Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Acknowledgements

       Author’s Note

      1 Stranger at the Door

      2 New Arrival

      3 Awkward

      4 First Evening

5 Jade’s Story

6 Jackie

7 Testing Boundaries

8 Silly, Silly Girl

9 Hurt by Dishonesty

10 ‘Like You See on the Telly’

11 ‘Smelly Baby’

12 Worth It

13 Assessment

       14 Error of Judgement

       15 Not an Ogre

       16 A Police Matter

       17 Shaken to the Core

       18 Too Late

       19 ‘Please Don’t Take My Baby’

       20 Prolonging the Agony

       21 Tuesday

       22 Last Chance

       23 Broken Rules and Promises

       24 Moving On

       Epilogue

       Exclusive sample chapter

       Acknowledgements

      A big thank-you to my editor, Anne; my literary agent Andrew; and Carole, Vicky, Laura and all the team at HarperCollins.

       Author’s Note

      England has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the developed world. Last year nearly 40,000 teenage girls gave birth and nearly 60,000 terminated a pregnancy. These figures are truly shocking. And while some of the girls’ stories have happy endings, many do not.

       Chapter One

       Stranger at the Door

      We’d just sat down to our evening meal when the doorbell rang. I sighed. Why did salespeople always manage to time their calls with dinner? Double glazing, cavity-wall insulation, religion, new driveway, landscape the garden or fresh fish from Grimsby: whatever they were selling, 6.00 p.m. seemed to be the time they called, I supposed because most people are home from work by then and it isn’t so late that people won’t answer their front doors.

      ‘Aren’t you going to see who it is, Mum?’ Paula, my eight-year-old daughter, asked, as I didn’t immediately leave the table.

      ‘Yes,’ I said as the bell rang for a second time.

      Standing, I swallowed my mouthful of cottage pie and went down the hall to the front door, ready to despatch the salesperson as quickly as possible.

      ‘And don’t be rude!’ Adrian called after me.

      As if I would! Although it was true I usually sent away cold callers efficiently and effectively, which to Adrian, aged twelve, could be seen as rude and certainly embarrassing.

      ‘Don’t be cheeky,’ I returned, as I arrived at the front door.

      It was dark outside at six o’clock in January and, as usual, before answering the door at night, I checked the security spyhole, which allowed me to see who was in the porch. The porch was illuminated by a carriage lamp and gave enough light for me to see a lady in her early thirties, dressed smartly in a light-grey winter coat, and whom I vaguely recognized from seeing in the street. I guessed she was collecting either money for a charity or signatures for a petition on a local issue: traffic calming, crossing patrol, noisy pub in the high road, etc.

      ‘Hello,’ I said with a smile as I opened the door. The cold night air rushed in.

      ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ she