Page 231 of My Husband’s New Fiancée

Very quickly, the house fills with voices, laughter, and that particular warmth that only exists in places where people truly feel at home.

I uncork a bottle and fill the glasses. Valeria takes one too, with no intention of drinking it.

Gradually, silence settles around us.

I feel her fingers discreetly searching for mine.

They’re cold.

Nervous.

I squeeze them gently.

After everything she’s endured, announcing this pregnancy should be simple.

But nothing is simple when you’ve spent so long believing you’d never deserve this kind of happiness.

At last, I raise my glass.

“We have something to tell you.”

Every gaze turns toward us.

Valeria looks at me.

I give her a small nod.

I’m here.

Always.

Her smile trembles slightly as she speaks.

“We’re having a baby.”

For one second, nobody moves.

Then everything explodes.

Joyful exclamations echo through the house. My mother presses a hand over her mouth before bursting into tears. Hugo lets out a stunned “holy shit,” which sends everyone into laughter. Andrea nearly crushes my shoulder in a brutal hug while Bernadette pulls Valeria tightly against her, overcome with emotion.

And in the middle of all that warm chaos, I watch Valeria laugh.

Really laugh, without fear and without tension in her eyes. As though, for the first time in years, she’s allowing herself to be happy.

“You’re going to be wonderful parents,” my mother whispers while pulling us both into her arms.

I feel her swallow hard against my shoulder.

Dinner lasts for hours.

Conversations overlap from one end of the table to the other. Bottles empty without anyone noticing. Hugo provokes Andrea every ten minutes. Arnaud debates politics with my father while Bernadette is already showing Valeria absurd nursery decoration ideas.

And I watch all of it with a strange feeling in my chest. A part of me still expects someone to wake me up.

Valeria laughs at something Hugo just said and absently places a hand over her stomach.

The gesture is tiny, but it wrecks me.