Part 2:
I sat across from him, my lawyer Patricia—my rock—at my side. We moved through the assets with a sickening monotony. The penthouse, the vacation home, the accounts… Brandon was being “generous.” I knew why. He was in a hurry to get back to Cassandra, the twenty-six-year-old marketing executive he’d replaced me with. I didn’t fight him on a single thing. He could have the sticks and bricks. I just wanted my soul back.
“You look different,” Brandon said suddenly, cutting off his lawyer. His eyes narrowed. “Are you seeing someone?”
The question was laced with a familiar venom.
“That is no longer any of your business, Brandon,” I said, my voice remarkably steady.
Patricia slid the final document toward me. The last signature. I picked up the pen, feeling Brandon’s gaze burning into me. I leaned forward to reach the paper, and in that simple movement, the emerald coat I’d kept so carefully closed finally shifted.
The fabric fell open.
The silence that followed was absolute. It was thick, suffocating, and punctuated only by the sound of Brandon’s pen hitting the floor and rolling across the wood. His eyes grew wide, fixed on the undeniable, prominent curve of my belly.
“What…?” he whispered, his voice cracking. “What is that?”
I realized there was no more use in hiding. I leaned back, letting the coat fall to the sides, revealing my seven-month pregnancy in all its glory. I placed a hand over my stomach, feeling a tiny kick against my palm—a life Brandon had told me I was “too broken” to create.
“I’m pregnant,” I said. “Seven months.”
