The pregnancy test trembled in my hands, a plastic scepter that promised to rule my future. Two pink lines. I stared at them until they blurred, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I was twenty-six years old, drowning in the kind of naive love that makes you blind to the sharp edges of the person you’re holding.
I had curated this evening with the precision of a master artist. The air in our penthouse was heavy with the scent of rosemary and searing beef—thick ribeye steaks from the butcher shop Sterling favored, resting now. On the mahogany dining table, a bottle of 1995 Bordeaux, a relic from our European honeymoon, breathed beside crystal stems. Rose petals bled their color onto the white tablecloth in the shape of a heart.
