My Unborn Daughter Warned Me Not To Marry Him Chapter 02
The Scent of Another Woman
Josh doesn’t come home until 3 a.m.
I’m curled up on the couch. He loosens his tie and his hand stops mid-air when he sees me.
“Baby. Why are you waiting up again?” He scoops me up like I’m made of glass. Carries me back to bed. “You’re gonna wear yourself out. Kills me to see this.”
I press my face into his chest.
And I smell it. Citrus. Sweet. Sharp. Orange.
Last year he started smelling like this. Told me the company got a new office diffuser. I believed him. Of course I did.
Now I get it. The whole company switched scents. To match “her”.
My mouth opens before my brain catches up.
“Josh. I hate citrus. Switch it back. Please.”
“Roses. Like before.”
His hand pauses on my hair—just a beat.
Then he laughs, soft. Flicks my nose.
“Baby, that’s such a pain. You don’t even come to the office anymore. Later, okay? Be a good girl.”
He leans in to kiss me.
That’s when I see it. Red smear. Right on his collar.
That’s not an accident. She wants me to see it.
I turn my head and gag.
Josh rubs my back. Face full of concern. Oscar-worthy.
“Morning sickness again? What’d the doctor say at your checkup?”
I wipe the tears off my cheeks. My voice comes out flat. “She said I’m tired. Told me to rest.”
He opens his mouth to say something else. His phone buzzes.
He drops his hand from my back. Looks down at the screen. And his mouth- I see it; the corner ticks up.
I watch him. Say nothing.
He doesn’t ask about the checkup again all night.
—
Next morning, ten minutes after he leaves, I get in my car.
I drive to the office.
There’s a white Porsche parked in my spot. Right next to Josh’s Tesla.
A girl gets out. Young. Cute. Swipes into the executive elevator like she’s done it a hundred times.
My knuckles go white on the wheel.
I walk into the lobby. My painting used to hang on that wall. The big one. The one I made after the worst year of my life.
Gone. In its place, some pretty little watercolor. Signed Sloane Reed.
I keep walking. Past reception. Past his assistant. Straight to the office he gave me. The one right next to the CEO suite.
“My baby doesn’t have to work,” he’d whispered, holding me. “But the boss’s wife needs an office. Always.”
The plaque on the door reads: SLOANE REED, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE CEO.
The office is empty. But the door on the far wall, the one that connects to Josh’s, has sounds coming through it.
Wet ones.
I walk toward it. One foot. Then the other.
I think about the red smear on his collar.
I think about the way his mouth curled at that text.
I think about the nor’easter the night he told me he loved me. Both of us soaked through. Both of us laughing and crying in his crappy studio apartment.
I think about us sitting on the bed with a baby name book, circling Dawn together. So she has light. So she has hope.
I think about Dawn’s voice: I didn’t make it to eighteen, Mommy.
The sounds get louder.
Yesterday, at the penthouse, I ran.
Today?
I turn the handle.
Sloane shrieks. A sharp, staged little sound. But she doesn’t get off his lap.
Josh shoves her aside. Comes at me with his shirt half-open, lipstick smeared on his mouth.
I hold up one hand. “Don’t. Don’t come near me.”
He freezes. “Baby, listen—”
“No.”
I swallow the copper taste in my mouth.
“Josh. We’re done.”
—