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‘Almost nine months after the games convention,’ Robyn whispered and she saw him running calculations in his head. ‘She came a little early.’

‘Willow “Silver” Wells,’ he murmured, incredulously.

‘You were Silver007. It was the only name I had for you.’

He let the paper drop to his side and pushed his hand through his hair.

‘So why are you telling me now? Why now?’ Fox looked around him, as if seeing for the first time the Christmas tree, the courtyard.

Robyn paused, collected her thoughts, her words, her hopes for the future.

‘I think you’re a good man, and a great dad, and I think – no, I know,’ Robyn corrected herself, ‘that I should give you the opportunity to be in your daughter’s life.’

She shifted Willow in her arms, turning the baby to face her father. Willow kicked her feet, reaching her arms out to him. The baby already knew him: she recognised his voice; she smiled when he came into a room.

‘My daughter?’

‘Your daughter.’

Fox took a hesitant step towards them, and Willow bounced in excitement.

He reached out a hand and tickled Willow’s chubby wrist, his eyes fixed on her face, her big brown shiny eyes. Robyn saw emotion flood his face as he noticed those eyes, really noticed them, for the first time. Exactly the same as his.

Without a word, he reached his arms out to take her, and Robyn’s heart hammered in her chest as she let her daughter go. Willow was unperturbed, cooing contentedly, as Fox carried her to the Christmas tree and she bounced in his arms to be closer to the lights. He studied her face, ran his finger down the tiny button of her nose, stroked the soft silk of her auburn hair, as though memorising his daughter’s face and features.

‘You’re sure?’ he asked, without looking away from the baby.

‘I’m sure,’ Robyn said steadily, trying to ignore the implication of the question. It was fair to ask. ‘I wouldn’t have told you if I wasn’t.’

Fox considered that and then nodded decisively.

‘But there are ways to be a hundred per cent certain,’ he said.

‘You can do a DNA test if that’s what you need.’

‘Maybe that’s not necessary . . .’ he said quietly. He quickly pulled off Willow’s socks, stuffed them in his pocket.

‘I’ll be quick, she won’t get cold,’ he reassured Robyn, although she had no idea what he was up to. She watched as he lifted Willow’s right foot gently in his hand and spread her toes, one by one.

‘What are you doing?’

Fox continued as if he hadn’t heard her, swapping feet and individually inspecting between each toe.

‘There,’ he said, as though to himself. ‘There it is. Just like mine.’

He lifted his head and showed Robyn what he was looking at. The webbed join between Willow’s little pinkie toe and the one beside it. Robyn had noticed it before, but never thought anything of it.

‘Reggie and George have it too,’ he said. ‘It’s a genetic thing apparently, passed on by fathers to their children.’ He pulled Willow’s socks back on and tucked her feet into the blanket, looking at Willow now with a new tenderness, a wonder. With love. Heat surged through Robyn until her eyeballs burned and she realised she was on the verge of tears.

‘My daughter,’ Fox said again, and this time, Robyn knew he believed it. Only because of the evidence.

‘I told you,’ she said defensively. ‘You didn’t need to look for proof.’

He shot a glance at her over Willow’s head and Robyn’s stomach dropped at the way his face flattened out, hard, angry.

‘Of course I needed to check,’ he said. ‘You’ve been lying to me for months.’

The atmosphere changed in an instant, the wind whistling cold under the tree.