AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ah…” My brain feels as if it’s working slower than usual. “We didn’t use a condom.”
Juliette stares at me. “Yes, we did. I remember.”
“We did in the morning. But we didn’t the first time, after the trivia quiz.”
She stares at me.
“We got carried away,” I say lamely.
Her jaw drops, and I can see her trying to think back. “But…” She trails off. “Oh…”
“But it doesn’t matter,” I say. For some reason I’m getting angry, and I stand up. “I’m not the father.”
“All I can say is that it’s very unlikely that Cam is the father if those dates are right,” Saxon says.
“But not impossible.”
He tips his head from side to side.
“Come on,” I say, “we’re told at school that you can get pregnant at any time of the month, even when a woman’s on her period.”
“That can happen if the girl has a very short cycle,” Saxon says. “In that case, she would ovulate much earlier, so if she ovulated on day ten, and she had sex toward the end of her period, the sperm could survive long enough for her to conceive. But Juliette’s cycle is longer than average, not shorter.”
“Okay, but surely it makes more sense that her having unprotected sex with Cam on the tenth resulted in pregnancy than if she had sex with me, with my sperm count?”
“On the day she would have ovulated? You want my professional opinion?”
“No,” I snap. “It doesn’t make sense.”
He holds up a hand and looks at Juliette. “I’m guessing you haven’t had a paternity test done?”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t think I needed one,” she whispers.
“Okay. Well then, let’s go and sort this out now.” He gets to his feet.
“Wait,” I say, “is it dangerous?”
“Nope. A blood test for Juliette. A cheek swab from you. And it can be done from the seventh week of pregnancy.”
“How long does it take to get the results?” Juliette asks faintly.
“Usually a few weeks,” he says, “but luckily you know someone in the business.” He smiles. “I’ll pull some strings, and we should hear today.”
I look at Juliette, whose eyes have lit up. “Don’t get your hopes up,” I say sharply. “It’s not going to turn out to be mine.”
Her smile fades a little, and she nods. Saxon looks at us, but doesn’t say anything. “Come on,” he says, “I’ll drive us to the hospital.”
Catie gives Juliette a hug, then stays behind with the boys, and Saxon drives us there. Sure enough, he takes us straight through to have her blood sample taken, and the nurse also takes a cheek swab from me. He gets on the phone to the lab and talks to someone there and tells us we should hear in a few hours.
“Let’s go home,” he says. “Jack will call me when he gets the results. I’ll make us some lunch.”
On the way back, Saxon chats to Juliette about pregnancy stuff, but I look out of the window, not speaking. I feel stiff with resentment, angry that he’s dangling the idea of this like a carrot under Juliette’s nose. She’s going to be gutted when she finds out I was right, and somehow the baby is still Cam’s. I can’t have gone through two years of trying with Shaz—who had her fertility checked, and she was fine—only to knock Juliette up literally the first time I slept with her. I’m not that lucky. I got the girl, and that was my luck used up for the next twenty years.
When we get back to Island Bay, Saxon talks to Catie in a low voice, presumably telling her what’s going on, and she gives us a bright smile and says we’ll have some lunch, then go for a walk. Saxon cooks us all a steak sandwich, which we eat sitting out on the deck, and then afterward she piles the boys into a dual stroller, and we walk slowly along the beach, looking out at Taputeranga Island in the distance, surrounded by choppy blue waves.
Juliette holds my hand, and when Saxon and Catie draw ahead a little, she murmurs, “Are you okay?”
I nod stiffly. “I just don’t want to see you disappointed, that’s all.”
