He grunted in response. Rory wasn’t a morning person.

“Raw-ee!” Sasha cried, holding out her arms for him. She adored him. He was more like a dad than a teenage uncle. I was lucky to have him.

Three years ago, when my parents kicked me out of the house, Rory was the only one who stuck up for me. Then, when I got pregnant a few months later, my parents disowned me even more, if that were possible. From what Rory had told me, when they found out I was pregnant at sixteen, they took down every single picture of me and literally pretended they didn’t ever have a daughter. It didn’t surprise me, though; I had always been a disappointment to them, even before everything that happened. I was a disappointment to them from the day I was born, it seemed.

They were very strict, very religious, and I guess once I hit my teens, my natural rebellious instincts kicked in, and I started to go a little wild. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. I was never wild, but I’d snuck out to parties, I’d tried my hand at smoking, I’d gotten myself a boyfriend – and all the other normal things a teenage girl did.

The last straw for them was when I gave my virginity to the boy I was dating whilst drunk at a party. When they found out about it, they went crazy. Screaming about how I had brought shame on the whole family, how they were going to be punished because of my disgusting and disgraceful actions. Having sex outside of wedlock was strictly prohibited in their eyes. They gave me two options: either I join a convent – which is not something a sixteen-year-old girl wants to do – or I move out on my own and lead my life of shame without them.

Obviously, I chose the second option. They gave me access to my savings account which they had been paying into since my birth, signing over to me just under £3,000. With that money I moved out to more central London and registered for school. I was fine for a little while, but then very quickly I started to run out of money. I’d looked for a job for weeks but nowhere would employ a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl who could only work weekends. Thankfully, the last-resort place took a risk on me. Angels Gentlemen’s Club. The place saved my life because without it I would have lost my flat, and I would have either been sleeping on the streets or in that convent my parents wanted me to go to.

Technically, I was too young to work at the club at the time, but Jason took pity on me and gave me a shot. Up until I was eighteen, I had to be careful because I was underage, but I never got into any trouble for it. Angels was a respectable ‘members only’ club, so the police didn’t come round very often to check staff IDs.

When I first started working there, I was a shy, naïve, little sixteen-year-old girl who blushed when the girls started taking their clothes off. On my first night working, I met a handsome boy who was out celebrating his eighteenth birthday with some friends. I’d been attracted to him immediately.

As time passed, I fooled myself into thinking he liked me, too. He kept coming back every week, sitting in my section, asking me for dances all the time. Rather naively, I let myself fall in love with him, forgetting it was just a job and he was just a client. I gave him my heart – but it never went anywhere. Sure, he continued to come to the club every week, but it was just a night out for him, a bit of fun and a laugh.

After a couple of months, his racing career took off; he was signed by a good team as a second driver. He, of course, came to the club to celebrate with his friends that night. We’d been messing around, flirting back and forth as usual; that was when his friend suggested he pay for Carson to go to the backroom with me as a congratulations gift. I’d had a little to drink that night, so I’d agreed to it because I was already crazy about him by then – even if he wasn’t crazy about me.

That night was the most incredible night of my life; it was beautiful and tender and was better than anything I had ever experienced. Every kiss and every touch was perfect and special with him, not like the one time I had been with a guy before. From that night on, every week would be the same. He’d flirt and behave like an adorable guy, and we’d go to the backroom after. We never had anything other than those nights, I never got his phone number, and I never saw him outside work. We were just two separate people who had sex in the backroom of a club for money once or twice a week.

Three months later, I missed a period.

I never told him about it. His dreams were just starting to take flight. The team he was driving for were becoming more impressed with him, and he was climbing higher and higher up the leader board, travelling here, there and everywhere. The press were starting to pay him attention, people started asking for his autograph, and he started wearing designer shoes. Everything was rosy for Carson; his future was bright and shiny.

I couldn’t take those things away from him, so I said nothing. I loved him too much to trap him with a stupid sixteen-year-old girl he didn’t care about. So I let him go. I told Jason about being pregnant, and as soon as I’d started to show, at around four months, he moved me to another club they owned, promising not to tell Carson anything about it.

Because it was totally obvious I was pregnant, I couldn’t wait tables and dance anymore, so I’d cleaned the clubs instead, doing their paperwork just to earn money. It was hard, really hard. I was alone and depressed. It was the darkest time of my life.

The only thing that pulled me out of my slump was seeing Carson do so well, reading the articles about him being the new protégé of MotoGP, and seeing pictures of him in the paper holding up his trophies. No matter how hard my life was, I genuinely believed I was doing the right thing by letting him live his dream.