Lena's POV
I was getting dressed running late for an eight o'clock with Mr. Osei, who had survived my promotion to CEO without adjusting his schedule or his expectations by a single degree and showed no signs of beginning to do so, and I reached for the jacket I'd worn to last week's board briefing and it didn't close.
It wouldn't close. Couldn't. The fabric pulled across the front with a quiet finality that said: not anymore.
Not this one. Not today.
I stood in front of the mirror.
The bump was small. It had been there for a while if I was honest about it, I'd noticed it privately, touched it in the bath, registered it in the mornings before I put clothes on. But I'd been dressing around it. Choosing cuts that accommodated it without announcing it. Not quite hiding it but not quite
