole dancer. The two of them are poles apart.” He made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat before he continued to read.

“Carson Matthews, MotoGP race driver and British heartthrob, is finally off the market. Petite blonde, Emma Bancroft, works at the lap dancing club Matthews frequents when he’s in England. Emma, now nineteen, fell pregnant with the star’s daughter when she was just sixteen, but the couple have been hiding it until now. The Peoples’ Post suggested yesterday that the pair had an illicit relationship and Carson paid for Emma’s services in the backroom of Angels Gentlemen’s Club where she works part-time as a dancer and waitress. However, The Peoples’ Post and Rodger Harris have printed a retraction this morning, apologising because they had made assumptions without facts. Carson’s press team confirmed the couple have a rocky, on-off courtship and have been in and out of a relationship for the last three years. After the story broke yesterday, they appeared to be working things through as they left Emma’s flat and then holed up at Carson’s London home for the night. The statement from the Matthews camp also quashed rumours that Carson had no knowledge of his daughter until the story broke in the tabloids yesterday morning. The full statement can be seen on page five. The story continues to unfold, but young girls everywhere will be devastated that Carson now appears to be spoken for. If the social media site Twitter is anything to go by, the public reaction to Carson being engaged to a lap dancer hasn’t gone down too well and has left a bitter taste in his female following’s mouths.”

He looked up at me then before shaking his head and pushing the paper away. “Pile of crap.”

My body was kind of numb. Other than the newspaper Carson had shoved into my chest yesterday, I hadn’t seen anything else that had been printed about us. Seeing it sitting there so casually on my best friend’s dining table kind of brought it home to me a little more. Tears filled my eyes as I angrily tossed the wet tissue into the bin. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. Anger, shame and embarrassment swirled around in my stomach, making me feel a little nauseous. Everyone would now know what I did for a living: my university lecturers, my friends in my classes… my parents. The last thought actually hurt. It would just confirm everything they thought they knew about me. I was a dirty little tramp that brought shame on their family.

When arms slid around my waist and a hard chest pressed against my back, I jumped, startled by the sudden affection. I had no idea why he was doing it, or trying to comfort me after I’d lied to him all these years, but I welcomed the support. My eyes fluttered closed as I pressed back against Carson, letting his warmth surround and cloak me in an invisible layer of protection.

“Everything will be fine,” he whispered. His breath blew down my neck as his arms tightened on me, crushing me against him. “You’ll get used to this stuff. Just let it roll off you. Ignore it. Just get on with your life and don’t look back. We’ll make it.”

‘We’ll make it’. The way I wanted that phrase to be intended – that we’d make it as a couple – wasn’t how it was intended at all. I wanted it to mean we’d get through it together, that he would be part of the team Rory and I had formed over the last couple of years. But he didn’t mean it that way at all. All that was meant by those three words were we’d get past this and people would forget about it soon enough and move on to the next freshly-broken story.