Page 84 of Velvet Betrayal
“Of course, mi amor.” I squeezed her hand, amazed at how kids just…accepted you, no matter what. Like you were gravity, or weather.
She slid off my lap, found her Carty under a heap of blanket, and got lost in her unicorns. I watched her for a minute—pointy elbows, hair already coming loose, the way she tensed up during drama and then shrieked when the cartoon ended with hugs and sparkles.
I stood. “Just going to the bathroom. Back in a minute.”
I shut the door behind me, leaning against it for a second, letting the chill seep into my spine. The bathroom light washarsh, but I left it on. Muscle memory took over—wash hands, brush teeth I’d already brushed, wipe down the counter like the mess might tell on me if I didn’t.
Then I saw it.
The calendar, stuck to the mirror. I didn’t mean to look. Didn’t mean to count.
But I did.
Late.
Not enough to panic. But enough to notice. Enough that my stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with nerves or too much champagne or the tension in my shoulders from sleeping half-curled around Rosie, always listening for the door.
I opened the drawer under the sink. Pushed past the clutter—cracked nail polish, expired melatonin, a hairbrush missing half its teeth. And there, buried in the back like a dare I’d never meant to take…
…a pregnancy test.
Cheap. Dusty. Left over from the Julian years, when hope came once a month and grief was a private ritual in the bathroom trash.
Rosie had been enough, and still was enough. She was perfect, all I’d ever wanted. But when she started asking for a baby sister, we tried for a while, and it didn’t happen. Part of me always wondered if that was my fault—if I didn’t want it badly enough.
Part of me wondered if I just wanted Kieran again and knew it would only ever be him.
I sat down, peeled the foil open with shaking fingers, and followed the directions like I wasn’t standing on the edge of a cliff. Pee. Wait.
Three minutes.
Three…fucking…minutes.
I set the stick on the sink, face-down. The box said don’t look too early, like that was possible. In three minutes, I could rewrite my whole life. I could talk myself into hope, out of it, back again. I could build a future and burn it down twice over.
I stared at my hands instead. Knuckles dry and red, a hangnail bleeding at the edge, a faint blue smudge from Rosie’s homework. My hands looked like they belonged to someone else. Someone tired. Someone older than this moment.
District Attorney Ruby Marquez didn’t want this—she didn’t want to be pregnant when her life was falling apart, when she’d just been elected, when she was doing something historic and had a price on her head. That woman was tough, brave…and she couldn’t be vulnerable.
But me? Ruby—the girl who’d run into a cute guy at the gym and never got over him—there was a time when she wanted this. Desperately wanted a family with Kieran Callahan, two kids in that overpriced brownstone in Beacon Hill, a dog, and a minivan in the garage.
And I was both those women right now…and it made me dizzy.
I splashed water on my face and let the sting freeze me into something that resembled calm.
The test blinked into being faster than I was ready for. Ninety seconds—maybe less. The little window filled slowly, like it hated being honest.
And…there was a line.
Faint.
So faint I almost laughed.
I leaned in close enough to fog the glass on the mirror, already drafting the message to my OB in my head—Hey, this probably isn’t right, but can you run a blood test just in case my entire world is lying to me?
But it wasn’t a trick. Not an illusion.
The line was there.
