And now they didn’t even bother to hide it.
My mind snapped back to the hallway when I heard footsteps. Voices. Laughter.
“…are you sure you’re okay to be here?” Nadia asked, her voice a low, sweet drawl.
“Of course,” Xander replied, so casual. “It’s not like she died.”
My breath caught behind the corner. I pressed my back to the cold wall.
Nadia giggled. “But what if she finds out about our baby?”
“So what?” he scoffed. “It doesn’t matter. You’re the one I want to have my child, not her. We’ll surely get married soon. I promise you.”
The words stung worse than any wound on my body. They disappeared into his room, shutting the door. Three months pregnant, I heard Nadia say. Their baby. And yet they’d stolen mine from me like it was nothing.
When I got home, I opened the closet and started packing. Everything Xander had ever given me — the clothes, the jewelry, the perfume he said made me smell expensive. All of it went into a black trash bag. He didn’t deserve to see me draped in anything he’d bought to cover the truth.
I was shoving shoes into the bag when the front door slammed. I froze as my mother’s perfume hit me before she did.