3 - THE WEIGHT OF DECEPTION
The exam room smelled like antiseptic—the same scent that had haunted Victoria since the fertility clinic, that had become the olfactory signature of every hope she'd ever had and every disappointment that followed.
She sat on the paper-covered table, the gown crinkling beneath her, and watched Joey fidget with the zipper on his jacket.
He'd taken the morning off.
Dr. Chen was new. A small woman with silver-streaked hair and hands that moved with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd delivered three thousand babies and counting. She'd come recommended by one of Joey's coworkers, a father of twins who'd sworn she was "the best OB in Raleigh County."
"According to your dates," Dr. Chen said, scrolling through the intake form on her tablet, "you'd be about seven weeks along, but the bloodwork will give us a more precise estimate. When was your last menstrual period?"
Victoria rattled off a date. The real one.
She'd done the math six times, lying awake while Joey snored beside her, counting backward from the night on the couch.
Seven weeks and three days. The embryo transfer would have put her at nine weeks.
A two-week discrepancy that anyone with a calendar could spot.
Joey hadn't spotted it.
He leaned forward in the visitor's chair, his hands clasped between his knees. "We had a bit of a strange situation with the fertility clinic," he started. "There was a mix-up with the lab results. They told us the transfer failed, but then they called back and said—"
"It's been a stressful few weeks." Victoria cut him off with a brightness that felt like glass in her throat. "We're just so relieved to be here. To have confirmation."
Dr. Chen's gaze lingered on her for a moment. Her eyes were kind but sharp—the kind of eyes that had seen a thousand women lie about a thousand things. "Let's do the ultrasound," she said.
The gel was cold. The wand pressed against Victoria's belly, still flat beneath the paper gown, and she held her breath while the screen flickered to life. Static. Gray shapes. And then—
A heartbeat.
The sound filled the room—a rapid, rhythmic whoosh that Victoria felt in her chest like a second pulse. Joey's hand found hers. Squeezed so hard her knuckles cracked.
"There's your baby," Dr. Chen said. She pointed to a small blur on the screen—a comma-shaped shadow pulsing with light. "Measuring right at seven weeks. Strong heartbeat. Everything looks perfect."
Seven weeks. Not nine.
Victoria's eyes flooded. The tears came before she could stop them, streaming down her cheeks, and Joey was crying too, and Dr. Chen was handing them tissues with the practiced smile of someone who'd witnessed this exact moment ten thousand times.
"That's our baby," Joey whispered. "Victoria, that's our baby."
She nodded. Couldn't speak. The screen showed the tiny flutter of a heart that was half Brock's, half hers, and Joey was staring at it with a love so pure it made her want to vomit.
Dr. Chen printed two copies of the ultrasound. Victoria clutched hers like a relic.
The drive home was a blur of Joey's excited chatter. He called his mother. He called his supervisor to ask about paternity leave. He talked about the nursery, about whether they should paint it yellow or green, about the crib his coworker was selling for half price.
"We should start saving," he said. "I can pick up overtime. Henderson's been asking me to take on the Charleston accounts, and that's an extra ten hours a week. Maybe fifteen."
"Joey—"
"I want to do this right." He glanced at her, his brown eyes earnest behind his glasses. "I want to give you everything. The house, the nursery, the—maybe we should start looking for a place. A real place. Ours."
Victoria's stomach dropped. "We agreed to stay with your dad until we saved enough."
"I know, but that was before. Now there's a baby coming. We can't raise a kid in my childhood bedroom."
"We can talk about it later."
"It's just—I want to be a good father. A good husband." His voice cracked. "I know I've messed up. The fertility thing, the—my body failing you. But this is my chance to make it right."
My body failing you.
Victoria stared out the window at the green hills of West Virginia rolling past.
The guilt was a physical presence in the car, sitting in the backseat like a fourth passenger.
She pressed her hand to her belly—her flat belly that wouldn't be flat much longer—and felt the secret pulse beneath her palm.
—
Two weeks passed.
The affair became a thing with its own gravity.
They didn't plan it. That was the lie Victoria told herself when she lay awake at night, Joey's arm draped across her waist.
They didn't plan it. It just happened. Joey had gone to work.
Brock's eyes met hers across the kitchen.
A spark arced between them, and then they were on each other, and it was too late to stop, too late to think, too late to do anything except surrender.
But the truth was uglier. The truth was that she'd memorized his schedule. Knew he had Tuesdays and Thursdays off. Knew Joey's overtime shifts before he told her. The truth was that she'd stopped wearing underwear around the house.
On a Tuesday morning in early August, Victoria stood at the kitchen sink, her hands submerged in soapy water, the breakfast dishes forgotten beneath her palms. Outside, the cicadas were screaming their late-summer song.
She heard his footsteps before she felt his hands.
Brock came up behind her without a word. His chest pressed against her back—solid, warm, the ridge of muscle she'd traced with her tongue three mornings ago. His mouth found the curve of her neck. His stubble scraped the sensitive skin beneath her ear.
"Joey's gone," he murmured.
"I know."
"Eleven hours until he comes home."
"I know."
His hands slid around her waist. Palms flat against her belly—her belly that had started to round, just slightly, a curve that only she could feel when she stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror. Brock's fingers spread across the swell, possessive and reverent.
"This drives me insane." His voice was low, rough, the voice of the correctional officer who'd spent decades controlling everyone else and had none left for himself. "Knowing my baby is inside you. Growing inside you."
Victoria's breath caught. Her hands stilled in the dishwater.
"Every time I look at you," he continued, his lips brushing her ear, "I think about it. My child. In your belly. The thing we made together."
"Brock—"
"Tell me you think about it too."
She turned in his arms. Water dripped from her fingers onto the linoleum. His gray eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, and his jaw was tight with the same hunger she'd felt coiling in her own belly since the moment she'd woken up this morning and known he'd be home.
"I think about it," she said. "I think about it all the time."
He kissed her.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't the hesitant, guilty kiss of the first night on the couch.
It was the kiss of a man who'd spent three days waiting for this moment—three days of watching her across the dinner table, three days of accidental touches in the hallway, three days of Joey's oblivious presence keeping them apart.
His tongue swept into her mouth, and his hands fisted in her shirt, and she tasted coffee and want and something that felt like inevitability.
Her fingers found his belt buckle. The metal was cool against her wet hands. She worked it open with the ease of practice—she'd done this five times now, six, she'd lost count—and then the button of his jeans, the zipper, the waistband of his boxers pushed down just enough.
She freed his length, already hard, already leaking at the tip. Victoria wrapped her hand around him. Felt the heat of him, the velvet-soft skin, the pulse that matched the one in her throat.
"I need you in my mouth," she whispered.
Brock's breath hissed through his teeth. "Then take what you need."
She dropped to her knees.
The kitchen floor was hard against her kneecaps. The dishwater dripped from the faucet behind her. She didn't care. She took him in her hand, guided the head of his cock to her lips, and drew him into her mouth with a slowness that made him groan.
His hand came up to cup the back of her head. His fingers threaded through her blonde hair—loose today, still damp from her morning shower—and he didn't push. Didn't guide. Just held on, like she was the only solid thing in a world that had tilted off its axis.
Victoria worked him with the patience of someone who'd learned his body over weeks of stolen moments.
The ridge beneath the head that made his hips jerk.
The vein on the underside that she traced with her tongue.
The way he liked it when she hollowed her cheeks and took him deeper, deeper, until he hit the back of her throat and her eyes watered.
"Jesus," he breathed. "Victoria, Jesus."
She pulled back. A strand of saliva connected her bottom lip to the head of his cock. She looked up at him—this man who was her husband's father, this man whose child was growing inside her, this man she'd started to think about in moments she shouldn't—and smiled.
"I want you to fuck me."
Brock pulled her to her feet. His hands found the hem of her sundress—a yellow cotton thing she'd put on that morning because it was easy to remove—and peeled it over her head.
She wasn't wearing a bra. Her breasts were fuller now, pregnancy already changing her body, and Brock's eyes dropped to them with a hunger that made her skin feel too tight.
"Look at you," he murmured. His thumbs brushed her nipples, and she gasped at the sensitivity. "You're already changing. Already—" He swallowed. "Already carrying my child."
"Yours." The word came out breathless. "Yours, Brock. Not Joey's. Yours."
Something flared in his eyes. Something dark and possessive that made her pulse race. He stripped her underwear down her legs, and then she was bare before him in the kitchen, the morning sun painting stripes across her skin through the window blinds.
He guided her toward the kitchen table.