No.
This couldn’t be happening.
Amanda grinned, her smile full of sunshine and rainbows. My gut twisted harder.
She lifted her shoulders, leaned in closer to Simon, and then she announced, “We're having a baby.”
Oh, fuck.
The floor fell out from below me, and my stomach turned. A rushing sound filled my ears, and my mind filled with static. “I…” I blinked. I pressed my hand down on my belly, willing my stomach contents to not make a reappearance.
“Keeley, did you hear? Amanda and I are expecting,” Si prompted as if he was waiting for me to congratulate them. He watched me with downturned lips and narrowed eyes, his displeasure at my reaction obvious.
He flicked his gaze to Amanda, and his expression transformed like a switch had flipped. He smiled, his eyes filled with tenderness and love as he leaned closer and rested their foreheads together. “I’m sorry. She’s being rude.”
I blinked, disbelieving the words he’d just said. I was being rude? Was he serious?
Simon touched her cheek with so much affection that it would have been sweet had I not been watching my husband with another woman. Instead, the only thought echoing through my head wasWhen had he last looked at me like that?
Amanda returned his smile. Their eyes locked once more as he pulled back and brought her hand to his lips. He kissed her gently, and I pressed my stomach harder, forcing the toast I’d had for dinner back down.
My husband’s mistress caressed her rounded belly lovingly before adding, “We were trying for a little while before it happened. I'm six months along.”
I opened my mouth again. But I had nothing. I couldn’t speak. I was utterly numb. I sank into the chair opposite Amanda and exhaled heavily.
What the fuck was happening? Was this some sick joke? I didn’t understand how this could have happened. We were happy. Weren’t we?
I rubbed my eyes to stop the stinging and tried to make sense of the noise in my head. My mind was spinning, words tumbling over one another like they were in a washing machine.
The ache in my chest was as much physical as it was emotional. I pressed the heel of my hand against my breastbone, instinctively trying to relieve the sharp pain slicing me there. I curled in on myself, my spine bowing and another breath whooshing out of my lungs. Inhaling was more difficult. My chest was tight, and the lump in my throat made swallowing impossible. I wanted to cry and beg Si to tell me it was a lie.
But I knew it wasn’t.
He was leaving me. He’d cheated on me, and now he was leaving me.
Then it dawned on me.
My voice shook, the words I enunciated sounding choked when I asked slowly, “You've been trying for a little while? But then it happened six months ago?”
“Yes. Isn't that great?” Amanda responded with another excited grin. She was beautiful and petite, with long wavy hair a few shades lighter than my medium brown, bow-shaped lips, and guileless blue eyes.
A jolt of anger surged through me, fiery and devastating in its ferocity. How dare they?
“You do realize we're married?” I asked, my words sharp, but not harsh enough. I gestured between myself and my cheating-ass husband. “Don't you?”
“Yes.” She nodded and smiled again.
I flicked my gaze to Simon. He was staring at her, completely enamored. Un-freaking-believable.
“So,” I started, biting my tongue to bank the ridicule in my voice. Instead, I sounded sickly sweet. I wanted to vomit at my tone. “How long were you trying?”
“About six months,” Simon responded without sparing a glance my way.
Rejection hit me hard, and I wanted to slap him, to make him hurt as much as he was hurting me.
I balled my hands into fists and pressed them against my thighs. My fingernails bit into my palms, no doubt leaving crescent marks in the flesh.
Right, then. Six months trying plus six months of her being pregnant. Simon and I had been married for three years. A third of our marriage was a lie. There I’d been, thinking everything was wonderful, while Simon was off screwing his junior agent and succeeding in making a baby.
