I crammed the last of it into the suitcase, grabbed only a small bag of essentials, and stepped out of the guest room. The moment I did, hushed laughter drifted from around the staircase landing—two of the household staff, voices low but not low enough.
"The missus really hit the jackpot, didn't she? He spoils her rotten. Cooks all three meals himself, carries the plates right to her. Honestly, his cooking's better than any restaurant."
My feet stopped moving.
"Right?" another voice chimed in. "Compared to Miss Harding, don't you think she's the one who acts like the real Mrs. Delgado? If you ask me, it's only a matter of time before the Harding girl gets tossed out for good."
"Shh, keep it down…"
"Oh, relax. She can't hear us."
I stood there, perfectly still.
Dustin used to refuse to set foot in a kitchen. He'd said a man's hands were meant for making money, not holding a spatula.
He was impossibly picky about food—he'd take a few bites of restaurant meals and push the plate away. So I cooked every meal myself, rotating through recipes to keep him interested. Some nights I'd spend three or four hours in the kitchen just to perfect a single dish he loved.
Yet somehow, in the year I hadn't known about, he'd taught himself to cook. For Alice.
All that tenderness I thought belonged to me had been given to someone else long ago.
No. Maybe it had never been mine to begin with.
The gossip continued, but I walked past as if I'd heard nothing, heading straight for the front door.
A slender, pale hand blocked my path.
Alice.
She wore an obscenely short lace nightgown, the hem barely grazing the tops of her thighs. The smell clung to her—that unmistakable, nauseating musk of what had just happened upstairs—and it flooded my nostrils.
I was about to tell her to move when she produced something from behind her hand.
A pregnancy test.
Two unmistakable red lines filled my vision, and the vein at my temple began to throb.
"I'm pregnant." Alice's smile spread wide, dripping with triumph and venom, like a snake flicking its tongue to show off a fresh kill. "Dustin was thrilled when he found out."
Her lips kept moving. "You saw it all just now, didn't you? To celebrate our baby, he was absolutely insatiable with me. That waterbed? He bought it just for me. Said it makes things more… comfortable."