Two

CHAPTER TWO: MY SISTER’S BABY

"You need to divorce Adrian before this becomes uglier than it already is."

Elena had barely sat down in her biological parents’ drawing room when her father delivered the sentence. He did not ask why she had come from the clinic looking pale, or whether Adrian had been with her. He sat behind his desk with a file open in front of him, while her mother stayed close to Victoria on the sofa. Victoria held a tissue against her eyes, though her cheeks were dry.

“I haven’t even taken my coat off,” Elena said. “Can someone explain why I’m being told to divorce my husband?”

Her mother’s mouth tightened. “Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“Harder for whom?” Elena asked. “I saw Adrian at the hospital with a pregnant woman. I want to know who she is.”

Victoria lowered her head. “It was me.”

The words did not seem to fit inside the room. Elena looked at her sister, then at her parents, waiting for someone to laugh and tell her she had misunderstood. Nobody did.

“You’re pregnant with Adrian’s baby?” she asked.

Victoria began to cry. “I didn’t plan for it to happen this way.”

“But you planned to sleep with my husband?”

“Elena,” her mother warned, as if Elena were the one being cruel.

Elena stood, but her knees felt strangely weak. “You knew? Both of you knew?”

Her father closed the file. “Your marriage has never been a real marriage. Adrian never wanted you. It was an arrangement made by his grandfather, and everyone knew the terms.”

“I knew he didn’t love me. I did not know he was having a child with my sister while I was paying for fertility treatments.”

Victoria wiped her face. “He told me he never touched you because he didn’t want to give you false hope. He said he tried to be fair, but you kept pushing him to have a child.”

Elena felt every word land like a slap. She had never demanded affection from Adrian. She had asked him to attend appointments, to speak honestly, and to stop treating her like a stranger who had moved into his house by mistake. She had told herself that wanting a child was not too much to ask of a husband. Apparently, even that had become an offence.

Her father leaned forward. “You were switched at birth. When we found you three years ago, we welcomed you into this family. But Victoria grew up here. She has always been part of our lives, and now she is carrying a child. We cannot ignore that.”

Elena stared at him. She had spent three years trying to learn the habits of a family that was supposed to be hers. She had been grateful when they invited her to dinners, gave her a room, and introduced her as their biological daughter. She had also noticed that Victoria’s preferences were remembered while Elena’s were treated as requests. She had convinced herself that closeness took time. Now she wondered whether she had been the only one trying.

“So what do you want from me?” she asked quietly.

“A divorce,” her father answered. “Let Victoria and Adrian build a proper family. There is a child involved.”

“There is a child involved in my life too,” Elena said. “I have spent years trying to become a mother.”

Victoria’s crying grew louder. “I never wanted to hurt you. But Adrian loves me. He said he only stayed married because his grandfather wanted an heir, and he never expected you to keep trying for one.”

“Did he tell you that he submitted fake samples during the first three insemination attempts?” Victoria asked, looking up at last. “He said he couldn’t bear to tell you he didn’t want a child with you, so he made sure it would never happen.”

For a moment, Elena could not hear anything except the blood rushing in her ears. The claim was so cruel that she wanted to reject it immediately. Yet it explained the way Adrian had refused to accompany her, the way he had never asked about the results, and the way he looked almost relieved each time a treatment failed.

“You expect me to believe that?” she asked.

“I’m telling you what he told me,” Victoria said. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” Elena picked up her handbag. “If Adrian did this, he can tell me himself. I will not sign anything because all of you have decided my life is inconvenient.”

Her mother reached for her wrist. Elena stepped away. “You’re making this about betrayal when you should be thinking about the baby,” her mother said.

“I have thought about babies every day for years. I know what it feels like to hope, to wait, and to go home empty-handed. Don’t tell me what a child deserves while you ask me to hand my husband to the woman carrying his baby.”

Her father’s expression hardened. “If you refuse to cooperate, you will make this family look terrible.”

“Then perhaps you should have thought about that before you helped hide the truth.”

Elena walked out before anyone could stop her. On the driveway, her phone rang. Adrian’s name flashed across the screen, and she answered before she could lose her nerve.

“Did you use fake samples in my treatments?” she demanded.

There was a brief silence. “Who told you that?”

The question hurt more than a denial would have. “Answer me.”

“We’ll talk later,” Adrian said.

“No. You will talk to me now.”

He hung up.

Elena stood beside her car, shaking. She had gone to the house expecting to learn who the pregnant woman was. She left knowing that her own family had chosen sides, and that her husband might have stolen years of hope from her. When her phone lit up again, she expected another call from Adrian.