The Kane Contract: Vows of Venom

I peed on the stick at 6:12 a.m. because I couldn’t wait another second. I’d bought the test at 11:47 last night in the twenty-four-hour store on California Avenue, wearing sunglasses and Theo’s Stanford hoodie like some kind of criminal. The cashier didn’t even look up. I stood in the feminine hygiene aisle for ten full minutes pretending to compare brands while my heart tried to punch its way out of my ribs.

I slid down the bathroom wall and sat on heated Italian floor that cost more per square foot than my mom made in a month when I was growing up. I was twenty-nine, married to a man every magazine called “the future of tech,” and I was crying so hard I couldn’t breathe.

Eight weeks. I did the math in my head like I was back in my dorm at Stanford, hunched over problem sets at 3 a.m. with cold pizza and Red Bull. That night in Aspen after we closed Series B. Theo had carried me over the threshold of the cabin like an idiot, dropped me on the rug, kissed me until we forgot our own names. I remember laughing into his neck, whispering, “We did it, we actually did it.” Apparently we did more than close a round.

I pressed both palms to my stomach and just… felt it. A raspberry-sized human that already has a heartbeat. Theo’s baby. Mine. Ours.

I laughed. Then sobbed. Then laughed again until my ribs hurt.

Because God, I want this. Even if the timing is insane. Even if I’m terrified. I want it so much it scares me.

I met Theo at Stanford when I was twenty-two and still thought hoodies and messy buns were acceptable networking attire. He was the golden boy in every pitch competition, heir to Whitford Tech, the kid who already had a trust fund and still somehow managed to look tortured and beautiful. I was the scholarship girl from a nowhere town in Oregon who clawed her way into GSB on loans and spite.

I remember the first time he noticed me. We were in an Engineering Center basement at some startup mixer nobody wanted to be at. I was demolishing some VC’s half-baked blockchain idea in front of thirty people, no slides, just pure adrenaline and facts. I finished and the room went quiet. Then Theo, leaning against the back wall with a beer he was too young to have, started slow-clapping.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Marry me.”

The room laughed. I rolled my eyes and told him to get in line. Three months later he asked again, this time on one knee outside the business school, holding a ring pop because he said real diamonds would come later “when I’d actually earned you.” I said yes anyway.

Two years after graduation his mom died. Overnight he turned into someone I didn’t recognize: drinking at 10 a.m., missing calls with investors, letting the company his dad built rot. I watched him fall apart and I thought, I can fix this. I can fix him. So I did. I rewrote the cap table at 4 a.m. while he slept off hangovers. I cold-emailed every VC who’d ever ghosted him. I stood in front of hostile boards and smiled while they called me “the girlfriend” until I made them choke on the word. I turned a dying company into a unicorn while wearing his ring and pretending the late nights didn’t hurt.

And he loved me for it. He swore he did.

Tonight is our second anniversary gala. Two hundred people at the Rosewood, black tie, string quartet, the whole circus I planned down to the exact shade of peonies. I wrote both speeches, because Theo says my words land better. I was going to wait until after dessert, stand up, tell the entire room we’re having a baby, watch his face do that thing it used to do when he looked at me like I hung the moon.

I printed the ultrasound this morning on heavy cardstock. It’s tiny, just a blurry bean, but I cried when the tech pointed out the heartbeat flicker. I slid it into the secret pocket inside this midnight-blue dress (right over my heart like a total cliché). Theo used to live for clichés.

The dress cost fourteen grand. I know because I stared at the receipt for twenty minutes trying to justify it to the girl from Oregon who still flinches at price tags. The slit is high enough to make conservative board members swallow their tongues. I burned my neck twice doing this “effortless” low knot. I attempted a smokey eye three separate times and ended up looking like I lost a fight with a Sharpie.

I’m good at faking it now.

Theo’s been weird for weeks. Snappish. Sleeping in the guest room “because of the snoring.” Coming home at 3 a.m. smelling like someone else’s perfume (something sweet and heavy that makes my stomach turn even without pregnancy hormones). I found a long black hair on his coat last week and told myself it was from the dry cleaner. I’m great at lying to myself.

I keep waiting for him to notice I stopped drinking. Three weeks of ginger ale disguised as champagne and he hasn’t said a word. Tonight he will. Tonight everything rights itself.

My phone buzzes.

Theo: Traffic is a nightmare. Save me three dances and don’t let anyone else monopolize you in that blue dress. Dying here. Love you.

Love you. He still says it. That has to mean something.

I type back a heart and a kissing emoji because my hands are shaking too hard for real words.

The private elevator dings. Showtime.

I step into the foyer and the cameras hit me like a physical force. Flashes, shouted questions, someone grabs my wrist for a photo. I smile the way I practiced in the mirror a thousand times: chin tilted, eyes warm, untouchable. Inside I’m vibrating so hard I’m surprised the diamonds aren’t rattling.

I glide through the crowd on muscle memory. Handshakes, air kisses, compliments on the dress, on my skin, on how Theo and I are “the ultimate power couple.” I laugh in all the right places. I’m excellent at this now. I used to hide in bathroom stalls during these things, texting my mom that I didn’t belong here. Now I own the damn room.

I spot him instantly.

Theo. Leaning against the bar, golden and perfect in his tux, that half-smirk that ruined me the first time he aimed it my way. My chest still does the same stupid flip it did when we were twenty-three and broke and happy.

Then I see the woman next to him.

Red dress poured over curves money can buy. Hand on his arm like it’s home. Head thrown back laughing at something he said, throat exposed, hair sleek and black and longer than mine.

I don’t know her. I would remember a face like that.

My stomach drops so fast I taste bile.

Theo’s eyes find mine across the ballroom. For one heartbeat his smile is real, soft, the one he used to give me in the Stanford library when I fell asleep on his shoulder during finals week.

He lifts his glass.

I force my lips to curve, press my hand to the hidden pocket over my heart. The little ultrasound photo crinkles under my fingertips like it’s screaming.

I mouth, “I have a surprise.”

He winks.

Everything’s still okay.

I just have to get through my toast.