Players, Bumps and Cocktail Sausages (Silence #3)(39)

I got in after dropping Everleigh off home and dialled Abby’s number. Speaking to her hurt but I’d have to ignore that. There was no getting away with not seeing her anymore.

“Jasper, hi,” she breathed down the phone.

I tried to ignore the pang of heartbreak at hearing her say my name like that.

“How are you?” I asked, working harder than I should to keep my voice even.

“I’m good, just a little tired. Are you okay?”

“Fine. Just wanted to sort out tomorrow.”

“Do you want to meet at the hospital or take one car?”

I closed my eyes. Taking one car was something we did as a couple. I’d always call her if we were going out and ask if she wanted to meet at the place we were going, or if I we should meet her at home and go together. So many times we’d opted for going together, even though it wasn’t the easiest thing to do. We did it just to be together.

“I’ll meet you there,” I replied.

“Alright,” she whispered. Even though it was her fault we broke up I still felt guilty every time she sounded unhappy. That needed to pass soon because I resented her for ending our marriage and for making me feel like the bad guy.





Chapter Sixteen


We sat in the waiting room in silence. Usually we’d be chatting or flirting. I hated that it was so different now. When will I stop loving her? She’d broken my heart, and I couldn’t get myself to stop wanting her. Shouldn’t I have automatically stopped the second I caught her all over Brett?

“Jasper,” she said, lowering her voice so the couple across the room from us couldn’t hear.

“What?”

“Do you think you can get past what I did so we can at least see where things go? We’re having a baby now. That’s so much bigger than my feelings of insecurity.”

“What feelings of insecurity?”

She’d never mentioned that before, not once.

Abby shrugged and rolled her lips inwards.

“I guess recently I’d been feeling like I wasn’t good enough. I kept letting you down because you wanted a child and I didn’t feel ready.”

“Are you trying to justify what you did?”

“No,” she said and frowned. “Of course not, I’m just trying to make you understand why I did it. With Brett, there were no expectations so I couldn’t let him down. I’m not trying to make it okay, it wasn’t okay. What I did was stupid and selfish, and I’m ashamed at myself. But we’re having a child.”

“Lets not do this here.”

“Why not? We’re about to see our child for the first time. I think now is perfect.”

She asked for it.

“Fine. Look, I’ll be there for you as the father of our baby. I’ll do everything I can for that child, but I won’t take you back. You knew this was the last chance. We’ve done this too many times, and I don’t want to have this discussion again. Drop it.”

I turned away, feeling like shit. How many times was I going to have to say no before she realised I was serious? Just because I’d forgiven her before, didn’t mean I was going to again – ever.

“Mrs Dane,” someone called from behind us.



“Okay, are you ready to meet your baby?”

I grinned again, so wide the muscles in my cheeks burned. “Hell yeah, I am!”

The sonographer squirted some questionable looking stuff on Abby’s stomach, and I looked at the screen. Soon enough something appeared in front of me – but what? It kind of looked like a bean.

“Is that it?” I asked. It was the cutest bean I’d ever seen, and I fell in love right then.

“Yes, that’s it.”

“Wow,” I whispered.

“I’ll just calculate how far along you are,” the sonographer said, tapping away at her keyboard and looking at the screen. “Okay, so you’re five weeks and your due date is March 29th.”

The world came to an abrupt stop. That couldn’t be right. We were expecting sometime in February. That meant she got pregnant in late June, after the last time we’d broken up. I knew what that meant but at the same time my brain refused to process it.

“March,” I repeated.

On the table, Abby froze, staring at the screen, eyes wide and mouth open. She looked shocked but how could she be? She knew who she’d slept with. She knew that there was a chance it could be someone else’s – Brett’s.

Oh fucking hell, the baby isn’t mine.

I stood up in a daze. No. This couldn’t be happening.

“Abby,” I whispered. She said there had been no one since me. I wanted to have it out with her, but this wasn’t the place, so like a dick, I stood there as my heart broke all over again.

When I should have bolted from the room, I stood still, unable to move an inch. The air thickened and tension radiated from us both. She didn’t say anything, didn’t look at me, just laid still, staring at the screen and gripping the edge of the bed.

I felt sick watching another man’s baby inside my wife, but my legs had failed me.

Run.

The sonographer reeled off some information, and I briefly caught her saying everything looked fine, but my ears were ringing. Why couldn’t I just leave? My body, still rooted to the floor, was punishing me in the most painful way imaginable.