The moment Nicole had described herself as the other woman, she’d seen the change in her friend. She wished now that she hadn’t used those words because there was so much more to the story than that phrase suggested. She’d used flippancy to cover the depths of her pain, but she could see how it must have seemed to Milly. Why hadn’t she just told the truth?

Her heart started to beat faster, and she took a few slow breaths and tried to push him out of her head. She wasn’t going to think about Justin or the awful things he’d said to her. Not now. Not yet. She couldn’t handle it.

She wasn’t a bad person. Despite what everyone was saying about her, she was not a bad person.

And she definitely wasn’t a destroyer of marriages.

Or was she?

To distract herself she stood up and flicked on the light. She saw that papers and a couple of files had been hastily stacked in a pile on the floor and felt a stab of guilt because Milly had given up this room for her. If she was really a good friend she probably would have gone somewhere else because once they found her— and they would eventually find her—it would make Milly’s life difficult. But her plan was to leave before that happened. Just a few days, she’d told herself when she’d made her desperate call to Milly.

For now, she was where she needed to be. After everything that had happened she was emotionally and physically exhausted. It felt wrong that she was the one hiding while Justin was still living his life, his reputation apparently reinvigorated by the publicity, while hers had been trashed. Was he ashamed of himself? Did he feel at all guilty for what he’d done to her?

On the train she’d picked up an abandoned newspaper, and there he was on the front page.

We’re More in Love than Ever screamed the headline above a photo of Justin hand-in-hand with his wife, who stared unflinchingly at the camera. The injured look in her blue eyes would have pricked Nicole’s conscience had she not known it was fake.

The implication was that the affair was all Nicole’s fault. That she’d led him astray.

She’d dropped the paper as if it was infected.

The man was a hypocrite and also a coward, and at some point she’d need to deal with that. Right now she was too bruised by everything. He’d broken her, something she wouldn’t have thought possible because she never allowed people close enough to inflict that level of damage.