Chapter 1: The Anniversary That Never Was

SERENA POV:

The candles burned a bit low.

I glanced at my watch again. 8:47 PM. Nothing yet. No texts. No calls. Not even a lie about traffic or last-minute meetings.

The dining room smelled of rosemary and roasted lamb, his favorite. His mother used to cook it for him whenever there was a special occasion. I spent an entire afternoon perfecting the recipe. The table was set perfectly, too: white linens I pressed myself, gold-rimmed chinaware we got as our wedding gift three years back but had never really used, flowers from the market, wine in the decanter giving it a little air.

My hand went to my stomach; a habit formed over the last few weeks. Still flat. Still secret.

Tonight was the night I was supposed to tell him.

I had practiced it a hundred times in every way imaginable: casually, slipping it into conversation while having dinner; dramatic, tossing the sonogram lovingly wrapped inside a gift box on the table; sweet, telling him while feeling his arms around me. But Adrian never held me anymore, so that one was completely out of the question.

The lamb was getting cold. Maybe I should cover it, put it away. Then, if I took that step, I'd have to admit he wasn't coming, and I wasn't ready to do that yet.

My phone buzzed. Finally,

But it wasn't him.

**Clara:** *Turn on the TV. Channel 7. Now.*

My stomach quickly crashed, for Clara never texted like that: very short and urgent, without some emojis and ramblings. Something was wrong.

I grabbed the remote with trembling hands, almost dropping it twice before I got the TV on. The channel changed. A news anchor, too bright, too polished, was shown.

"...the surprise appearance has New York talking tonight. Seen at the Grandeur Hotel gala by CEO Adrian Moore with a mystery woman and child..."

The camera cut away.

There he was.

My husband. My Adrian. Holding court on the red carpet, dressed to the nines in his Tom Ford tuxedo I had taken to the dry cleaners just yesterday and left hanging in his closet. His arm was slung around the waist of a woman I'd never seen before- all legs and slick hair, and a dress whose price tag lay beyond the value of our mortgage. She was looking up at him as if he was her sun.

And he was looking back at her the same way.

His other arm was gripping a little girl, not more than four years old. Dark curls. His smile.

The remote slipped out of my hand. It hit the floor, but I couldn't hear it over the roaring in my ears.

"...sources confirmed the woman to be none other than Vivian Cross, Moore's college sweetheart who relocated abroad years ago. The child's identity, however, has not been confirmed yet, but rumors abound..."

I could not breathe anymore. The room pitched sideways. I reached for the table to regain some support, my hand latching onto a scoop of mashed potatoes, still warm; and wasn't that a cruel joke? I had gone through all the rigmarole, making sure everything was perfectly planned and settled in, just to find my husband on television with another woman and a kid who resembled him so much.

The camera zoomed in. The reporter thrust the microphone into his face.

"Mr. Moore, can you tell us about your companions tonight?"

Adrian smiled. I knew that smile. So private. So rare. So long I thought it belonged only to me.

"This is my family," he said.

That was all. Four words.

My knees went weak. I staggered. I grabbed onto a chair, which scraped noisily across the floor as I went down hard, my hip crashing into one of the table legs. The sound of the chinaware hitting the floor echoed around the room. A wine glass tipped over, the red spreading across the white linen like blood.

"The two women who complete me," he had kept saying, and the little girl was laughing as she reached up with her small hand toward his face. He kissed her forehead--gentle, tender. Just like I'd imagined he would touch our baby.

Our baby.

I pressed both of my hands into my stomach, fingers digging down through the fabric of my blue dress. It was the blue one. His favorite. He'd actually told me once, many years ago, that I'd looked beautiful in it. And I'd clung to that compliment like a lifeline ever since.

On the screen, Vivian leaned into him and whispered something that caused him to laugh. The reporters loved it. Flash, flash, capturing the perfect family. The CEO and his girls. Vivian's hand pressed against his chest, possessive. The little girl in his arms, adored. Him, at the center of it all, looking happier than I've seen him in months.

Maybe years.

Maybe ever, with me.

My phone was ringing. Clara. I couldn't answer it. I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything but stare at the screen as my husband casually kissed another woman's temple, as if it had been done a thousand times before.

Because probably it had.

Again, this reporter was breathless, hardly able to contain her excitement. “When exactly did you reconnect with Ms. Cross?”

“Some people are worth waiting for,” Adrian said, and Vivian's smile cut sharply across her face. She was victorious. “We’ve been… finding our way back to one another.”

Finding their way back. While I was down here, in his house, in his bed, wearing his ring.

The candles were melting away to nothing now, wax dripping onto the tablecloth. The whole room smelled of smokiness, failure, and expensive food going to waste.

I should kill that TV. I should get up. I should call him. I should scream at him. I should demand answers.

But I already knew, didn't I?

She was beautiful. The little girl was his. They were a family.

And I was the woman who set a table for an anniversary dinner her husband forgot even existed.

The sonogram remained in my purse tucked in the zippered pocket with the edges already softened from how many times I'd pulled it out to look at it, to reassure myself it was real. Eight weeks along. Due in spring. A little bean of a thing half me and half the man who at this minute was on television declaring somebody else his family.

My hand again went onto my belly. I pressed down hard. What I felt was nothing but the hardness of pain penetrating the chest, rib, and throat. Everything hurt; even breathing hurt.

Another story was being brought up on the broadcasting screen. Sport, perhaps. The screen was shut from my view.

I was just looking at the table, at my perfectly done lamb, at those candles about to burn out, and at a wine-soaked tablecloth flooding the entire table.

Just like me.

I had just ruined this. Somehow. I must have. Because boys like Adrian didn't do such things unless you provoked them to it. His mom has said to me many times. *If he’s distant, it’s because you’re not trying hard enough. If he’s unhappy, it’s because you’re not enough.*

Not pretty enough. Not interesting enough. Not woman enough.

Not her.

The front door opened. Some footsteps walking down the hall. For one dumb, desperate second, hope flared in my chest. He came home. He would explain. It was a misunderstanding or a business thing or—

“Serena?” Margaret’s voice, his mother’s. Cold as January. “We need to talk.”

I didn’t get up. I couldn’t. She appeared in the doorway, immaculate as always, her expression carved from ice.

“I assume you’ve seen the news.”

My throat was too tight to respond.

“Adrian is to spend the night at the penthouse.” She picked up one of the cloth napkins and folded it with deliberate, angry movements. “I suggest you don’t embarrass the family further by putting up a show.”

I found some voice, broken though it was. “What’s happening?”

“What is happening,” added Margaret, her words short and harsh, “is that Adrian’s real family has returned, and you will conduct yourself with dignity, or I shall ensure that you have nothing left to conduct.”

She dropped the napkin; it landed in the spilled wine.

“Clean this up before the staff sees it in the morning. This is pathetic.”

And with that, she was gone.

So there I sat on the floor, a hand on my stomach and the other gripping a table leg, surrounded by that whole pathetic display of mine called hope.

The candles finally burnt out.

And in the ensuing darkness, I came to what I had been too naive to realize:

I had never been his wife. He had never made me his choice.

I was simply the woman who kept his bed warm until she came back.