Libby desperately wanted to believe that the woman she’d considered a sister up until this afternoon was truly evil. That Nick was completely innocent. But even in the fog of her shock and distress and her need to lay blame, she recognized it would never be that simple.

“Do you hear yourself? Poor sad Nick was incapable of saying no. He just lay back and let Jess service him. Give me a break!”

“I’m trying to.”

“No, you’re not. You’re withholding information.”

He rubbed his haggard face. “I’m protecting you.”

She heard her laugh and it scared her. “You’re protecting yourself. You’ve been protecting yourself and her for years!”

“That’s not true. I’ve been protecting us. You and me!”

“That’s just another lie you’re telling yourself.”

Nick spun around. She opened her mouth to order him to stay but he turned back and his mouth was a hard, white line. The veins in his neck bulged.

“This is what happened,” he said, his voice low and ragged. “Your best friend turned up at the door with booze and sympathy, but you weren’t here and I stupidly let her in. I drank, I talked. She listened and I staggered off to bed. I don’t know how long I slept but I woke up groggy from a skinful and with a warm body spooned in next to me. I thought you’d come home.”

He lifted his gaze to her. “It was over before I realized what was going on. She promised me she was on the pill. She showed me the condom. You’re the doctor, so you tell me. How the hell did she get pregnant?”

But Libby barely heard the question over the roar in her head. Images of Jess and Nick bombarded her. Nick and Jess in their house. In their bed. Two naked bodies moving as one and creating a baby. Something she hadn’t been able to achieve in that bed in over twelve months.

Every part of her told her to run from the house. To leave Nick and never see his traitorous face again.

“You’ve destroyed us.”

He shook his head, the action infused with deep despair. “Dom’s death did that.”

“No! We were battered and bruised but not smashed into irreparable pieces.”

Sunlight dazzled her, bouncing off the edge of the silver frame containing a photo of the girls and Nick. She’d taken it this summer on Freedom when she’d had no reason to doubt she understood her world and everyone in it. All three of them were happy and laughing at the camera, and Nick’s face was alight with the pride and joy of a doting father.