Page 207 of Fame & Rhythm

“Um… how far along are you?” I ask, my voice tighter than I intend.

“Just over six months.”

Six months.

My entire world tilts.

Six months ago… they were together.

Holy shit. Aston’s going to be a dad. The thought slams into me so hard I feel sick.

“W-why didn’t you tell me?” Aston asks, his voice strained.

Amber shrugs. “Didn’t think it was your business. We’re not together anymore. You’ve clearly moved on.”

The room starts to close in.

Sound fades.

My chest tightens as heat floods my body, my pulse racing so fast it’s deafening.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t think.

All I can see is her… pregnant.

With his baby.

I shove back from the table so fast the chair topples behind me, crashing into the polished timber floor hard enough to turn heads across the restaurant.

“Are you okay, Annie?” Amber asks, instinctively reaching for me.

Her hand settles against the gentle curve of her stomach.

The gesture is innocent.

Unthinking.

It still feels like someone has driven a blade straight through my ribs. Every sound around me fades beneath the roar filling my ears as my eyes lock on the place where her fingers rest, my brain refusing to look anywhere else. The elegant restaurant, the soft music, the conversations carrying on around us all dissolve into meaningless background noise while one horrifying realization crashes through me with enough force to steal the air from my lungs.

She is pregnant.

Six months.

My mind reaches for the timeline before I can stop it, piecing it together with ruthless efficiency that borders on cruelty. Six months since Aston ended whatever they had. Six months since he came back to me. Six months of believing we’d finally found solid ground after everything we’d survived together.

Dear God…

A nauseating wave rolls through me.

Every memory we’ve built over those months rushes forward at once, every kiss, every promise, every whispered conversation about our future colliding with the image standing right in front of me until I can’t separate one from the other anymore. My thoughts twist themselves into knots, searching desperately for another explanation, but panic has already taken hold, drowning out reason before it even has a chance to speak.

All I can see is Aston becoming a father.

Not with me.

With her.