Chapter 1

The day I found out Brie Kerry was pregnant was our seventh wedding anniversary.

I'd left work early to surprise her, planning to set everything up before she got home. But while I was hiding her gift in the cabinet, I found a prenatal test report tucked inside with her name on it.

The words "12+ weeks pregnant" burned into my eyes like a hot iron.

How could this be?

Seven years ago, when we got married, Brie had cried and said she was afraid of the pain of childbirth, and more afraid of how hard it would be to raise a child.

"Can't it just be the two of us, for the rest of our lives?" she'd asked.

It broke my heart to see her like that, so I booked a vasectomy the very next day.

The doctor said the odds of conception afterward were next to zero.

So there was no way Brie could be pregnant.

Just then, I heard a key turning in the front door.

I looked up. It was Brie, the woman I'd lived with for seven years, and loved for twenty.

She looked at me, her smile sweet as ever.

"Happy anniversary, honey!"

She threw herself into my arms, her hair brushing against my chin.

I looked into her eyes, so full of love, and felt myself go a little numb.

Five years earlier, when a truck had come barreling toward me, Brie had thrown herself in front of it on pure instinct.

She'd needed more than twenty stitches that day. She'd nearly died.

But when she woke up, she hadn't even seemed to notice the pain, too busy comforting me instead.

"See, I'm perfectly fine. Keep crying like that, and you'll make me mad," she'd said.

Later, she'd traced the scar on her body and joked about it.

"Look, this is my medal of honor. Proof that I love you."

Now, that same love still shone just as real in her eyes, and it made everything inside me feel like it had been dropped in ice water.

My throat tightened. I looked down at her stomach.

A life was growing in there. A life that shared no blood with me at all.

It felt like a fist had closed around my heart and was squeezing. I could barely breathe.

"What are you thinking about?"

Brie gave my arm a shake.

I took a deep breath and set the prenatal test report down gently on the coffee table.

The moment she saw what it said, almost instantly, the smile froze on her face.

She stared down at the report, her expression shifting completely, as if the gentle, doting woman from a second ago had never existed.

"You went through my things?"

"I found it in the bedroom," I said, my voice hoarse. "Brie, what is this? Aren't you going to explain?"

"Explain what?"

She crossed her arms and took a step back, putting distance between us.

"So now going through my private things gives you the right to interrogate me?"

"I had a vasectomy seven years ago!" I finally couldn't hold back, my voice rising, my chest heaving. "Whose child is this?"

She frowned, clearly annoyed.

"Why are you yelling? Can't a vasectomy fail and lead to an accidental pregnancy?"

"A vasectomy that somehow got you pregnant?"

I stared straight into her eyes. "Look at me, Brie."

She looked away instead.

"I don't feel like talking about this."

Just then, her phone rang.

Charles Newman's name lit up across the screen.

My heart sank instantly.

"Hello?"

The moment Brie answered, her voice turned soft. But as she listened to whatever was being said on the other end, a barely noticeable edge of worry crept into her tone.

"What's wrong? Are you not feeling well? ... I'll come right now. Just hold on."

She hung up, grabbed her bag off the couch, and headed for the door without so much as glancing at me.

"Brie!" I called after her.

Her steps faltered. When she turned back, her face was nothing but pure annoyance.

"Stop bothering me."