Milly felt a flush of shame. She’d made the mistake of judging from the outside. Of thinking that everything in Nicole’s life was pretty perfect and that she could buy whatever wasn’t. But that wasn’t true, was it? You couldn’t buy anonymity.

And while she’d been wallowing in her problems, Nicole had been battling her own. And she hadn’t known or even suspected.

“You didn’t call me. You didn’t even tell me.”

“Well, by then we weren’t really talking, and I hadn’t responded to all your trauma with Richard, so I didn’t feel particularly deserving of your sympathy. It’s fine. Everything was fine. I have a panic button. The police came quickly. I was lucky. It’s in the past.” Nicole grabbed her phone from the bed and dropped it into her bag.

Not so lucky, Milly thought, and not in the past if her reaction to Joel was anything to go by.

“How did he get in? You have massive walls and gates and security.”

“Yeah, well, it turns out that my security guy wasn’t as loyal as I’d thought. He took a bribe. The plan was to kidnap me and demand a ransom. Can we talk about something else?”

Milly was flooded with horror. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I should have been there for you. I would have been there for you.” Emotion filled her chest and rose to her throat. “How did we reach this point, Nic? We used to tell each other everything.”

Nicole gave a tired smile. “We were kids, Milly. What we had to tell each other wasn’t exactly life-changing, was it?”

“It shouldn’t matter. Maybe the conversations get tougher, but when have we ever not been able to talk to each other? If anything, it’s even more important that we talk about the life-changing stuff. Isn’t that what friendship is?”

“In theory.” Nicole paused, as if she was about to say something else, but then she shook her head. “Maybe we just expected too much.”

“I refuse to believe that.” Milly felt as if she was holding tightly to something that was slipping through her fingers.

“I let you down,” Nicole said softly. “I wasn’t there for you, and we’ll never get past that.”

“Yes, we will. We can fix this. The blame isn’t all yours. It’s mine too.” She could see that now. “I was upset. You’d shown that you didn’t need me, and I was determined to show you that I didn’t need you either. It was easier to keep my distance than have a frank conversation. I’m not good at difficult conversations, you know that. Ask Richard if you don’t believe me. I let him leave messages so that I don’t have to actually talk to him. I’m pathetic.”