My Husband Used My Pregnancy to Save His Mistress

The city was screaming about an asteroid, but the loudest sound in our penthouse was the ice in my glass.

I sat on the edge of our bed and watched the phone in my lap. Outside, sirens smeared the air. Someone on the street below was singing off-key. Every window in Manhattan glowed like a low fever. The internet said we had six hours left. The internet said a lot of things.

The livestream loaded.

Dominick was on my screen, shirtless, his watch still on. He always kept the watch. Lyla was tucked under his arm in a red silk slip I'd seen in a magazine last month. Her lipstick was on his collarbone. She laughed into the camera like a girl at a birthday party.

"If tonight's the end," she said, "we're spending it honest."

He kissed her hair. Forty-two thousand viewers. Then forty-eight. The little heart icons floated up the screen like ash.

I didn't cry. I didn't move. Ten years folded themselves quietly, the way you fold a sheet you're throwing away.

When the stream cut, my reflection in the dark TV looked like a stranger. A very calm stranger.

I scrolled to a name I hadn't touched in years.

Tristan Fox.

One ring. Half of the second.

"Hadlee."

Just my name. Like he'd been holding it in his mouth all this time.

"Are you awake," I said. It wasn't a question.

"I'm awake."

I closed my eyes. "The world didn't end."

"No," he said. "But something did."

I breathed out. "Yes."

---

Morning came anyway. It always does.

Dominick walked into the kitchen at 8:47 in a clean shirt he hadn't left in. His hair was damp. He smelled like a woman's shampoo and something citrus that wasn't his.

"Traffic was a nightmare," he said, kissing my forehead. His lips were warm. Rehearsed. "Slept at Peter's. Whole city lost its mind."

I slid the anniversary mug across the marble. Black, no sugar. The mug had our wedding date glazed on the bottom in gold. He never noticed.

"Drink," I said.

He drank.

My phone sat face-up beside the fruit bowl. A gossip site had already cropped the best frames. Lyla's mouth on his neck. His hand low on her waist. Forty-eight thousand witnesses and a headline in all caps.

I turned the screen a quarter inch toward me. Just a quarter. He didn't look down.

"You okay?" he asked. He was watching my face the way you check a thermometer.

"I'm fine," I said.

His eyes held mine a beat too long. That old tell. Eight years I'd known it. I smiled with the corners of my mouth and refilled his cup.

---

The café in Brooklyn had a broken neon sign and coffee that tasted like it had opinions. Tristan was in the back booth, dark coat, dark jeans, hands folded. He'd grown into his face. The boy I remembered had lived somewhere behind his eyes, and he was still there, quieter now.

He stood when he saw me. He didn't hug me. He knew better.

"You came," he said.

"I came."

I slid in across from him. The vinyl squeaked. I couldn't look at him directly, so I looked at his hands. There was a pale scar along his left forearm, disappearing into his sleeve.

I started at the affair. My voice came out steadier than I expected. Then the sabotaged competition — the pieces I'd only stitched together later. Then, in shorter sentences, the facility. Upstate. The year. The white rooms.

I did not say the word baby. That door I kept shut with both hands.

He didn't interrupt. He didn't touch me. When I finished, he reached into his coat and slid a small phone across the table. Matte black. Cheap. Untraceable.

"This is yours," he said. "One number in it. Mine."

"Tristan—"

"I'm not pulling you out." His eyes were very steady, very quiet. "You walk out when you're ready. On your terms. I make sure the door's unlocked."

I closed my fingers around the phone. It was warm from his pocket.

---

Three nights later, Dominick lit candles.

Lyla was already at our table when I came down. In my chair. Wearing pearls I'd never seen. She smiled up at me like a hostess.

"Sit, sweetheart," she said.

Dominick poured wine. He kept his voice low and warm, the tone he used for boardrooms and apologies.

"We want to talk to you about something," he said. "About family."

He explained it like a merger. Lyla couldn't be seen pregnant — her image, her contracts, her next film. It would only be nine months. I'd be taken care of. Best doctors. Discreet.

"It's the least you can do," he said, gently. "For family."

He didn't say the word facility. He didn't have to. It sat between us like a third glass.

Lyla reached across and squeezed my hand. Her rings were cold.

Something inside me moved. Not breaking. Turning. A key finding its lock.

I looked at him. I looked at her.

"All right," I said. "I'll do it."

His shoulders eased. Her smile widened.

Under the table, my thumb found the burner phone in my pocket.