The Baby Swap Miracle Read Free

and as she trawled through it again in her head she was just as bewildered as she’d been during their meeting.
    ‘I still can’t really see how it could have happened,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘They seemed absolutely certain about what went wrong—certain enough to check the DNA of the remaining frozen embryos—which means that everything was properly documented, so why wasn’t it picked up at the time? It doesn’t make sense.’
    ‘Because the embryologist was so distracted she didn’t even realise she’d made a mistake. She was clearly not fit to be at work and didn’t pay sufficient attention to detail, hence the confusion between your names.’
    ‘What—Eastwood and Hunter? I don’t think so.’
    ‘But Emelia and Emily? They’re quite similar if you’re not concentrating, and she’d missed off your surnames, and spelt your name with an “i” in the middle, which just made it worse. And it was only when the new embryologist sorted out the backlog of paperwork that the inconsistent reference numbers alerted her. Did you miss that bit?’
    ‘I must have done,’ she said slowly. ‘I wasn’t really listening, to be honest, after he’d told us what had happened, but if she left off our surnames it makes a mix-up more understandable, I suppose…’

    ‘Absolutely, but it’s no justification,’ he said flatly, dropping the teaspoon back into his saucer and leaning back. ‘It’s just attention to detail. It’s critical in a job like that. If you’re incompetent, for whatever reason, then you shouldn’t be working there. It’s inexcusable. They’ve created a child that should never have existed, put both of us in an untenable situation, and no amount of compensation can atone for that.’
    There was a hint of steel in his voice, and she realised he was more than frustrated and unhappy, he was angry. Furiously angry. Because he didn’t want some random woman having his child? Reasonable, under the circumstances. She’d feel the same in his shoes. But the embryologist—
    ‘Don’t be too hard on her,’ she murmured. ‘She’d just learned her husband was dying. I know how that feels.’
    Something flickered in his eyes, and he nodded briefly. ‘Sorry. Of course you do. I didn’t mean to sound harsh, and it was the clinic managers who were at fault. They should have given her compassionate leave or someone to work with to keep a quiet eye on what she was doing, not just left it to chance. But that doesn’t alter what’s happened to you and the situation you’ve been left in.’
    And him, of course. She wasn’t the only one who was affected, but she was the only one who couldn’t walk away—the only one in what he’d called an untenable situation. And he looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else in the world but here, so she owed him that chance.
    ‘Sam, this needn’t make any difference to you,’ she said carefully. ‘I’m not asking you to sign up to any kind of responsibility for the baby—’
    He gave a hollow grunt of laughter and drained his coffee.
    ‘Emelia, I signed up to give my brother a child. A childwho’d be brought up by a loving, devoted couple. A child who’d have not only a mother, but a father. I didn’t sign up to be a sperm donor, to hand over my genetic material to a stranger and take no further part in my child’s life. That was never on the agenda and it’s not something I’d ever do, but that’s not the point now. The point is you’re having my baby, and I won’t walk away from that. From either of you.’
    A muscle worked in his jaw and she swallowed. Was that what she wanted for her child? A dutiful, angry father stomping about in their lives? She wasn’t sure. She didn’t know him—and he was right, he didn’t know her. Time to change that, maybe.
    ‘I’m not that strange,’ she said, trying for a smile, and he laughed again, but his voice was gentler this time.
    ‘No. No, you’re not that strange, but you are alone, and you