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The room was pale yellow, soft and warm, filled with small hopeful things I had chosen over the past three months: cloud-shaped shelves, neatly folded blankets, a white crib, framed prints of smiling baby animals who had clearly never encountered the reality of adult human beings. Derek stood there with his hands in his pockets like a man reviewing a renovation project, not a husband whose mistress had just terrorized his pregnant wife.
“How long?” I asked.
He turned slowly. “Elena, listen—”
“How long have you been sleeping with Brittany?”
His expression shifted—not to guilt, but to calculation. Derek always needed a moment to decide which version of himself to present. Regretful husband. Overworked businessman. Misunderstood man. Victim of his own choices. He chose remorse.
“Since January,” he said.
January.
I got pregnant in February.