"I'm sorry, Mia. I just thought that if I were in your place, I would want to know if my husband spoke about me that way to outsiders."
The words landed like a bucket of ice water poured over my skull, seeping through skin and bone until it reached the marrow. My vision blurred. My hands went numb in my lap.
So this was what my husband truly thought of me.
I gave a teary smile and shook my head slowly.
"Thank you."
At that moment my phone rang. Xavier Salvatore's name glowed on the screen like a warning.
"Mia, did you leave early today?" His voice carried the veneer of concern, thin as gold leaf over rot. "You're working too much when you're already in your second trimester. Didn't I tell you to step back from the office? I'm not even sure you ate breakfast this morning, because when I woke up there was nothing prepared for me."
The concern curdled into displeasure by the end of the sentence. I offered nothing but a quiet hum, and he continued, filling my silence with his own noise.
Then he paused, and his tone shifted, almost tentative.
"Even though I couldn't make it to the anniversary dinner, I got a gift for you."
"Did you." It was not a question. It was a stone dropped into still water.
"You love diamonds in a heart shape, don't you? I bought a pendant for you." There was the sound of movement on the other end, drawers opening, fabric rustling. "Strange. Where did I put it..." His voice dropped to a mutter, distracted and incoherent, as I heard him searching through jacket pockets and nightstand drawers.
"Strange, it's not here."
The words trailed off into nothing, swallowed whole as the realization struck him. In yesterday's photograph, Vanessa Lestari had been smiling at the camera with a diamond heart pendant glittering against the hollow of her throat. The image seared across my mind, and the tears came before I could stop them.
He scrambled to cover the silence.
"I must have lost it somewhere."
"No need." My voice was steady despite the tears sliding down my face. "I forgot to get you anything anyway."