Chapter 3 - The Scramble for Damage Control
Nobody moved. The thirty-two guests stood frozen in their places, caught somewhere between utter shock and disbelief. Maren stared at me with wide, tear-filled eyes, while Gavin whispered frantically, “What the hell are you doing, Tessa? Have you lost your mind?”
“Saving everyone some time,” I replied evenly, not breaking eye contact with my cheating husband.
“Tessa, please—” Maren choked out, taking a panicked step forward.
“No, really,” I interrupted, my tone icy. “Think how exhausting it would be for you two to call everybody individually to explain why you’re building a nursery behind my back. I’m just streamlining the process.”
“Tess, please,” Maren repeated, her voice cracking as tears spilled down her cheeks.
Please. This was the same woman who had helped me choose the pastel bassinet sitting twenty feet away under the patio awning. She was the one who had spent hours painting sample squares of mint green and soft gray on my nursery walls. She was the one who had rubbed my lower back through three months of agonizing morning sickness, all while sleeping with my husband. Now, caught red-handed in front of our entire social circle, all she wanted was discretion.
Gavin reached out, his hand lunging for my elbow to steer me away from the crowd. “You’re upset. We need to go inside right now and talk about this privately.”
There it was. Not a denial. Not confusion or outrage over a false accusation. Just a desperate, immediate attempt to remove the witnesses before the full scope of their betrayal came to light.
“You thought my house was the place,” I said loudly, pulling my arm away from his grasp.
His head snapped toward me, his eyes widening in pure panic. Across the lawn, his mother, Lorraine, stood frozen beside the dessert table, her expression darkening into thunderous fury. “Gavin,” she demanded, her voice cutting through the quiet. “What is your wife talking about?”
Gavin opened his mouth, but no words came out. Maren covered her face with her hands, sobbing softly.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Maren whispered through her fingers.
May you like
I looked down at her with absolute pity. “The pregnancy? Or getting caught?”
Before either of them could scramble for another excuse, I reached out to the small remote resting beside the decorative cake stand on the gift table. The large television screen beneath the covered patio—which had been playing a loop of my ultrasound pictures and photos of Gavin smiling while assembling the crib—suddenly flickered.
