The shower started running upstairs.

I slowly pushed myself up from the couch, steadying my heavy body against the armrest, then walked over and picked up Adrian's phone.

I opened his messaging app and found Clara's chat at the top. Her profile picture was that smug selfie. Adrian's nickname for her was a single word: "Mine."

I stood there, bile rising in my throat.

The chat history was worse than I'd imagined.

"Miss you."

"Be good. I can't come today — she's home."

"Don't worry. I'm here. Even if you're really pregnant with my child, I'll handle everything. Emily's not going to try anything."

Every message was a blade, carving open the happiness I'd foolishly believed was real.

I took a deep breath, turned on screen recording, and scrolled through page after page. Bank transfers, hotel reservations, property transfers — I saved everything. Then I opened his email and shopping apps, screenshotting every receipt connected to Clara and forwarding it all to my own phone.

By the time I finished, cold sweat had soaked through my back. The baby kicked again — hard — as if sensing something was wrong. My heart seized. I gripped the edge of the table and carefully lowered myself back down, one hand gently soothing my belly.

"It's okay, baby."

"Just a little longer."

"Mommy's going to get us out of here soon."

The water upstairs stopped.

I quickly erased every trace, put the phone back exactly where it had been, and used the armrest to pull myself up and return to the couch. A few minutes later, Adrian came downstairs in loungewear, hair still damp, looking cool and gentle.

He sat beside me and casually pulled me into his arms. "Why aren't you in bed yet?"

I leaned against his chest, listening to the steady heartbeat his body willed into being — a body that should have had no warmth at all — and suddenly remembered a night many years ago, when he first told me what he was.

We'd just started dating. He stood in the moonlight, his face so pale it was almost translucent, and quietly admitted he wasn't human. Adrian said that because of me, for the first time, he'd considered giving up eternity.

I hadn't run.

I'd held him.

I said, "Adrian, it's not the vampire part that scares me. It's losing you."

Looking back now, the truly terrifying thing was never what he was.

It was that his love could change in a heartbeat.

I closed my eyes slowly, forcing every emotion down, my voice so docile it surprised even me. "Adrian."

"Hmm?"

"After the baby's born, will things always be like this?"

He looked down at me, his dark eyes holding mine, his voice warm and certain: "Of course."

"Emily, I'll be with you and the baby forever."

Forever.

What a beautiful word.

Too bad I didn't believe a single syllable of it anymore.

Sitting across from my lawyer the next morning, I thought I wasn't ready for this.

Twelve years of love wasn't something you let go of easily, and I was about to rip open the wound all over again just to organize the evidence and discuss divorce terms.

But I turned out to be colder than I'd expected. Looking at the photos of Adrian with that woman, listening to their sickening sweetness on camera, I felt nothing. It seemed I'd already used up every last tear the night before.

Adrian's affair with Clara had started two years ago — maybe longer. Back then, I'd been so wrecked by morning sickness and physical exhaustion that I was practically skeletal, with no energy left to be close to Adrian.

But I'd stopped agonizing over why he'd cheated, or why he'd chosen to betray me at my most vulnerable and lie about it for so long.

Now, the only thing I cared about was whether he'd been draining our joint assets behind my back.

And whether he'd already been planning to divorce me.

I sat with my lawyer going through the emails on my laptop, and felt an oddly ill-timed sense of gratitude. If Clara hadn't jumped the gun with her power play, I might still have been in the dark — blindsided and discarded like trash without any warning.

But now, with the evidence in my hands, I wasn't about to waste this God-given opportunity.

I would not be soft.

I would take him for everything he had.

When I got home, I didn't expect Adrian to be there at this hour.

He'd always used overtime as an excuse to come home late. I'd just come from the lawyer's office, and I hadn't had time to compose myself before I saw him coming down the stairs, looking visibly flustered.

Something shifted in his eyes when he saw my face. "Emily? You're back early. Why didn't you stay out and do some shopping?"

I shook my head, set my things down with forced composure, and studied him from the corner of my eye.

"I got a little tired so I came back early. I bought you a tie — see if you like it."

I held up the tie I'd grabbed at a shop as cover and stepped forward, holding it against his collar.

Adrian still reeked of floral perfume, his gaze evasive.

"Oh? What's the occasion?"

"I just felt like it," I said, one hand on my belly, my voice light. "We're husband and wife, aren't we?"

Husband and wife.

The moment those words left my mouth, I saw the guilt in his eyes deepen.

The irony — that even now, he still had the capacity for guilt.

I pretended not to notice and just stared at his wrinkled tie, a cold satisfaction settling inside me.

Clara was in the house right now.

A crash came from upstairs. I moved past him toward the staircase, but he caught me in his arms.

"Probably just a cup that fell. Don't worry about it."

His arm blocked my path — the gesture looked tender, but there was no give in it. That was Adrian. Even when he was keeping you out, he made it look like concern, as though he wasn't guarding against me but worrying I might step on broken glass.

"I'll take care of it," he said, looking down at me, his voice deliberately gentle. "You're too far along. Leave it to me."

I looked up at him. After a moment, I smiled.

"Okay."

He clearly hadn't expected me to agree so easily. A flash of surprise crossed his eyes. But I acted as if I'd noticed nothing, reaching up to straighten his crooked tie, my fingertip brushing — just barely — across a faint red mark near his collarbone.

The kind left by a woman's nails.

I stood there, looking past his shoulder toward the far end of the second-floor hallway.

Then I pulled my gaze back, as though I'd seen nothing at all, and rubbed my temple. "I'm a little tired. I'm going to take a bath."

Adrian seemed to exhale with relief. Even his voice softened. "Okay. I'll have someone get towels and warm milk ready for you."