Page 109 of Swept Away

At the time when I sold the boat, Lexi was away, but Penny was working behind the bar at The Anchor. Lexi told me all about how Penny was in those days, how she drank too much, how she always ended up going back with someone.

What if…what if that someone had been me?

“Can’t you remember her? The woman you slept with?” Jeremy asks, and this time the judgment’s definitely there.

And justified, I guess. It’s just…at that stage of my life…Iwas going out almost every night, drinking, and the women did…blur.

“You think I slept with her best friend?” My voice is croaky.

“Worse,” Jeremy says, his mouth set in a grim line. “How old is this woman’s kid?”

My hand flies to my chest.

“What?”

“How old is she?”

“No, I’m always—I always used protection even when I was a stupid teenager.”

I suddenly feel like it’s hard to breathe.

“Condoms are only ninety-eight percent effective even if used perfectly,” Jeremy says, raising his eyebrows slightly behind his glasses. “And I don’t think a drunk teenage boy counts as perfect. I believe the percentage drops to eighty-something in reality.”

“Eighty-something?” I’m clutching at my chest, gripping the fabric of my T-shirt.

“Even if you used it perfectly, Ezekiel, ninety-eight percent means that if you have sex one hundred times, two of those times, some sperm—”

“Oh my God.”

“So the kid,” Jeremy says, infuriatingly calm, “how old is she?”

“She’s…She’s…” I can’t sort through the fog of my mind. “Four. She’s four.”

I remember the conversation Lexi and I had on the floor of the houseboat bathroom. How Lexi had said Mae isfour and two months, to be precise, which she always prefers you to be.

“Four and two months,” I say. I feel like my heart’s straining to reach my hand, shoving against my ribs. I’m light-headed. Dizzy. This can’t be true.

“Four years and two months, plus nine months, that’s just shy of five years.”

There’s no judgment or mockery in Jeremy’s face now. He’s entirely serious.

“Dad’s heart attack was five and a half years ago,” he says. “It took about six months to sort all the legal business after that, didn’t it? Do you recall when you sold the boat? You got rid of it pretty sharpish, if I remember rightly.”

“It was about a week after I turned eighteen,” I say hoarsely. I remember because there’d been loads of faff about my age—at seventeen, I was too young to sell it, so I’d had to wait until after my birthday.

“Well, then. The dates add up perfectly.”

“No. No. It can’t be that.”

I stagger toward a tree by the path, needing something to lean on. I rest my back against the trunk, turning away from the sunshine to stare at the cold castle wall.

“You said Lexi’s friend pulled her and the child away. You said—”

“I know,” I snap, “but it can’t be that. Itcan’tbe that.”

Because if I am Mae’s father, then Lexi will never, ever forgive me.

Lexi

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