Chapter 4

I answered the call.

For a moment, there was only silence. Then, I heard it. A soft, unmistakable sound. A woman's moan.

It was followed by Caren' s voice, thick with fake tears. "Lana... I'm so sorry. I feel so guilty about what happened..."

Then, another voice. Jameson's. Low and desperate. "Please, Caren. Just a little more."

He called her a name. A pet name I'd never heard before. "My little lucky charm."

I froze. Lucky charm.

My mind flashed back a few months. Our pet parrot, a talkative macaw named Rio, had started squawking "Lucky charm! Pretty lucky charm!" over and over. I thought Jameson had taught him some silly phrase from a movie. I even laughed about it.

Now I understood. Rio hadn't been mimicking a movie. He'd been mimicking my fiancé. My fiancé, with my best friend, in my own house.

The affair wasn't new. It had been going on right under my nose, for who knows how long.

Caren' s broken moans and whimpers continued through the phone, a soundtrack to my world collapsing.

My heart felt like a cold, heavy stone in my chest. There was no pain anymore. Just a profound, empty numbness.

I calmly pressed the record button on my screen.

Then I hung up.

I spent the next hour on my laptop, researching the best divorce lawyers in the city.

Later, a pang of hunger drove me to the kitchen. I opened the fridge, looking for something to eat, when a wave of dizziness and nausea hit me.

I barely made it to the bathroom before I was violently sick.

A cold, terrifying suspicion bloomed in my mind.

My hands trembled as I took out a pregnancy test from the back of the medicine cabinet. I' d bought it months ago, back when we were happy, when having a baby was a joyful dream.

I waited.

Two pink lines appeared. Positive.

My last line of defense crumbled. I was pregnant with the child of a man who loved my best friend. A man who was, at this very moment, in bed with her.

I stumbled back to the bedroom and lay there, staring into the darkness, until the sun rose.

Jameson was already home. He had cleaned up the living room and was humming in the kitchen, making breakfast, as if it were just another ordinary morning. He even came in and gently pulled the blanket over my shoulders.

He had always taken such good care of me. We were childhood sweethearts, our families friends for decades. We were the perfect match. Our life together was supposed to be a calm, happy river.

When had the river been poisoned? Was it when I first introduced him to Caren? Or had it been even longer?

They had hidden it so well, a perfect, silent conspiracy of two.

He must have felt my eyes on him. He turned from the stove, a spatula in his hand.

"You're awake," he said, his tone casual. He then frowned. "You know, you were really out of line with Caren yesterday. She's been through a lot. She bends over backwards for you, and all you do is give her a hard time. What is your problem with her?"