Seven Months Pregnant, I Brought Lunch to Surprise My Husband at His Office — I Walked In on a Moment I Wasn’t Meant to See, and When the Director Arrived, She Revealed Who Truly Owned the Project and Ended Everything He Thought Was Secure

That was when I heard music.

Not the instrumental playlists he usually kept on low volume, but a familiar folk song we used to play in our kitchen on Sunday mornings, paired with laughter that didn’t belong to memory but to the present, followed by a woman’s voice saying something teasing and affectionate that landed heavy in my chest.

I stopped walking.

For a brief moment, I stood there negotiating with myself, reminding myself that I was tired, that pregnancy heightens anxiety, that intimacy can exist in conversation alone, but my feet carried me forward anyway, and my hand pushed the door open before I fully understood what I was afraid of seeing.

Aaron was standing near the window, his jacket tossed over a chair, his tie loosened, and across from him stood a woman in a linen blazer, her hand resting lightly on his arm as she leaned in close enough that their foreheads almost touched, their laughter tapering into something quiet and loaded.

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