They say pregnancy gives you a “glow.” That is a lie invented by men who have never had a bowling ball sitting on their bladder for three months. I didn’t glow. I waddled. I swelled. I retained water like a camel preparing for a desert crossing. My ankles had disappeared somewhere around the second trimester, replaced by tree trunks that throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache.
I was eight months pregnant with our first child. I was exhausted, hormonal, and felt as attractive as a beached whale.
And my husband, Mark, decided this was the perfect time to host a dinner party.
“It’s for the promotion, Sarah,” he had insisted three days ago, adjusting his silk tie in the mirror while I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to put on socks. “My boss is coming. The partners are coming. I need everything to be perfect. And I need you to be… charming.”
Charming. Code for: Don’t look tired. Don’t complain. And for God’s sake, hide the stretch marks.
I looked at him now from across the kitchen island. He was handsome, I’ll give him that. Mark was the kind of man who aged like fine wine—sharper, more refined. He was wearing a navy suit that cost more than my first car.
“Is the roast ready?” he snapped, not looking up from his phone.
“It needs ten more minutes, Mark,” I said, rubbing my lower back. “Can you help me get the platter down from the top shelf? I can’t reach it.”
He sighed. A loud, theatrical sigh that sucked the air out of the room. “Sarah, I am handling the logistics. Can you just… manage the domestic side? Please?”
He didn’t help. He walked out to the patio to check the lights. I grabbed a step stool, praying I wouldn’t fall, and dragged the heavy ceramic platter down myself.
Then the doorbell rang.
Chapter 1: The “Cousin”
I expected his boss. I expected the partners.
I did not expect her.
Mark opened the door, his face lighting up with a smile I hadn’t seen directed at me in years. Standing on our porch was a woman who looked like she had been airbrushed into existence. She was tall, willowy, and devastatingly beautiful. She wore a white silk slip dress that clung to her body like a second skin. It was the kind of dress that shouted, I am not a mother. I am a muse.
“Sarah!” Mark boomed, ushering her in. “You remember my cousin, Chloe? From the coast?”
I blinked. Mark had a large family, but I had never heard of a cousin named Chloe.
“I… I don’t think we’ve met,” I said, wiping my damp hands on my apron. I felt painfully underdressed in my maternity tunic and leggings.
“Oh, she’s distant family,” Mark said quickly, his hand resting on the small of her back. A little too low. A little too familiar. “She’s in town for a modeling gig and got stranded. I told her she absolutely had to crash our dinner. She can help you serve!”
Chloe stepped forward. She didn’t smile. She looked me up and down, her eyes lingering on my swollen belly with a mixture of pity and disgust.
“Charmed,” she said. Her voice was like honey poured over ice. “Mark talks about you… often.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, forcing a smile. “Make yourself at home.”
“Oh, I will,” she said.
She walked past me into the living room. As she passed, I caught her scent. It was expensive. Jasmine and sandalwood.
And it was familiar.
I froze. It was the same scent I had smelled on Mark’s shirts for the last two months. He had told me it was the new air freshener in his office building.
My stomach dropped, and it wasn’t the baby kicking.
Chapter 2: The Servant in Her Own House
The party was a nightmare.
There were ten people. Mark sat at the head of the table, holding court. Chloe sat to his right—the seat that should have been mine. I was relegated to the end, near the kitchen door, “for easy access,” Mark had said.
Throughout the appetizers, I was up and down like a yo-yo.
“Sarah, the boss needs more ice,” Mark called out.
“Sarah, these napkins are wrong. Get the linen ones.”
“Sarah, bring the wine key.”
My feet were throbbing. My back felt like it was being sawed in half. But I did it. I served the soup. I cleared the plates. I played the role of the dutiful wife.
Chloe, meanwhile, did not “help me serve” as Mark had promised. She sat there, sipping champagne (which she wasn’t supposed to have, as she was ‘driving’, but Mark kept refilling her glass), and laughing at Mark’s jokes.
She was touching him. Constantly.
A hand on his forearm when she laughed. A brush of her shoulder against his. At one point, she leaned over to whisper something in his ear, and her chest brushed against his arm. Mark didn’t pull away. He leaned into it.
The guests noticed. I saw the boss’s wife, Mrs. Gable, raising an eyebrow. I saw the partners exchanging glances.
But Mark was too arrogant to care. He thought he was invincible. He thought his pregnant wife was too stupid, too tired, and too dependent on him to notice that he was parading his mistress in front of her in her own home.
“The roast is dry,” Chloe announced loudly during the main course. She poked at the beef I had spent four hours cooking. “Mark, honey, you really should hire a private chef next time.”
The table went silent.
“It’s medium-rare,” I said, my voice tight.
“It’s tough,” Chloe insisted, looking at me with a smirk. “But I suppose it’s hard to focus on cooking when you’re… in that condition.”
She gestured to my stomach as if it were a deformity.
Mark laughed. “She’s right, Sarah. You have been a bit distracted lately. Maybe next time just order catering.”
Humiliation washed over me. It was hot and prickly. I looked at my husband—the man who had promised to love and cherish me—and I saw a stranger. A cruel, narcissistic stranger who was getting off on degrading me in front of his lover.
I stood up to clear the plates. My hand was shaking.
“I’ll get the dessert,” I whispered.
Chapter 3: The Clue
In the kitchen, I leaned against the counter and tried not to cry. I couldn’t cry. If I cried, my face would get blotchy, and Chloe would win.
I needed water. I reached for a glass.
As I turned, I saw Mark and Chloe in the hallway reflection. They thought they were out of sight.
Mark was pinning her against the wall near the bathroom. He wasn’t kissing her, but he was close. Intimately close. He was fixing something around her neck.
“Be careful,” I heard him whisper. “Keep it tucked in. If she sees it…”
“She’s a cow, Mark,” Chloe giggled. “She doesn’t see anything past her own belly button. Besides, I like wearing it. It makes me feel like I own you.”
“You do,” Mark murmured.
He stepped back as a guest approached the bathroom. Chloe smoothed her dress—that pristine, white silk dress—and adjusted the neckline.
I narrowed my eyes.
Mark was wearing a necklace. He had started wearing it three months ago. A silver chain with a strange, geometric pendant. He told me it was a “team building gift” from the company retreat. A symbol of “corporate synergy” or some nonsense. He never took it off.
I looked at Chloe’s neck. She was wearing a high-necked choker, but I saw the glint of a chain running down into her cleavage.
Keep it tucked in.
I knew. In that moment, the suspicion that had been gnawing at me solidified into a cold, hard rock of certainty.
She wasn’t his cousin. She wasn’t stranded. She was the woman he was spending our savings on while I was shopping for diapers.
And tonight, he had brought her here to humiliate me. To show her that I was nothing more than an incubator and a maid.
Rage is a funny thing. When you’re pregnant, people think you’re just emotional. They think you’re fragile. But there is a specific kind of rage that comes from a mother protecting her dignity. It is cold. It is calculating.
I looked at the bottle of red wine on the counter. A 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon. Deep, dark, and impossible to remove from silk.
I didn’t just want to expose them. I wanted to ruin them.
I took the cork out. I took a deep breath. I rubbed my swollen belly.
“Okay, kid,” I whispered to my unborn son. “Hold on tight. Mom’s going to make a scene.”
Chapter 4: The Spill
I walked back into the dining room. I didn’t carry the dessert. I carried the bottle of wine and a fresh glass.
“Anyone for a top-up?” I asked, my voice surprisingly steady.
“Over here, Sarah,” Mark snapped, holding out his glass without looking at me. He was busy whispering something to Chloe.
I walked around the table. I filled Mrs. Gable’s glass. I filled the partner’s glass.
I approached Mark and Chloe.
Chloe was leaning back in her chair, looking like the cat who got the cream. She looked at me with pure disdain.
“Make it a full pour, Clara… sorry, Sarah,” she sneered. “I need something to wash down that dry beef.”
Mark chuckled.
I stood right behind them. I was positioned perfectly between Mark’s right shoulder and Chloe’s left.
“Of course,” I said.
I stepped forward.
I let my right ankle—my swollen, aching, unreliable ankle—give way. It wasn’t hard to fake. My balance was genuinely terrible.
“Oh!” I gasped.
I lurched forward.
I didn’t drop the bottle. I wasn’t that clumsy. I propelled the wine.
The bottle tipped. A crimson wave of Cabernet Sauvignon arched through the air. It didn’t hit the floor. It didn’t hit the table.
It hit Chloe.
It hit her square in the chest.
Splash.
The sound was wet and heavy. The dark red liquid exploded onto the white silk dress. It soaked instantly, turning the pristine fabric into a bloody, clinging mess.
“AAAAHHH!” Chloe screamed. She jumped up, her chair scraping violently against the floor. “You stupid cow! Look what you did! This is Versace!”
“Oh my god!” I cried, feigning horror. “I’m so sorry! My ankle… I slipped! I’m so clumsy!”
“You idiot!” Mark roared, jumping up to help her. “Sarah, what is wrong with you?”
The room was in chaos. Guests were standing up. Napkins were being thrown.
But I wasn’t looking at the stain. I was looking at what the stain revealed.
The wine had soaked the bodice of the dress, making the white silk heavy and translucent. More importantly, Chloe’s frantic jumping and Mark’s attempts to dab at her chest with a napkin had dislodged the jewelry she was hiding.
The chain slipped out from her cleavage.
It swung free, dark against the white fabric.
It was a silver pendant. A geometric shape. Half of a hexagon.
Mark froze. He was wearing his own necklace outside his shirt today—he had been showing it off earlier. His pendant was also silver. Also half of a hexagon.
As Chloe panted, her chest heaving with rage, the two pendants swung inches from each other.
And everyone in the room saw it.
The two halves fit together perfectly. They were magnetic. As Mark leaned in to wipe her dress, the magnets caught.
Click.
The two necklaces snapped together, forming a perfect, unbroken hexagon with a heart engraved in the center.
Chapter 5: The Silence
The sound of the magnets clicking together was tiny, but in the sudden silence of the dining room, it sounded like a gunshot.
Mark froze. His hand was still on her chest, holding the napkin.
Chloe looked down. She saw the joined necklaces.
I stood up straight. I stopped pretending to rub my ankle. I stopped pretending to be sorry.
“Oh,” I said. My voice was calm. Deadly calm. “How lovely. They match.”
Mark yanked his head up. His face went from red to chalk-white in a second. He tried to pull away, but the magnets held for a split second before snapping apart, dragging Chloe forward.
“Sarah, I…” Mark stammered.
“I didn’t know cousins wore matching magnetic couple’s necklaces,” I said, looking at the guests. “Did you, Mrs. Gable?”
Mrs. Gable looked from the necklace to Mark, her expression turning to ice. “No, Sarah. I don’t believe they do.”
“It’s… it’s just a coincidence!” Chloe shrieked, trying to stuff the necklace back into her wine-soaked dress. “Lots of people have this jewelry!”
“Really?” I asked. I walked over to Mark. He flinched as I reached out.
I grabbed the pendant around his neck and flipped it over.
“Because on the back of Mark’s,” I read aloud, “it says ‘Forever Yours, C & M – 2023’. Chloe and Mark. 2023.”
I looked at Chloe. “Let me guess. Yours says the same?”
Chloe went silent. The arrogance was gone. She looked like a drowned rat in a red-stained dress.
Mark looked around the room. He saw his boss. He saw the partners. He saw the disgust on their faces. He realized, in that moment, that his career was as stained as his mistress’s dress.
“Sarah, let’s talk about this in private,” Mark hissed, grabbing my arm. “You’re making a scene.”
I looked at his hand on my arm. Then I looked at his face.
“No,” I said.
I yanked my arm away.
“I’m not making a scene, Mark. I’m making a correction.”
I turned to the guests.
“I apologize for the dinner,” I said politely. “The roast was indeed dry. And the host is a liar.”
I looked at Mark.
“Get out.”
Mark blinked. “Excuse me? This is my house.”
“Actually,” I smiled, and this was the best part, the part I had been saving for a rainy day, “it’s not. My father bought this house. The deed is in my name. You’re just listed as an occupant.”
Mark’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He knew it was true. He just thought I was too submissive to ever use it against him.
“Get out,” I repeated. “Take your ‘cousin’. Take your matching necklaces. And get out of my house before I call the police and have you removed for trespassing.”
“You can’t do this,” Mark whispered. “You’re pregnant. You need me.”
I looked down at my belly. Then I looked at him—weak, sweating, covered in wine splatter.
“I really, really don’t,” I said.
Mrs. Gable stood up. She picked up her purse. She walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Call me if you need a lawyer, dear,” she said loud enough for Mark to hear. “I know a shark who eats men like him for breakfast.”
She looked at Mark with pure contempt. “Mark, don’t bother coming into the office on Monday. We have a morality clause in our partnership agreement. I believe you just breached it.”
Chapter 6: The Clean Up
They left.
It wasn’t dignified. Mark tried to argue, Chloe tried to scream about her dress, but when I picked up the phone to dial 911, they ran.
I watched them drive away, Chloe still shivering in her ruined, red-stained dress, Mark shouting at the steering wheel.
I closed the door. I locked it.
The house was quiet. The dining room was a mess. There was wine on the floor, wine on the tablecloth, and half-eaten food everywhere.
But I didn’t clean it up.
I went to the kitchen. I opened the freezer. I took out a tub of ice cream.
I sat on the floor, kicked off my shoes, and rubbed my swollen ankles.
For the first time in months, the heaviness in my chest was gone. My back still hurt, my feet still throbbed, but I felt lighter than air.
I looked at the spot on the floor where the wine had spilled. It looked like a crime scene. And it was. It was the scene of a murder.
I had just killed the version of myself that let him walk all over me.
I took a spoonful of ice cream.
“Don’t worry, kid,” I whispered to my belly. “It’s just us now. And we’re going to be just fine.”
