Chapter 1

Ten minutes before our company's fifteenth-anniversary livestream, I opened my husband's greenroom door and heard him tell another woman's unborn baby, "That's my boy."

Gavin was kneeling in front of Brielle Shaw, our company's brand director.

Her dress had been pulled tight beneath the unmistakable curve of a seven-month pregnancy.

His palm rested against her belly while a portable fetal monitor sent a rapid heartbeat through the room.

For one stupid second, I watched his thumb move over the fabric. It was the same slow circle he used to trace against my hand whenever I was afraid. Brielle saw me first. She reached over and switched off the monitor. The sudden silence felt louder than the heartbeat.

Gavin turned. Surprise crossed his face, followed almost immediately by irritation.

"Maren. You should have knocked."

The old brass key in my hand bit into my palm. My father had given us that key when he cleared out half his garage so Gavin and I could build our first prototypes. Tonight, we were supposed to hold it up together and tell thousands of viewers how our company had begun. I looked at Brielle's stomach. "How far along are you?"

Neither of them answered.

A prenatal visit summary lay on the table beside a glass of water. Brielle's name appeared at the top. Under support person, someone had typed Gavin Whitaker. Relationship to patient: father of baby. An ultrasound photograph rested on top of it.

Our son. Twenty-eight weeks.

The words were in Gavin's handwriting.

"Maren," he began, "she felt dizzy. I came in to check on her."

"You wrote this."

His eyes followed mine to the photograph. He did not try to pick it up. Brielle smoothed her dress over her knees. She looked uncomfortable, but not ashamed. More like someone trapped in a meeting that had run over schedule.

"Is the child yours?" I asked.

Gavin stood slowly. "Yes."

The room shifted beneath me. I reached for the edge of the makeup counter and found cold marble.

Seven months.

For seven months, he had come home to our bed. He had kissed Tessa good night when he arrived before she fell asleep. He had asked me to approve campaign budgets and reminded me to call my mother. All while his son grew inside a woman I had hired. Brielle gathered the medical papers. "Do you still want me in the control room?"

I stared at her.

Gavin answered without looking away from me. "Yes." She slipped the ultrasound into her folder and walked past me. Her perfume lingered after the door closed.

"You let her manage our anniversary livestream?"

"She's the brand director."

"She's carrying your child."

"Both things can be true."

A laugh broke out of me, thin and unfamiliar. Gavin checked the time on his phone. "I was going to tell you after tonight, when we could discuss it privately."

"You had twenty-eight weeks."

"I was trying to find the least destructive way forward."

I looked at the man I had married and understood that he believed what he was saying.

"Our marriage is over."

I turned toward the door.

Gavin caught my wrist. Not hard, but with the casual certainty of someone stopping me from leaving a meeting too early.

Then he noticed the brass key.

"We need that."

He took it from my hand.

"My father gave that to us."

"And five thousand people are waiting to hear the story."

He slipped the key into his jacket pocket and straightened his cuff.

"Tonight, nothing has to change," he said, "unless you insist on destroying it."