“There were photographs. His wife saw them. Turned out that he really had been faithful up until that point—he was honest about that—but seeing him with someone else shook her up. I think it made her realize that she was going to lose him. She didn’t want to lose him. She decided she wanted him back.” She felt Milly’s hand tighten on hers, and the comfort of knowing that someone cared, that she wasn’t alone with everything, was almost overwhelming. She’d missed their connection so much. “She confronted me in the restaurant as if I was some sort of evil seducer and she was the wronged wife. It was truly awful. And of course someone filmed it, because everyone films everything these days.” She often relived that moment, the deep humiliation and the devastation.

“And Justin decided he wanted to stay with her? After two affairs?”

“It was more than two.” Nicole rubbed tears from her cheeks. She hadn’t even known she was crying. “But yes, he decided he wanted to stay with her. So that was that.”

It wasn’t quite all of it, but it was enough for now.

“You poor thing. No wonder you’re feeling raw.” Milly was still holding her hand, offering comfort as generously as she would have done when they were children.

“You probably think I deserve it because he was married.”

“No one deserves to get their heart broken, Nic. Life is complicated. He led you to believe his marriage was over, and you believed him.”

Nicole felt a rush of love for her friend. And although a part of her knew that Milly wouldn’t have been so warm and accepting if she’d known what Nicole wasn’t telling her, she ignored it. “It’s over now, anyway. Done.”

“When you called me you said you were desperate. What tipped you over the edge?”

“The press wouldn’t leave me alone. Everywhere I went, I had a camera pointed at me. That incident in my home shook me up. I was scared in hotels. I didn’t trust anyone. I needed somewhere quiet and safe to think, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else. I called you.”

“I’m glad you called me. And I’m glad you’re here.”

“Really?” Nicole put her free hand on top of Milly’s so that they were joined across the table. “You mean that?”

Something softened in Milly’s eyes. “Yes, I do.”

The relief was indescribable, but it was threaded with guilt. “I wasn’t there for you when you needed me, and I thought—”

“Why weren’t you? Tell me why. Help me understand.”

The question caught her off guard.

Nicole felt the breath trap in her throat. From the moment Milly had picked her up from the railway station she’d known this moment would come, but now it was here and she wasn’t ready.