Chapter 19: The Escape
The kitchen door swung open.
Mark stood there, a canvas grocery bag in one hand, his keys in the other. His smile was wide, relieved. It faltered for a microsecond as he took her in.
Jenny felt the world tilt. Every nerve ending was a live wire. The flannel shirt was clutched closed at her chest, but the tails barely covered her. Her legs were bare, damp. She hoped to God the mess was hidden by the counter’s edge.
“Hey,” she breathed, the word sticking in her throat.
“Whoa, you’re… are you okay?” He dropped the bag by the door. His eyes scanned her face, her disheveled hair, the shirt that was so obviously not hers. “You look flushed.”
“I’m fine.” The lie was automatic, brittle. “Just… the kettle. It startled me.” She gestured vaguely. The kettle had stopped whistling, now just hissed a thin, diminishing jet of steam into the tense air.
He stepped closer, and the scent of him—clean cotton, his familiar citrus cologne—clashed violently with the other smells in the room. Baking bread, sex, her own sharp sweat.
“Why are you wearing that?” he asked, gently tugging the flannel collar. His touch felt like a brand of a different kind. Insistent. Owned.
“Cold,” she managed. “Just threw it on.”
He slid his arms around her waist, pulling her into a hug. Jenny went rigid. His hands splayed against the small of her back, over the soft flannel. She felt the sticky, cooling wetness on her inner thighs. Felt the deep, throbbing ache inside her, a cavern that had been stretched and filled to capacity just minutes before. Mark’s embrace was light, loving. It felt like being hugged by a ghost.
He nuzzled her hair. “Missed you. Thought about you all day. About our good news.”
“Me too,” she whispered into his shoulder, her eyes wide and unseeing, fixed on the window over the sink. Through the crack in the pane, she saw a sliver of the back garden. Empty. No sign of them.
“You feel tense.” He pulled back, searching her face. His hands stayed on her waist. “Is it… are you having second thoughts? About the pregnancy?”
“No. God, no.” That, at least, was true. The fervor in her voice seemed to reassure him. “It’s just been a weird day. Lot of emotions.”
He smiled, that gentle, understanding smile that had once been her anchor. Now it felt like a weight. “Come here.” He leaned in to kiss her.
Jenny’s mind split. One part tilted her head, met his lips. They were soft, dry. Careful. The other part of her brain was a riot of sense-memory: Aidan’s mouth, hungry and possessive on hers, on her neck, on her breasts. The sheer dominating force of him lifting her onto the counter, spreading her, the relentless drive of his hips.
The kiss ended. Mark kept his forehead pressed to hers. “Let’s order that Thai you like. Celebrate.”
“Yeah,” she said. Her legs were trembling. She needed him to let go. She needed a shower. She needed to feel if Aidan’s claim was still leaking from her. “I’m just gonna… clean up a bit. The kitchen’s a mess.”
She eased out of his embrace, turning back to the counter as if to tidy. Her heart stopped.
There, on the flour-dusted wood, beside the forgotten bowl of dough, was a damp, distinct patch. Milky and translucent in the afternoon light.
And next to it, a single, long, auburn hair.
Catriona’s.
Mark was rooting in the grocery bag, his back to her. “I got that ginger beer you’ve been craving. Figured it might help with… you know, anything queasy.”
“Great.” The word was a croak. With a shaking hand, Jenny swiped the hair away, then dragged the dishcloth over the damning wet spot. She scrubbed, her movements frantic. The cloth came away streaked. She balled it in her fist and shoved it into the deep sink.
“What’s all this?” Mark asked, noticing the flour, the bowl.
“Bread,” Jenny said, the excuse forming in a panicked rush. “Catriona was here. This afternoon. She… she was teaching me. She just left.”
Mark nodded, accepting it easily. Too easily. “That was nice of her. You two have gotten close.” He opened the fridge, his voice echoing from inside it. “Where’s the rest of the dough?”
Jenny’s blood ran cold again. The dough. The second, proofed loaf was gone. Catriona must have grabbed it in their mad dash, a stupid, domestic artifact of their forbidden morning.
“She took it. To bake at hers.” The lies were piling up, each one a stone in her stomach.
“Ah.” Mark closed the fridge, holding two bottles of ginger beer. He smiled at her. “You okay, Jen? You seem… jumpy.”
“I’m pregnant,” she said, grasping for the one true shield she had. “I’m allowed to be jumpy.”
It worked. His face softened into pure, adoring concern. “Of course you are. Here.” He handed her a bottle. “Sit. I’ll clean this up. You shouldn’t be on your feet.”
He began wiping the counter, right where she’d just been. Where she’d been opened and taken. Jenny watched his hand move in slow, concentric circles over the spot. A hysterical urge to scream bubbled in her throat.
She fled to the bathroom.
Locking the door, she sagged against it. Her reflection in the mirror was a stranger’s—eyes wild, lips swollen, skin florid. She let the flannel shirt drop open. The love bite on her collarbone was a violent purple flower. She touched it, wincing.
Then she looked down. A slow, steady trickle was making its way down the inside of her thigh. Thick. White. Aidan’s final, searing gift.
She cleaned herself with cold, methodical precision, each wipe a confession. The evidence swirled down the drain, but the feeling remained. The profound, physical knowledge of him. She felt hollowed out and yet more full than she’d ever been.
She pulled on clean underwear, soft cotton leggings, a loose sweater. Armor for the evening ahead.
Dinner was a special kind of torture. The spicy Thai food tasted like ash. Mark chattered about work, about plans for the nursery, about calling their parents at the weekend. Jenny nodded, smiled, made sounds of agreement. All the while, her body thrummed with a secret.
Every time she shifted in her chair, she felt a fresh, slight leak. A reminder. When Mark reached across the table to hold her hand, his fingers felt slender, weak. She remembered the crushing strength in Aidan’s hands as he pinned her hips.
“You’re quiet,” Mark said, squeezing her fingers.
“Just tired,” she said. “It’s… it’s been a big day.”
Later, in bed, it was worse. He held her, his body spooning hers, his arm draped over her waist. His touch was light, but it was everywhere. She lay stiff, staring into the dark, listening to his breathing even out into sleep.
His soft snores were the soundtrack to her chaos.
Her mind replayed it all in brutal, sensory fragments. The weight of Aidan on top of her. The shocking, glorious stretch. The guttural sound he made when he came. The look on Catriona’s face, watching—arousal and agony twisted together.
And now, here, in the dark with her kind, sleeping fiancé, the reality of her situation crashed down. This wasn’t a one-time transaction. It had cracked her open. The shy, sad Jenny was gone, and in her place was this raw, hungry, guilty creature, still pulsating with the memory of another man.
Mark’s hand shifted in his sleep, curling possessively over her lower belly.
A jolt of pure, undiluted terror shot through her.
He was touching the place where Aidan’s child might be growing. The place Aidan had just violently re-sowed hours ago.
How could she lie here night after night, pretending? How could she ever let Mark touch her again, when every cell in her body now compared his touch to Aidan’s?
The gentle pressure of Mark’s hand felt like a cage.
She didn’t sleep. She calculated. The missing dough. The hair on the counter. The frantic, hushed escape. Were they clean? Had they left any other trace?
A more immediate, visceral fear took root.
She needed to know. She needed to be sure.
As the first grey hints of dawn bled around the curtains, she carefully extracted herself from Mark’s arm. He mumbled, rolled over. She slipped out of bed and padded to the bathroom, closing the door silently.
In the cabinet, behind the spare toilet rolls, was the small, cardboard box. The second test she’d bought, just in case.
Her hands were ice-cold as she opened it.
She did the whole routine on autopilot, sitting on the closed toilet lid, waiting. The three minutes felt like an eternity. The only sound was the hum of the extractor fan and the pounding of her own heart.
When she looked, the result was the same. A bold, undeniable plus sign.
She should have felt relief. Joy. This was what she wanted. What they had all wanted.
But all she felt was a cold, creeping dread. This solid, biological fact tied her to Aidan forever. It made the events in her kitchen not a desperate, fertile transaction, but the beginning of something else. Something with consequences that were now walking out of the bathroom and down the hall, alive inside her.
She shoved the test deep into the bin, burying it under wadded tissue.
Back in bed, Mark stirred. “You okay?” he slurred, sleep-heavy.
“Fine,” she whispered. “Just thirsty.”
He pulled her close again, his body heat enveloping her. She let him. She stared at the gradually lightening ceiling.
Survival, she realized, wasn’t about getting through tonight. It was about getting through every night, every day, for the rest of her life. With this secret burning a hole through her center.
And with the terrifying, thrilling certainty that a part of her didn’t want to survive without feeling that raw, claiming power ever again.