CHAPTER 2: The Announcement

"I should leave."

The thought screams through my head as I stand frozen on the bottom step. Walk back upstairs. Pack a bag. Run as far as my feet will carry me.

But my feet have grown roots in the foyer's marble floor.

I can't move. Can't breathe. Can't do anything but stand here and watch my husband hold another woman like she's the most precious thing in his world.

"I'm pregnant, Damon."

Clarissa's words hang in the kitchen air between them. Between all three of us, though they don't know I'm here yet.

I watch Damon's face change.

Shock first. His eyes go wide, his lips parting slightly. Then something shifts underneath the shock. Something warm and unguarded that I haven't seen on his face in years.

Tender.

He's looking at her the way I used to dream he'd look at me.

"Are you sure?" His voice comes out gentle. Careful. Like she's something breakable.

Clarissa nods, tears spilling freely down her cheeks. "I took three tests. All positive."

Three tests. Just like me. The one in my pocket burns like a hot coal against my thigh.

My brain is working too fast and too slow at the same time. Trying to make sense of what I'm seeing. Trying to find another explanation. Any explanation besides the obvious one.

How long has this been going on?

The question tears through me. Because the answer is written in how naturally his arms fit around her. In how she tucks her face against his chest like she's done it a thousand times before.

Because she has. She must have.

I should announce myself. Walk in and clear my throat and pretend I just arrived. Play the supportive wife, the understanding Luna, the gracious sister-in-law.

My throat has closed up completely.

My foot moves on its own. One step down. Then another.

The third step creaks.

They spring apart so fast it would be almost funny if it weren't destroying me. Guilt flashes across both their faces, raw and unmistakable, before their expressions rearrange into something more controlled.

But I saw it. That split second of panic. That's not how innocent people react.

"Iris!" Clarissa presses a hand to her chest. Her voice carries just the right amount of surprise. "I didn't... we didn't hear you come down."

Up close, her eyes are still wet with tears, her cheeks blotchy and flushed. She looks vulnerable. Soft. Like someone who needs protecting.

"I just got here." The lie rolls off my tongue automatically.

Damon's jaw tightens. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough."

The words land like stones in still water. Silence ripples out from them.

Damon looks at me steadily. Waiting for me to fall apart or cause a scene. His expression says he'd prefer I do neither.

Clarissa moves first. She steps toward me, her hands lifting slightly like she wants to reach for me but thinks better of it. Damon's shirt swishes around her thighs with each step. Her perfume reaches me before she does. Something floral and expensive.

She wears his shirts. Sprays on her perfume before coming downstairs. In my house. In my kitchen. Every morning.

How did I convince myself this was normal?

"I'm so sorry you found out this way." Her voice is soft. Genuine-sounding. "I was scared and I just... I needed to tell someone."

Someone. Not anyone. Him specifically. In our kitchen, at six in the morning, wearing his clothes.

"It's fine." The words come out flat. Dead.

"Damon has been SO supportive." She glances back at him, and her smile trembles at the edges. "Like a brother should be."

Brother. She leans on the word. Makes sure I hear it. Rolls it out like a welcome mat between us.

I know what she's doing. Naming it so I can't name it. Gaslighting me before I can even form the accusation.

"This is wonderful news, Clarissa." Damon's voice carries a warmth I haven't heard in years. Since before we were married, maybe. Since when he used to look at me like I was something worth looking at.

He uses her full name with affection. Clarissa. Three syllables, each one warm in his mouth.

When he says mine, it's always flat. Iris. Two syllables, clipped and cold. Like reading a name off a list.

"After the miscarriage last year, I thought I'd never..." Her voice breaks. She presses a hand to her mouth.

The word miscarriage hits me like a fist to the stomach.

Last year.

She was pregnant last year.

The timeline crashes into me all at once. Last year, Clarissa was sick for months. Stomach problems, they said. She stayed in the guest room. Damon was never home. Always visiting family. Always dealing with something urgent that required him to be away for days at a time.

They were together then. Have been together this whole time.

This isn't new. This didn't just happen. This has been my life since before the wedding, maybe even before he proposed to me.

Was I ever anything but a placeholder? A convenient option while he figured out what he actually wanted?

The kitchen tilts slightly. I press my hand against the doorframe.

"Are you okay?" Clarissa's eyes are on me. Wide with concern.

The concern looks real. It probably isn't.

"Fine." I straighten up. "I'm fine."

Damon clears his throat. "We should celebrate." He's looking at Clarissa when he says it. Not me. "Dinner tonight. My treat."

"We?" The word slips out sharper than I intended.

He turns to look at me. His eyes are cold and steady. "The family. Father will want to know."

Father. Alpha Thornwell. The man who called me a weak omega at our own wedding reception. Who has never once looked at me with anything but thinly veiled disappointment.

The family. Damon says it like the meaning is obvious. And it is. I understand perfectly who he means when he says family. It's him and Clarissa and his father and the pack leadership.

I am the wife. The afterthought. The embarrassing mistake that won't go away quietly.

Clarissa wraps her arms around herself, pulling that borrowed shirt tighter. "You don't mind, do you, Iris?" Her voice is tentative. Apologetic. "I know it's sudden. It's just... I'm so happy and so scared at the same time and I don't..."

She trails off, biting her lip. Looking small and overwhelmed and in need of comfort.

She's asking permission. Or performing the asking of it. Playing the considerate sister-in-law, the grateful guest, the humble other woman, while she carries my husband's child and wears his shirts and sleeps under my roof.

Every single instinct I have screams at me to say no. To pull out my own test and hold it up between us. To watch both their faces when they realize I'm pregnant too. To say out loud everything I've been swallowing for three years.

But what would it change? Damon has already made his choice. He made it before he ever proposed to me.

"Of course not," I hear myself say.

The words taste like burning. Like three years of shrinking myself down. Like all the times I bit my tongue and looked away and told myself I was imagining things.

Clarissa's face lights up with relief that looks genuine enough to make my stomach hurt. "Thank you. You're so understanding."

Damon nods once. Already turning away. Already done with me. "I'll make the reservation. Seven tonight."

He walks past me without making eye contact. Clarissa follows, and as she passes, she squeezes my arm. Her fingers are warm through my sleeve.

The touch makes my skin crawl.

I stand alone in the kitchen after they leave. The bacon on the stove is burning. Black smoke curls toward the ceiling. The smoke alarm will go off any second.

I should turn off the stove. Should do something. Should move.

But I can't.

In my pocket, pressed against my hip, my own secret grows heavier by the second.