The first time they left the boathouse Nicole wore a wig, dark glasses and a hat pulled down over her eyes, but after she almost broke her neck tripping over an exposed root of a tree, she agreed to remove the glasses.

“I will be watching,” Milly had promised, “and if I see anyone I will warn you, and you can put your glasses on. Although honestly, I think sunglasses make you look more like a movie star. It’s movie-star uniform, isn’t it? Just behave like a normal person.”

“I am a normal person. But everyone forgets that.”

“If anyone should be hiding, it should be me.” Milly tugged her baggy T-shirt down over her hips. “Workout gear isn’t very forgiving.”

“You look great.”

It shocked Nicole that Milly had so little confidence in herself, and then she realized that in an entirely different way she had no confidence in herself either, so she was hardly in a position to judge.

She couldn’t get Justin’s words out of her head. You’d be a terrible mother.

Not because she thought he was right—talking to Milly about it had made her feel better on that score—but because it was a truly awful thing to say to someone, particularly when that someone was a person you’d professed to love.

Milly scooped her hair into a ponytail. “If I really look great, why are you putting me through this torture?”

“Because it’s not enough to look great. You also have to feel great. And by the time I’ve finished with you, you’re going to be feeling like you’ve never felt before.”

“Like I’m going to die, you mean?”

As predicted, Milly had only managed ten minutes of slow jogging on the first and second days. By day five she was managing fifteen minutes and at the end of the first week she hit twenty minutes, although by the time they completed that last run, she was breathing so hard Nicole was worried she’d have to resuscitate her.

Exercise was something she took for granted as being part of her job. Most days she did it without thinking, but she thought about it now as she constructed a doable workout for her friend.

Nicole taught Milly how to warm up and stretch, and halfway round the lake she found the stump of a tree that was exactly the right height to do step-ups.

“This is perfect. Go for it. Twelve reps, minute off, then another twelve reps.”

“You’re inhuman,” Milly had panted as Nicole had made her step onto the tree trunk so many times she eventually collapsed onto it for a rest. “Enough.”

“It’s great for your quads.”

“My quads disagree.”