6. Hannah
— ? —
Hannah
The dress is dark red. Sleek. A little sexier than I’d normally choose for a work event.
I bought it three months ago, back when I still believed tonight would be a celebration. Back when I thought standing next to Griffin while he accepted congratulations would feel like victory instead of exhaustion.
I examine myself in the mirror and try to see what Griffin sees.
Brown hair, carefully curled into soft waves that took me forty-five minutes to achieve.
Brown eyes, carefully made up with smoky shadow and false lashes.
A body I’ve kept fit through stress and skipped lunches, wrapped in fabric that hugs every curve.
The dress cost more than I usually spend on clothes. I justified it by telling myself it was an investment, a celebration of everything we’d built, a reward for years of sacrifice. Now it just feels like armor.
I adjust the neckline, smooth the fabric over my hips, and take a deep breath.
“Jesus.” Griffin’s voice comes from the bedroom doorway. “You’re stunning.”
I turn. He’s in a charcoal suit, black shirt open at the collar. His dark hair is perfectly styled, his jaw freshly shaved. He looks like he belongs on a magazine cover, and for a moment I let myself appreciate him, this man I fell in love with, the man I built an empire beside.
“Come here.” He crosses the room and pulls me into his arms, then lifts me and spins me in a slow circle, my feet leaving the ground. “You’re beautiful. You know that? The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
“Put me down.” I’m laughing despite myself, despite everything. “You’ll wrinkle me.”
He sets me down but doesn’t let go. His hands settle on my hips, pulling me close, and for a moment we just stand there, foreheads touching, breathing the same air.
“We did it,” he says softly. “All those years. All that work. And we made it.”
“We did.”
“I couldn’t have done any of it without you.” He kisses me, soft and sweet, his lips gentle against mine. “You know that, right? None of this would exist without you.”
I want to freeze this moment. File it away somewhere safe so I can take it out later and remember what it felt like when my husband looked at me like I was his whole world.
“I mean it, Hannah.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “You’re my partner in everything. Tonight is as much yours as it is mine.”
“Griffin…”
“I know I haven’t been perfect lately. I know the Myer thing has taken up too much space. But after tonight, things are going to change. I promise.”
I’ve heard that promise before. After the Austin expansion. After the rebrand. After a dozen other projects that were supposed to be the last big push before we could finally breathe.
But standing here in his arms, with his eyes soft and his hands warm on my hips, I let myself believe it one more time.
“We should go,” I whisper. “People are waiting.”
“Let them wait.” His mouth finds my throat, pressing a kiss against my pulse point. “I want five more minutes with my wife.”
I give him three. Then I fix my lipstick, straighten his collar, and walk into the night on his arm.
The ballroom is spectacular.
Chandeliers drip crystal light over hundreds of guests. A live band plays something jazzy and sophisticated in the corner. Waiters in white jackets circulate with champagne and canapés that probably cost more per bite than most people spend on dinner.
This is what we built. This is what I sacrificed for: the late nights, the missed holidays, the years of putting the company first and everything else second.
And yet, walking through the crowd on Griffin’s arm, I feel disconnected from all of it. Like I’m watching myself from outside my body, going through motions I’ve rehearsed a thousand times.
Heads turn when we walk in. They always do for Griffin, and tonight I get swept up in the wake of it, my hand tucked into the crook of his elbow while the room rearranges itself around him.
People I’ve emailed a hundred times and never met press forward to shake his hand.
Someone signals the band. Someone else lifts a glass.
He squeezes my fingers against his arm once, quick and private, and for that one second I feel like we’re twenty-three again, crashing a party we can’t afford, the two of us against everyone.
Then the second passes, and the room takes him.
“Griffin!” Richard Myer descends on us almost immediately, his booming voice cutting through the crowd. “There’s the man of the hour! And Hannah, lovely as always.”
“Thank you, Richard.” I accept his air-kiss with practiced grace.
“Where’s Julie?” Griffin asks, and I feel my smile freeze.
“Around somewhere.” Richard waves vaguely toward the bar. “You know how she is, always working the room. She’s been so excited about tonight. Hasn’t stopped talking about this project.”
I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood.
The next hour passes in a blur of small talk and fake smiles.
I manage three crises before they become visible: a server spills wine on an investor’s wife (handled with a fresh napkin and a complimentary dry-cleaning voucher), the projection system glitches during the product demo (fixed with a backup laptop I stashed in the AV closet), and two investors nearly come to blows over a parking space (separated with strategic drink refills and a convenient lie about urgent phone calls).
This is what I do. I make everything seamless so no one notices the chaos behind the curtain.
Somewhere between the second crisis and the third, a woman I vaguely recognize from the vendor side catches my elbow and asks if I know who to talk to about the seating, because her card has her at the wrong table and her husband is already three drinks in at the right one.
I fix it in ninety seconds with a whispered word to the catering captain and a swapped place card, and she thanks me like I’m staff.
I smile and tell her to enjoy her evening. She’ll never know she just thanked the person whose name should be on the banner behind the stage.
That’s the strange arithmetic of my life now. The more invisible the work, the more essential it is, and the more essential I’ve made myself, the less anyone actually sees me.
And no one does notice. Not even Griffin. He’s too busy charming investors, shaking hands, accepting congratulations for a launch I made possible. I watch him work the room and wonder when I became invisible to him.
Julie catches my eye before she means to.
She’s standing at the edge of the dance floor, golden dress shimmering under the chandelier light, watching Griffin with obvious interest. Her blonde hair is swept up in an elegant twist, her makeup flawless, her posture perfect. She looks like she belongs in a perfume commercial.
I’ve watched her do this for months now, in conference rooms and hallways and glass-walled offices at eleven at night, and the choreography never changes.
She waits until he’s between conversations, unclaimed for exactly one breath, and then she’s there, like the space beside my husband has her name on it.
When Griffin finishes his conversation and turns toward the bar, she intercepts him with practiced precision.
I watch from across the room as she hugs him, a full-body embrace that lasts several seconds too long. Watch her press a kiss to his cheek, leaving a smear of red lipstick on his skin. Watch her loop her arm through his like they’re the couple, and I’m the interloper.
Just friendly, I hear Griffin’s voice in my head. That’s how those people are.
I force myself to walk over.
“Julie.” My voice is pleasant but firm. “What a beautiful dress.”
“Hannah!” She turns to me with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “You made it. I was starting to wonder if you were even here! I haven’t seen you all night.”
“I’ve been busy. Someone has to make sure things run smoothly.”
“Oh, you’re always working, aren’t you?” She laughs, and the people around us laugh with her. “So dedicated. I don’t know how you do it.”
“Practice.”
Julie’s smile sharpens. “You know, I was just telling Griffin how impressive this all is. The product, the launch, everything. I had no idea you two had such an… interesting dynamic.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that it must be hard.” She tilts her head, all false sympathy. “Working together and being married. The lines must get so blurry. Like, when you’re in the office, are you his wife or his assistant? I honestly can’t tell.”
The people around us shift uncomfortably. A man to my left, silver-haired, expensive watch, the smug look of inherited money, lets out a low chuckle. A woman in pearls winces and looks away, embarrassed on my behalf but not enough to say anything.
“I’m his partner,” I say evenly. “In everything.”
“Of course you are.” Julie pats my arm, her touch lingering just long enough to feel condescending. “I just meant, you know, when Griffin first introduced you, I honestly thought you were one of his old assistants. The ones from before. He’s had so many, right?”
My face burns. I can feel the pitying looks from every direction now. The silver-haired man still smirking, the woman in pearls studying her champagne, a young couple nearby pretending they aren’t listening while they absolutely are.
I look at Griffin, silently begging him to say something. To defend me. To tell Julie Myer to fuck off, or at least correct the narrative that paints me as less than what I am.
He shifts his weight. He looks uncomfortable.
One second passes, then two, then three.
He says nothing.
The silence stretches, thick and suffocating. I can hear my own heartbeat in my ears. I can see Julie’s smile widening, triumphant, as she realizes she’s won.
A thread inside me snaps, not loudly, not dramatically, but quietly and for good.
“Actually, Julie.” My voice is calm. Steady.
Louder than I intended, loud enough that the people around us stop pretending not to listen.
“I wrote the business plan for this company. I sourced our first three investors. I’ve managed every product launch we’ve ever had.
So when you’re standing in this ballroom, drinking champagne paid for by contracts I negotiated, maybe consider that I’m not an ‘old assistant.’ I’m the reason any of this exists. ”
Julie’s eyes widen. The silver-haired man’s smirk disappears. The woman in pearls looks up from her champagne with something that might be respect.
“Now if you’ll excuse me.” I turn to Griffin, and whatever he sees in my face makes him flinch. “I need some air.”
I walk out with my head up and my spine straight, the crowd parting for me like it parted for him an hour ago.
Behind me the conversation stumbles back to life in fits and whispers, and I catch fragments of my own name in mouths that have never once said it to my face.
I don’t slow down. If I look at Griffin now, standing there with his champagne and his silence, I will either cry or scream, and I refuse to give this room either one.
The terrace doors are the nearest exit, and I take them.
The cool night air hits my face, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
You’re okay, I tell myself. You handled it. You stood up for yourself.
But I don’t feel okay. I feel sick.
And not just emotionally.
The nausea that’s been building all night surges suddenly, violently. I grip the terrace railing and breathe through it, willing my body to cooperate.
It doesn’t.
The terrace is blessedly empty. Below, the city hums along, indifferent, a thousand lit windows full of people whose husbands presumably speak when their wives are insulted.
I barely make it to a potted plant in the corner of the terrace before I’m doubled over, emptying my stomach of champagne and hors d’oeuvres and every ounce of dignity I had left.
The heaving seems to last forever. When it finally stops, I straighten slowly, my hands shaking, my throat burning. My makeup is ruined. My hair is falling out of its careful curls. I probably look like a disaster.
I don’t care.
I press my hand flat against my stomach and force myself to think about what I’ve been avoiding.
The missed period. The exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix. How certain smells, coffee, perfume, the canapés circulating inside, make my stomach turn.
I’ve been telling myself it’s stress. The launch. Rhonda. The constant low-grade anxiety that has become my baseline existence.
But standing here on this terrace, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I can’t pretend anymore.
I’m pregnant.
The certainty settles into my bones. I don’t need a test to confirm it. I know my body. I know what this feeling means.
I’m pregnant, and my husband just stood there while another woman humiliated me in front of a ballroom full of people.
And I have never felt more alone.
I straighten up and take a shaky breath. I need to find Griffin. I need to tell him. Maybe this will change things. Maybe knowing about the baby will finally make him see what’s been right in front of him all along.
I turn toward the door, steeling myself to go back inside and find my husband.
My hands are still unsteady, so I press them flat against my dress and practice the words on the night air.
Griffin, I need to tell you something. Griffin, we’re going to have a baby.
Every version sounds impossible and wonderful at the same time, and underneath the wreckage of this evening a small, stubborn hope starts beating anyway.
A baby. Our baby. Maybe this is the thing that finally brings him home to me.
I slip back inside through the terrace doors, into the warm noise of the party, and skirt the edge of the ballroom looking for him.
He isn’t at the bar. He isn’t with Richard’s circle.
A waiter points me toward the side hallway, and I follow it away from the music, past closed doors and soft sconce light.
And that’s when I hear his voice.
Coming from inside. Close. Familiar.
And then another voice. Blake, his best friend since college, the closest thing Griffin has to a brother.
I move toward the sound without thinking, toward a door standing cracked open at the end of the hall.
“I mean, what did you expect?” Blake’s voice is sharp, frustrated. “That woman clearly took a jab at your wife!”
I press my back against the wall, and I stop breathing.