“I did. Your mother’s amazing chocolate fudge cake might also have played a part. I’d move across continents for that.” He trailed his finger along her jaw. “You don’t miss London and those days when you used to sit in your glass office with an assistant bringing you coffee?”

“I made my own coffee. And no, I don’t miss it.” She enjoyed making coffee here in her own kitchen. When she was leaning against the range cooker, warming herself in winter, she thought the kitchen might be her favorite room in the house. But then she curled up in the living room with its views across the garden to the lake and decided that was her favorite room. Or maybe her bedroom with its sloping roof and tiny balcony. “I love the life we’ve built here. It was a shared decision, Todd.” Everything they did was shared. They were a partnership, and she loved that. Until last year, she’d been able to say she had no secrets from Todd. Thanks to Becca that was no longer true. It made her feel tainted.

She could almost hear Becca laughing.

You tell your husband everything? Even your secrets? Oh, Clare! You should live a life full of delicious secrets and scandal.

Clare couldn’t think of anything more exhausting.

“Stop frowning.” Todd rubbed his finger across her forehead. “If it’s going to stress you having Jack and the kids, I’ll call him and make an excuse.”

“No! I don’t want you to do that.” But the fact that he would have done it made her feel warm and loved. “I want to see them, I really do.”

“Then what?” He stroked her hair away from her face. “I know you and Becca had been friends forever, but I often thought you were growing apart. I hadn’t realized that losing her would affect you this way.”

“What makes you think we were growing apart?” And her own mother had said much the same thing.

“You two were very different people. How your friendship endured for so long I don’t know. You seemed to have so little in common, but of course you and Becca were bonded virtually from birth so perhaps longevity was the glue.” Todd kissed her and walked to the door, retrieving his coat and keys on the way. “Jack is moving on, and maybe when you see that you’ll be able to move on, too.”

Would it be that simple? She truly hoped so.