The Swap - Robyn Harding Page 0,70

said, which was the truth. But she was right; I’d never wanted it. Freya and I weren’t meant to be parents. Years ago, I would have welcomed a child, but not now, not after all the ugly shit we’d been through. I’d known that my chances of fathering a child were “practically zero” when I married Freya. If I’d wanted a family, I would have chosen a different wife. It sounds harsh, but Freya was not mother material. Freya was sexy, beautiful, witty . . . but she was not selfless; she was not loving. She was not cut out to be someone’s mom.

Neither was Paula Elphin. I barely knew her, but a person who would lie in court about having sex with an athlete just to get child support . . . well, she was hardly a positive role model. Thank God I hadn’t slept with her. She’d been all over me in the bar that night, but I was a newlywed, madly in love. Freya wasn’t possessive, but I wasn’t interested. When Paula accused me, my lawyer thought my sterility would be the quickest and easiest way to make it all go away. We hadn’t expected the judge to order a DNA test.

“I have contracts!” Freya growled, through gritted teeth. “I have sponsors! If we have a paternity scandal, I’ll be ruined again.”

“Jesus Christ. That’s what you’re worried about?”

She hit me then, her hand connecting with my jaw. It smarted; Freya was small, but her rage made her strong. The pain made my eyes water and my face throb. And then I felt that familiar release. It was like scratching at a rash you weren’t supposed to touch. It was damaging, could cause infection. But it was such sweet relief, like it always was, if only for a moment. Freya had come up with a cover story for her battery, had told Jamie I’d been fighting in bars. But the only person who abused me was my wife. And I let her because I deserved it, even craved it in a fucked-up way. I wanted more, wanted her to claw and scratch and punish me. But not now.

My wife was about to give birth to another man’s baby.

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jamie

What could we do but follow them to the hospital? We could hardly go home and twiddle our thumbs while Freya was in preterm labor. If, in fact, it was preterm. If the baby was fine, big and healthy, that meant the child could be Brian’s. But if it was tiny, in need of medical intervention, we would know the timing was off, that the baby couldn’t have been conceived that night in July when Brian slept with Freya. And we would know that we were responsible for the infant’s premature delivery.

The thought was too horrible to contemplate. I would never forgive myself if the baby was born unhealthy because of our confrontation. Even if it wasn’t Brian’s child, even if its mother loathed me now, I still cared about that baby, loved it even. But if he or she was born robust and strong . . . Did that mean the child was my husband’s? How could we prove it? And if we did, what happened then? Freya would not be interested in peacefully co-parenting; she’d made that abundantly clear. We were the enemy.

The whole mess seemed unfathomable. How had one night of fun and debauchery upended our lives? Threatened our marriages and destroyed our friendships? People did stuff like this all the time with no repercussions. It was common practice on the islands, practically de rigueur in the seventies! But we had experimented one goddamn time and it had blown up in our faces. And now, a tiny life hung in the balance, its future precarious.

Brian’s voice broke through my reverie. “There they are.”

We had reached the hospital and could see Max’s black SUV parked near the front doors. He was helping his wife out of the vehicle, his big hands gentle and caring on his delicate passenger. Freya clutched her belly, her face contorted with pain, and something else. Fear. Freya was terrified. She had not prepared herself for what was to come. She needed me.

“Park here,” I instructed, as Brian pulled into an adjacent lot.

We would not be allowed to leave our car in the emergency spaces close to the door. We weren’t patients or family. Before the vehicle had even stopped, I was out of it and jogging toward her. Despite everything that had happened, the