The word landed with precision. My hand moved to my coat pocket, where the ultrasound photograph waited like a fragile promise. I had imagined Ethan laughing when I told him.

I had imagined his palm spreading over my stomach even though there was nothing yet to feel. We had chosen names during sleepless nights. We had stood in the spare bedroom arguing playfully over yellow walls or pale green.

Now he looked at me as if I were a stranger who had wandered into his home.

“Ethan,” I said, forcing calm into my voice, “look at me.” He did. “I have never betrayed you.”

His jaw tightened. “Then why were you meeting Pierce without telling me?”

“I wasn’t meeting him. I was working. I was living my life — the life you knew I had when you married me.”